{"id":31278,"date":"2026-02-01T00:11:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/?p=31278"},"modified":"2026-01-17T12:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T20:52:14","slug":"steve-poltz-joy-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/steve-poltz-joy-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"STEVE POLTZ: JoyRide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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He\u2019s back! Steve\u2019s got a new album, JoyRide<\/em>, which dropped on January 30. He\u2019s also got a new home in San Diego after almost 10 years in Nashville. We\u2019re going to feature Steve on the cover of the April edition of the \u00a0Troubadour<\/em>; in the meantime let\u2019s talk about the album.<\/p>\n

The first single off the album is the lead-off track \u201cIf It Bleeds It Leads,\u201d a classic Poltz chronicle of a night that starts with innocent TV news watching but escalates through yelling, pistols, and a SWAT team, to being featured ON the news. It showcases Steve\u2019s adept finger-picked guitar, his unique casual vocal delivery, with some self-harmonizing and minimalist accompaniment from bass, drums, and Mellotron.<\/p>\n

This could serve as a template for the arrangement of the other nine songs on the project; they\u2019re all going to translate easily to Steve\u2019s solo stage show. (In fact, I\u2019ve seen him do several of them live, including \u201cPetrichor,\u201d \u201cSon of God,\u201d and \u201cBrand New Liver.\u201d You can probably find live videos online.) Each track has its own feel, but the arrangements are mostly Steve\u2019s voice and guitar, with a little bass, maybe drums, some keyboard or electric guitar, maybe some harmonies.<\/p>\n

The second single is \u201cLove a Little Bigger,\u201d which is not the romantic ballad you might infer, but rather a fast-moving collage of mini-stories involving a cast of dubious characters wielding hunting knives and poisonous snakes, and the timeless advice to \u201ctake off your clothes, jump in the river, pack a nice lunch, keep your arrow in your quiver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve\u2019s been in the thick of the Nashville co-writing party, including shared songs with Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings. There are five co-writes on the album\u2014with Vince Herman (\u201cLove a Little Bigger\u201d), Jim Lauderdale, Gary Nicholson, and Skip Black. Here\u2019s a taste of what I\u2019m hearing on the pre-release album.<\/p>\n

\u201cPetrichor\u201d is an attention-grabber, with a galloping unique finger roll on the guitar. Here, Steve joins Lynyrd Skynyrd and Nirvana in giving us a song dedicated to a smell.<\/p>\n

\u201cSon of God\u201d
\n<\/strong>This is textbook (good book?) Poltz, where he tells us about the time he was visited by an encyclopedia salesman who was also the, well, you can guess. It contains the mix of humor and surrealism as you\u2019d expect from the best of Arlo Guthrie. I knew it was genius the first time; I heard it last spring at the Joshua Tree Music Festival (Steve\u2019s playing again this spring). I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s something we\u2019re going to want to hear every spin of the album, but the world is definitely a better place with this piece in it.<\/p>\n