The Delines were finishing the Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom sessions when Willy brought in a tune called “Walking With His Sleeves Down”. Amy learned it on piano and we recorded it live. Her take was stunning but the song didn’t quite fit the record so they set it aside along with “The Reckless Life”, “Dilaudid Diane” (featured in their recent encores) and “Jumping off in Madras”. The song worked sonically but again didn’t feel quite right lyrically and when they finished the record Willy couldn’t stop writing songs for it. The US opioid epidemic with thousands of young people rattled with addiction and living in tents and on the streets and in old cars and RVs, influenced Luck and Doom but even more so with The Set Up.
Their stalwart producer, John Morgan Askew, was at the helm again and he’s the king of building atmospheric worlds. You can really feel it on this one. By the time we finished we realised The Set Up was the wayward, misguided, and lonely sister to Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom. More ragged and undone but all CinemaScope Delines.
The band will be touring in March and October (throughout Europe) with a new Willy Vlautin novel in May.
The Delines are:
Amy Boone – vocals
Cory Gray – keyboards, trumpet
Sean Oldham – percussion, vocals
Freddy Trujillo – bass, vocals
Willy Vlautin – guitar, vocals
