OUT NOW! HUSBANDS New Album 'CUATRO'
CURRENTLY ON NORTH AMERICAN HEADLINE TOUR WITH STOPS IN CHICAGO, BROOKLYN, WASHINGTON D.C, AND NASHVILLE
Husbands on Tour
10/22 - Tulsa, OK at Vanguard
10/23 - Ames, IA at M-Shop
10/25 - Indianapolis, IN - Hi-Fi
10/26 - Louisville, KY - Zanzibar
10/27 - Columbus, OH - The Basement
10/28 - Covington, KY - Madison Live
10/29 - St. Louis, MO - Off Broadway
11/1 - Kansas City, MO - Encore
11/2 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
11/3 - Appleton, WI - Gibsons
11/4 - Chicago, IL - Schubas
11/5 - Detroit, MI - PJ’s Lager House
11/8 - Toronto, ON - Drake Underground
11/9 - Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place
11/10 - Cambridge, MA - MidEast Upstairs
11/11 - Brooklyn, NY - Zone One
11/12 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s
11/14 - Washington, DC - DC9
11/15 - Richmond, VA - Richmond Music Hall
11/16 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle Black Room
11/17 - Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre
11/18 - Nashville, TN - Blue Room
11/19 - Atlanta, GA - Purgatory
12/09 - Oklahoma City, OK - Resonant Head
Today, Husbands —Oklahoma City’s indie-rock meets indie-pop project fronted by Danny Davis— releases their gleaming, sun-soaked fourth album Cuatro via Thirty Tigers. Cuatro, a freeing, breezy, and emotional journey, strives to break free from monotony and routine and find clarity through massive choruses and colorful arrangements. Inspired by leaving his 9-to-5 engineering job and a transatlantic move to Costa Rica, the album’s 11 tracks explore a time of relative personal stability for Davis. Listen Here. Along with the new album, Husbands continues on their North American headline tour which included a stellar performance at Austin City Limits last weekend and upcoming stops in Chicago, Toronto, Brooklyn, D.C., Nashville, and more.
Across its 11 arena-filling and richly-produced tracks, Cuatro is a document of Davis’ growth as a human being and a testament to finding peace in evolving relationships. Throughout his career, Davis’ songs have tackled the soul-crushing grind of day jobs and his unwavering desire to be a full-time musician. Now that he got his wish and was happily living in Costa Rica to focus solely on music, he needed to reframe his relationship to songwriting. “Before I quit my job, music was an outlet to channel negativity into some sort of release,” says Davis, citing the grind of his one-time software engineering job and growing up in Oklahoma’s bible belt as his reasons to let loose. With one of the major conflicts in his life now resolved, he decided to go back to the basics of why he loved music in the first place by writing universal and inviting songs you could easily grab onto. “I grew up with popular music—it’s what my dad listened to—and I still love it as an art form,” he says. “I just wanted to make an album for people to be able to sing along and feel a connection through it.”
Cuatro features the three previously released powerhouse singles “Can’t Do Anything,” “Used To Surf,” and “Face Molt.” The warm, euphoric new focus “Super New China” is an exemplary taste of the album’s spirit. Driving percussion welcomes you into the breezy love song, equipped with a catchy chorus & feel-good energy.
Davis shares: “The title comes from the name of a supermarket in the Costa Rican town I live in, owned by a second-generation Chinese family that speaks fluent Spanish and has perfectly integrated themselves into the town. My wife and I don’t have a vehicle when we’re here, so we walk a mile and a half down the beach to this place once every week or so with reusable grocery bags in tow and load up on supplies. We’ll also squeeze in a tall boy of our favorite local cerveza to sip on as we’re walking back. When I think of Super New China, I think of my new life and how happy all of this jungle madness makes me.”
We had the chance to hang out with Danny and discuss the new album. Never miss out on a moment! Subscribe to our Youtube channel.
More on Husbands
Danny Davis knows the galvanizing power of an anthemic, hair-raising song. As the co-founding songwriter behind the long-running Oklahoma City indie rock outfit Husbands, he’s been meticulously crafting breezy and emotionally potent tunes about finding your place in the world. Cuatro, Husbands’ adventurous and triumphant fourth album out Oct. 13 via Thirty Tigers, marks a turning point for Davis. It’s the first LP he’s released without his longtime bandmate, collaborator, and close friend Wil Norton. It’s also an album that Davis made during a time of relative personal stability after quitting his nine-to-five and moving with his wife to Costa Rica. Across 11 arena-filling and richly-produced tracks, the full-length is a document of his growth as a human being and a testament to finding peace in relationships evolving.
With this “big songs only” mentality, Davis found moments of resonance and catharsis. The sunny opener “Super New China” takes its name from a local grocery store run by Chinese immigrants Davis and his wife walk to on the beach. Over a funky, Prince-evoking bassline, Davis sings, “Focus on the positives, settle down your nerves / A sun warped plastic swimming pool chair / Sea salt and white sand in your hair / Who couldn’t love you, babe?” It’s a song about letting go of the past’s baggage and embracing happiness when you can. Another track, “Face Molt,” a crunchy Weezer-inspired single captures a similar euphoria when you embrace independence. Davis sings, “Molting in the undergrowth / When your hair is down and the sun is low / You can find peace in an anecdote.”
As Davis welcomed this new chapter in his life, Norton’s amicable departure from Husbands marked a bittersweet closing of another. For the past decade, the two were inseparable bandmates and collaborators but where Davis’ dream was to be in a band and make music for the rest of his life, Norton found as much meaning in starting a family and a new career. This is life and this is how longtime relationships can evolve but Davis needed to process how circumstances and people can change. Cuatro is an album about being in transition for better or for worse: what happens when you get what you want but it’s not exactly as you imagine? Davis captures this melancholy in the bombastic lead single “Can’t Do Anything.” Over atmospheric synths and rich harmonies, Davis sings, “It’s a pointless small thing that means everything to me now.” Despite the exultant chorus, the song is about knowing what you want, even if those closest to you have different priorities.
While most of Husbands’ catalog has been recorded at Davis’ home studio, for this album he brought his touring band bassist Zach Zeller and drummer Alberto Roubert to Chad Copelin’s Blackwatch Studio in Norman, OK to flesh out Cuatro. “Having Zach and Berto involved in the recording was just ultra-positive,” says Davis. “We'd just drink beers and have a great time. I love what they have to say musically and it felt like we were just hanging out.” The result is Husbands’ most dynamic and variegated LP yet: the songs soar with the technicolored ambition of bands like Tame Impala and MGMT while maintaining crisp hooks and memorable melodies. Songs like “Lost Weekend” maintain a propulsive jangle-pop energy while others, like, “Old Town” nostalgically evoke classic sunny pop.
For as much vitality as Cuatro can boast at its most powerful moments, there are no easy answers or resolutions in these. Beneath the golden serotonin-inducing rush on singles “Used to Surf,” which is partly inspired by Kirk Hammett’s hobby from Some Kind of Monster, is a yearning and a warning about losing yourself in the daily, universal anxieties. Davis understands this and is ready to take life as it comes. With all the changes that inevitably happen unexpectedly, you have to roll with the punches and breathe when you can. Sometimes the big revelation comes from something as simple as a communal chorus in a well-written tune.
