Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
When: 7 p.m., Saturday
Where: Santa Barbara Bowl
Tickets: $40-$60
Information: sbbowl.com or (805) 962-7411
Finding the right team
Nathaniel Rateliff was close to giving up, but creating the Nathaniel Ratliff & the Night Sweats has created a rebirth for a talented musicians
Nathaniel Rateliff was ready to turn his back on his music career, frustrated with the creative process and a lack of partners to collaborate with.
Enter Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, a band that has was formed in 2013 and has found its way to the top of the Billboard charts.
On Saturday, they come to the Santa Barbara Bowl, expecting a sell out — although a few tickets do remain.
The self-titled release of Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats in 2015 proved to be the record that kept Rateliff performing, with a new sound that was more soulful and upbeat — although the band’s lead single off the album was “S.O.B.”
The initial album morphed into an eight-song EP released in 2016 called “A Little More From . . .” and finally a studio album in March 2018 called “Tearing at the Seams.”
The latest album was a product of Rateliff taking the band away from his adopted home of Denver and into the woods of New Mexico, where they did the bulk of the writing and recording — predominantly featuring old-school soul and R&B sound. All eight members of the band participated, giving them all something they could buy into.
”For a long time I always had to go off on my own,” Rateliff said on the band’s website. “For the first Night Sweats record, I demo’ed everything up and created most of the parts. But for this new record, I felt like we’d all spent so much time on the road that we should all go off somewhere together. We should have that experience together. I wanted the guys to feel like they were giving something to the project beyond just playing.”
“You Worry Me,” the lead single off the new album, hit No. 1 on the Adult Alternative Songs charts in Feb. 2018, also hitting the top 10 on the Alternative Songs chart in June 2018. The album overall debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on the Alternative Albums chart.
Rateliff’s roots stem from the small town of Hermann, Missouri, where he played in his family’s band at church — although that ended abruptly when his father died in a car accident.
Yet, music was still an obsession for both himself and his group of friends, which included Night Sweats’ bassist Joseph Pope III.
“We would walk around these deserted country roads and talk about music all the time, how it can change the world and how it could change our world,” Pope III said on the band’s website. “Music was what we thought would save us.”
And while the journey for Rateliff and Pope III would take many turns, it has led to shows all across North America, including Coachella and Farm Aid.
