UK Southern rock four-piece Wood Burnt Red have released their debut album Hold On Tight, an eleven-track collection that brings together country storytelling, blues-rock muscle and the chemistry of a band built on years of friendship.
Released today, 4 September, the album arrives alongside new single ‘Best Things’, a tongue-in-cheek Southern rock stomper that takes aim at the pressure to look successful while quietly wondering how you are going to pay for any of it.
Written by the band and produced by Tyler Spicer, Hold On Tight covers love, loss, addiction, resilience, relationships and the moments that force us to change direction.
For Wood Burnt Red, though, the album is also about having a bit of fun along the way.
‘Best Things’ takes aim at keeping up appearances
Opening track and new single ‘Best Things’ sets the tone with a sharp look at modern ideas of success.
Nice house. Nice car. Decent lifestyle. From the outside, everything looks sorted.
There is only one problem. You probably do not actually own any of it.
“‘Best Things’ is a feel-good song about being completely skint,” says vocalist and guitarist Tom Franklin. “You’ve got a nice home you don’t own, a car you haven’t paid for, a mortgage you can barely afford and a pension that thinks you’re worthless, but from the outside, you’re absolutely smashing it.”
Rather than turning that frustration into a lecture, the band use humour to make their point.
“It’s our tongue-in-cheek take on keeping up with the Joneses and the ridiculous pressure to have everything, even when you can’t really afford any of it,” Franklin explains.
“We’re constantly told the best things in life are free, but apparently nobody told the mortgage company.”
The single is accompanied by a new official music video.
More than Southern rock swagger
That humour is only one side of Hold On Tight.
‘Fire Me Up’ is a full-throttle statement about ignoring the people who tell you to give up, while ‘Count My Blessings’ looks at the less-discussed reality of addiction: what happens after somebody gets clean and discovers that recovery does not automatically make everything easy.
‘Bartender’ is already one of the band’s best-known songs, having spent 18 months on Apple Music’s Today’s Country playlist and passing 600,000 streams.
Then there is ‘Drifting’, written by Franklin from his own experience of depression.
It is one of the album’s most personal moments, sitting in stark contrast to the bigger riffs elsewhere on the record.
That willingness to move between celebration and vulnerability becomes one of Hold On Tight’s strongest features.
Songs drawn from real lives
‘One Chance’ has an equally personal history.
Franklin first began writing the chorus in 2014 as a surprise first dance for his wife Liz but never finished it. Years later, those ideas became a song about two people carrying difficult pasts and learning to trust one another.
Elsewhere, ‘Every Road’ deals with the kind of relationship you cannot quite escape, while ‘Time’s A Healer’ takes a more satisfied look at watching karma eventually catch up with somebody.
‘Simple Place’ broadens the album’s scope, asking whether society has lost sight of community and the simple importance of people looking after each other.
‘To The Moon’ provides a final rush of optimism before ‘Where You Are Now’ brings the record to a more reflective close, exploring how friendships and relationships can change, fracture or simply drift apart.
Wood Burnt Red find their sound
Wood Burnt Red are Tom Franklin on vocals and guitar, Rob Graney on lead guitar, Russ Staples on bass and Ed Baldwin on drums.
The four-piece have built their sound around Southern rock, country and blues influences without simply trying to recreate music from the American South.
That approach has already brought them growing attention, including strong streaming numbers and support from within the UK country and rock scenes.
With Hold On Tight, those influences finally have room to stretch across a complete album.
It is a record with plenty of riffs and choruses designed for a crowded room, but its strongest moments often come from the real experiences behind the songs.
‘Hold On Tight’ track listing
- Best Things
- Fire Me Up
- Count My Blessings
- Bartender
- Drifting
- One Chance
- Every Road
- Time’s A Healer
- Simple Place
- To The Moon
- Where You Are Now
Hold On Tight is available now digitally, on CD and vinyl.
And if you want to know more about the band behind the record, you can read our full interview with Wood Burnt Red in this month’s issue of Blues Matters, available to read free online at bluesmatters.com/current-issue/.
