Neon Cross

Description

Neon Cross refines Wyatts honky-tonk sound into something more lush, layered, and complex. Rolling Stone.

The 11-song set was produced by the two-time Grammy Award winning producer Shooter Jennings (Brandi Carlile, Tanya Tucker) and is her New West Records debut.

The album features Jennings on the song Hurt So Bad and Neal Casal on guitar, harmonica, and wurlitzer in one of his final recordings before his death in August of 2019. Neon Cross is the anticipated follow up to Wyatts 2017 Felony Blues EP, which was named one of the best albums of the year by Rolling Stone Country, Vice/Noisey, Wide Open Country and more.

Calling Wyatt Outlaw Countrys Rising Star, Garden & Gun has premiered her trad-country feminist anthem Just A Woman which features the legendary Jessi Colter. Speaking to Garden & Gun, Wyatt said, I wrote Just a Woman to advocate for the vast majority of women who have not been heard, empowered, or encouraged to be anything more than meek, selfless, and beautiful.

Wyatt and Shooter Jennings boldly color outside the country lines on Neon Cross, taking a wide-lens sonic and stylistic approach to the songs. Though that sonic backdrop is all in service to Wyatts incisive lyrics and expressive vocals, which can be achingly sensitive and sincere one minute, and unflinchingly cocksure and dispassionate the next.

Jaime Wyatts life story is speckled with difficult and unusual twists and turns. Shes an immensely talented singer-songwriter who signed her first record label deal as a teenager, and achieved early success before losing that deal and being put through the music-industry wringer. Before she was even 21, she battled a nasty drug addiction and served close to a year in L.A. county jail for robbing her heroin dealer, and chronicled those experiences on her muchlauded 2017 EP, Felony Blues. Prior to the release of the EP, Wyatt relapsed and found herself again dependent on drugs and alcohol. Eleven days before its release date, Wyatts father passed away and just a few months after, a close friend overdosed. After my dad died and my best friend overdosed, I wasnt able to show up for either of them because I was loaded.

Experiencing mountains of pain and regret, Wyatt vowed to make another bid at getting clean. And yet, as might be expected from someone with such a turbulent backstory, even the challenges faced by Wyatt as a woman working in country music come with an extra wrinkle: while in recovery, she confronted some hard truths about her life and past romantic relationships, which resulted in Wyatt coming out as a gay woman to family and friends.

My experience with recovery made me realize I lost years of my life being in the closet and living a lie and trying to be someone else. I just cant do it anymore. And yeah, Im scared there are people that like country music that arent gonna like that Im gay.

I tried not to have any filter with these songs, Wyatt says about her open-book approach to writing. Because Ill be honest it feels like Im gonna die if I dont tell people how I feel and who I am. It sounds so dramatic, but thats the truth. Its been just this gnarly, gnarly process, but one that is so human. So theres been a lot of turmoil and drama. But this record is a lot about rebirth, too.

If theres one lesson to be gleaned from Neon Cross, its that life, in all its inherent messiness, goes on. And through it all good times and bad, triumph and trouble, dreaming and desperation Wyatt continues, to borrow the title of one of her new songs, just L I V I N.

Jamie Wyatts Neon Cross will be available across digital platforms, on compact disc, and standard black vinyl.

A limited to 500 Neon Pink Colored Vinyl edition will be available at Independent Retailers.