Here’s the recent single from Honky Tonking Erik Vincent Huey. ‘Drink All Day’ sounds like its subject matter – irreverent and raucous. As Huey sings of boozing all day, “Like I’m in a country song,” there’s a celebration of drink and the escapism it provides while also delivering a dose of wry sarcasm and wit. He’s supported by a fine cast of collaborators, including Cody Nilsen on steel guitar and guitarist Eric ‘Roscoe’ Ambel (Steve Earl & The Dukes), who produced Huey’s new material. Huey explains how the song just flowed from him: “I wrote this song in 10 minutes one hungover morning in the San Jose Hotel in Austin, Texas. The whole thing just spilled out in its final form, and hasn’t changed since. Leonard Cohen once said, ‘If I knew where good songs came from, I’d visit there more often.’ This is one wellspring I’d love to tap into again.” The video reinforces the mood, complete with footage of Huey singing in the street in his dressing gown.
Huey was previously a member of Surreal McCoys, an outlaw country band that has now amassed around two million streams. ‘Drink All Day’ is taken from Huey’s debut solo album ‘Appalachian Gothic’, due for release on 20th January 2023. Although he grew up on punk rock, Huey could not move beyond his Appalachian roots as a songwriter and this is an album that celebrates all things Appalachian. He covers themes like the legacy of coal-mining, the region’s contemporary challenges and like the opioid crisis and the Appalachia of his youth. Huey explains: “This record is a love letter to Appalachia. Like so many West Virginians, I had to eventually leave the place where I grew up. As the locals say, I had to ‘get out to get ahead,’ which
created a lasting sense of exile. So this album is a homecoming of sorts. It’s a realization that although I spent my life tunneling out, those rugged hills kept calling me home. My father, grandfather and great grandfather, who came over from Country Cork in Ireland, were all coal miners in the Monongahela Valley. So many immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Eastern Europe – along with African-Americans from The South – came to Appalachia to mine coal, and this song is an attempt to tell their story and the story of the generations that followed in their footsteps.” Enjoy.
