Photo: Nathan Jarvis
“It’s like a family affair on this one,” John Shields says of the collaborative pull that drives Little Stranger’s latest genre-bending effort, Sat Around Trippin, the duo’s first batch of new music since 2021’s Trip Around Saturn.
“We always like keeping it tighter than that if possible. But, we also tour upward of 100-something shows a year, so sometimes it’s hard to make that time and find the balance. This was a cool one because we had been touring pretty relentlessly and decided to take a whole month off,” Kevin Shields adds, acknowledging the impact Little Stranger’s road-dog status had on the three-year lag between releases.
“We rented a cabin up in Bat Cave, N.C., just to separate ourselves and start with a clean slate, not worry too much about what we were making and create as effortlessly as possible,” Kevin notes of the creative retreat, which yielded a melodic coupling of hip-hop and rock, with a wink of gospel. Yet that blend of sounds is nothing new for Little Stranger, whose sonic throughline hinges on the unique mixture of Kevin’s punchy rap lines and John’s euphonious acoustic guitar Now, nearly a decade in, the Philadelphia-bred, Charleston, S.C.-based pair have maximized their flow and embraced new associates in music.
As John explains, Sat Around Trippin features contributions from a few friends equally committed to sharing in their good vibes, including Andy Frasco, who Kevin and John met a few years back at the Summer Camp Music Festival. Frasco and Damn Skippy show up on the aptly titled “God at a Festival,” which John describes as “Just upbeat, gospel vibes.” “So what are you gonna do?/ Keep giving love to everyone else before you love yourself?/ Or are you gonna get out there and fuckin’ start taking care of yourself,” Frasco asks on the track, seizing the power of his motivational spoken word.
Little Stranger might not check all the jamband boxes, but their improvisational spirit is an irrefutable catalyst in their brazen success. “‘Busted Brain’ was another one that just happened one night— accidentally,” John admits. “We were having a little party at our house, and I was in the studio. I remember having to tell people to get out of the room every so often,” he says, mentioning his home setup. “It started with Kevin speaking some gibberish. So that one feels cool to us because it’s like we broke some new ground creatively.”
Elsewhere, Sat Around Trippin features a guest spot by Philly stalwart G. Love, who added his distinctive touch to a track after repeat run-ins with Kevin and John. “He expressed interest in doing a song together,” Kevin says of what became LP stand out “Live Illegal,” which integrates a chorus written when the musician was still just a junior in high school.
As Kevin recalls, “I just stumbled on that again. Adding guitar and putting a beat behind it, it felt right to send to G. Love. He loved it and sent a verse over. So it was a full-circle moment for two kids who grew up in Philadelphia listening to G. Love.”
Full-circle moments have been a fixture of the Little Stranger experience, as Kevin and John can attest. After Mike Gordon happened to attend a May 2023 gig at Nectar’s in Burlington, Vt., John reflects, “The next day, we found ourselves in a group text with Mike, and he was like, ‘I’m really curious to see how you’re doing the looping.’ So we got to go to his house and jam with him. We got to go down Phish memory lane and talk about all the posters and backdrops. It was a dream come true. Then he and his daughter got up on stage with us at Nectar’s, and we played a couple of songs and she sang.” “John is downplaying the fact that he has jam in his DNA. He is like a huge Phish fan,” Kevin boasts on behalf of his bandmate, who admits that he has seen nearly 45 shows.
Like the quirky embrace of their jam predecessors, Little Stranger is keen on keeping their originality. “One of our mottos is: ‘We take what we do seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously.’ You know, it should be grounded in something very real and tangible and awesome. But, let’s make sure we’re having fun the whole time,” Kevin says. “We love to have fun making music and live is a big part of our presence as a band,” delineates John of the cyclical process that will lead Little Stanger back to the road this fall.
“We’re going to try to up the production and bring the whole crew along,” Kevin says of the forthcoming tour, which will include a horn section, a backup vocalist and appearances by more friends. “We’re looking forward to it. It’s definitely a milestone for us.”
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