Marcus King has been through it. His new album, Mood Swings, opens with the title track, which begins with a sample that goes like this: “And I think that is the part of hell that a person in depression really tastes. The hopelessness, the terrible hopelessness.” Then “terrible hopelessness” loops into infinity, threatening to cave in and suffocate the song before it even begins. “Mood Swings” turns into a swinging soul-pop number—but that sample is a brutal way to start an album, and an intriguing stylistic shift from an artist who’s been a modern-day blues-rock god up until now.
Mood Swings’ edges are softer than on earlier albums like 2020’s El Dorado and 2018’s Carolina Confessions, the admissions more guilt-ridden than defiant. Marcus King is working on being alive, and things are getting better, but every slip-up hits like a knife in the gut. On that aforementioned title track, King begins: “Let’s take another one, I swear, I’m havin’ fun, but I look miserable/ ‘Cause time don’t heal no pain, I still feel just the same/ ‘Cause time is standin’ still.” The chorus is a miracle, a reflection of the work King has been putting in — to move away from the indulgences of the rock and roll lifestyle and something more towards the peaceful repetition of domestic bliss. “Feel Iike I can really be myself around you,” he sings. See, King is married now. More on that in a bit.
Maybe things are getting better. According to King, they are. The clouds cleared all at once. When he thought summer had arrived, thunder came rolling through, and depression set back in. But he also found the tools to work through it, very slowly and then all at once.
Marcus got married in 2023. They’d just met when he started work on Mood Swings, back when he was tracking demos with Rick Rubin at his Shangri-La retreat-cum-studio in Malibu. He hadn’t seen his new fling in a while, so he flew her out to LA. Real rockstar shit. She was a VP at Bank of America, her life was together. The rock and roll lifestyle looked far less glamorous when she would take care of him after long nights or a bit of excess. Rubin’s devotion to mindfulness and mental health didn’t work as well when King would drink. So, like so many who spend some time in LA, he made a concerted effort to get better. The album tells the story of this journey, a struggle he still deals with every day.
As he tells GQ, “I may get off the phone and feel the depths of hell that I’ve felt before, but I just have to stay confident that it’ll pass.”
GQ: I know y’all are touring with Chris Stapleton. What’s something you’ve learned from him over the years?
MARCUS KING: I really love the subtle approach that Chris takes to his show. He allows his abilities as a writer and a singer and a guitar player to shine through without any smoke and without any mirrors. I really admire the quality of putting on a stadium show without the use of all these tricks of the trade. Some people rely solely on that, whereas he doesn’t use ’em at all and his voice can carry that stadium. It’s really impactful to see as a young artist.
Read the full article here
