Donovan Woods

Since he released his first album a decade ago, singer-songwriter Donovan Woods’ blend of folk, country and pop has resonated with audiences all over the world. In recent years, the acclaimed, award-winning singer-songwriter has seen his profile grow with his breakthrough album, Without People.
Touring behind (2020’s) Without People saw Woods play to his largest audiences to date. That included a stint opening for New Jersey-based retro rockers Gaslight Anthem on their recent reunion tour.
Throughout his distinguished career, Donovan Woods has built a devoted following who cling to the acclaimed songwriter’s every word. Never one to mince words, Woods is one of music’s most vulnerable storytellers and on his forthcoming studio album, Donovan takes that a step further. Honest and unflinching, on Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now, his upcoming seventh studio album, Woods takes a long look inside and isn’t necessarily thrilled with what he sees. For an artist who isn’t afraid to bear his soul, this is as emotionally gritty as he has ever been.
Long known as a masterful storyteller, Woods is at his absolute best on Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now. Across the album’s 12 sparse, intimate songs, Woods finds himself reflecting on the ups and downs he has been through since 2020. His writing allowed him to open up and address the complexities of life that he has been going through.
The album, he notes, serves as “a funeral to the life he was living.”
Sonically, Woods decided to take a different approach.
“We had our boundaries and made things sound beautiful within them,” he says. “And what’s left is scrappier than Without People, but I feel like moments of creation are much more accessible on this record.”Woods’ featured vocals on Dabin & Nurko’s “When This Is Over” veered into anthemic dance pop, and yet he still sounded right at home. On “IOWA,” Woods found a kindred spirit in Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan for a pastoral meditation on dreaming of a place you know doesn’t exist.
Many of the songs that comprise Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now focus on the intricacies of friendships and relationships, and looking at the little moments in life. Co-produced with longtime collaborator James Bunton over much of 2023, the album’s delicate nature is reflected in its lyrics.
The psychology of people’s actions always fascinated Woods and informs much of Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now. Focusing on happy, party feelings doesn’t appeal to him.
Once he gets down these darker paths (“It was a warts and all album in a way that I never had done before”), which he admits can be uncomfortable, the songs flow and are universal.
In particular, on the heart-wrenching “Rosemary”. Co-written with Connor Seidel, “Rosemary” contemplates what happens in the aftermath of a heated argument.
“Have you ever had a fight by text message? And it’s long, and existential,” he says. “Someone did something wrong and maybe that’s it.” Continuing, he explains that “Rosemary” is about “finally admitting all your faults, showing your actual self and asking, can you still love me? And really wanting an answer either way.”
Not everything is doom and gloom.
On “When Our Friends Come Over,” Woods sings lovingly about a couple who rediscover their affection for one another. Featuring Madi Diaz on vocals, the song highlights how two partners are able to appreciate each other in the presence of others. Even though they’re going through a rocky patch, Woods shows how even the tiniest of gestures are the true signs of love.
Throughout an album of heart wrenching songs, none hit harder than “Back for the Funeral.” Taking place in a small town, a group of friends who haven’t seen each other in years return to memorialize a schoolmate after they overdosed on pills.
“There’s so much writing done about being back in your hometown and what it does to you,” Woods explains. “But there’s the idea that you only go there with bad news—which can be true—and what it does to your feelings about your hometown.”
However, the song poignantly shows that even though someone may return to their hometown for unfortunate reasons, reconnecting with old friends is a positive byproduct of the circumstance.
As Woods continues to work on himself, Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now is the portrait of a songwriter at his creative best. Addressing the truths and pains of life is never easy, and here, he does so in a way that’s brutally honest. After all, that’s what great songwriters do.

Katelyn Tarver

Singer/songwriter Katelyn Tarver is entirely unafraid to go deep on life’s most complex questions. On her forthcoming album, Quitter, due out February 9^th, 2024, the Los Angeles-based artist shares a lived-in and enthrallingly detailed account of navigating her early 30s, opening up about so many the troubles we typically keep hidden: imposter syndrome and struggles with self-worth, the fear of the unknown and anxiety of perfectionism, an all-too-familiar tension between craving acceptance and longing to pursue your absolute truth. Anchored in her crystalline voice and gorgeously airy indie-pop, the upcoming record ultimately creates space for listeners to ease into expansive self-reflection—and, in turn, possibly arrive at a more open-hearted and free-spirited perspective on their own journey through the world.

“There’s this idea that once you hit your 30s, you’ve accumulated all this knowledge from your 20s and you feel more grounded and settled in who you are. However, I feel like there’s so much I’m still learning,” says Tarver, a Georgia native who first broke through with her 2017 viral smash “You Don’t Know.” “Even though I didn’t realize it as I was writing, a lot of the songs on this album are asking questions about what matters to me and what I want from life. I don’t think I have all the answers yet, but I do feel like I’ve peeled back some of the layers and gotten closer to understanding who I am and why I do what I do.”

Her second full-length and first release for Nettwerk, Quitter marks the follow-up to Subject To Change—a 2021 LP that earned acclaim from major outlets like Rolling Stone, NPR, and SPIN. In creating her latest body of work, Tarver joined forces with producer Chad Copelin (LANY, Sasha Sloan) and esteemed co-writer Delacey (Halsey, Anne-Marie),carefully shaping a selection of songs that bring even greater candor to her unsparing introspection. On “Starting to Scare Me,” she shines a bright light on some of her darker impulses (envy, anger, the hunger for validation), spinning that self-revelation into sharply observed lyrics (“I live in a city where everybody’s a critic/I guess that it’s made me a little too analytical/I’m picking apart the things I actually like/’Cause I wish they were mine”). The moody but euphoric “Ignorance Is Bliss” explores her desire for control in a chaotic world, while “Parallel Universe” unfolds as a folky piece of storytelling about potential life paths that went unfollowed. And on “Cinematic,” Tarver fully surrenders to her starry-eyed tendencies, revealing the singular beauty of seeing the world through a sometimes-hazy point of view. “It’s about embracing sensitivity and sentimentality and seeing them as a strength, rather than something that makes life kind of achy,” she explains.

Also featuring standouts like the delicately soaring lead single “What Makes A Life Good?”—a track that strikes a potent balance of existential inquiry and tender confession—the album draws much of its power from Tarver’s willingness to show the messy and often-painful work of growth and transformation. “I can be pretty harsh and judgmental with myself when it comes to difficult or negative emotions—there’s a resistance to letting myself show that darker side that can sometimes flare up,” she says. “But I’m trying to accept all the parts of who I am, and one way of doing that is channeling some of those scarier feelings into songs. I think that’s a big part of the job of being an artist: looking under the rock and being honest about what you see there, so that hopefully someone else will hear it and connect with it and think, ‘Oh—I feel that way too.’”

True to that unflinching honesty, Tarver maintains a fierce refusal to offer up any tidy solutions on her forthcoming project. To that end, a sun-soaked and shimmering song called “Quitter” serves as the album’s most self-assured moment, even as Tarver expresses a glaring uncertainty about the road ahead. “‘Quitter’ is about wanting to stop living for other people’s expectations of me, or for my younger self’s expectations of what my life should be like now,” she says. “It’s about growing and changing, but in a way that’s celebrating it instead of being scared of what the change might bring. That’s really what I wanted this album to encapsulate as a whole: the idea that, yes, there’s a lot of heaviness that comes with trying to figure these things out, but letting go of all those expectations can shed some of that heaviness. It’s about tapping into the freedom that comes with saying, ‘I don’t have to abide by any of those old rules. I can make the rules up myself.’”