Check out the brilliant new single from The Sky Chiefs, the musical project of Virginia-based artists Stephen McCarthy (of The Jayhawks and The Long Ryders) and Kevin Pittman. ‘House Full of Company’ is full of upbeat rhythm and jangling, twanging guitars as the friends’ voices soar on rocking melodic currents. In the accompanying video, the pair look like they are thoroughly enjoying performing together, letting their musical instincts loose.
This is the lead single from the band’s self-titled debut album, which is due for release on 13th February 2026. The recordings of these songs had been lost for 30 years. Now, finally, they are ready to fly high into the sky. Back in the early 1990s, the pair holed up in a 100-year-old bungalow, which they used as a hideaway for writing, recording, late-night drinking and keeping the neighbours up. Over two dozen songs were recorded before life got in the way; the album was forgotten, and the tapes disappeared. Decades later, the album re-emerged in a friend’s attic, and these songs, born of camaraderie, are ready for an audience.
‘House Full of Company’ was the very first song they wrote in the bungalow, which was once the home of a World War 1 pilot. The song imagines all the lives, all the spirits and ghosts that have inhabited the house and live there still. Amongst all the static they generate, the narrator is trying to find some peace as McCarthy and Pittman ask: “Heartaches bring headaches and laughter fades to static, and we wonder – could it just be yesterday‘s ghosts taking up space in our heads?”
Music like this could not remain hidden forever – it was only a matter of time before it re-emerged, and we have the pleasure and privilege of hearing this lost treasure.
