THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Everything old is new again for Corb Lund. The Alberta singer-songwriter’s new album El Viejo — translation: The Old — was produced by Lund and recorded entirely in his living room in Lethbridge, with his band The Hurtin’ Albertans.
El Viejo is Lund’s first album of original material since 2020’s critically acclaimed Agricultural Tragic. Gathering around his living room, Lund and co. tapped into his most cherished musical influences of acoustic tone and lyrical aptitude — Marty Robbins, Kris Kristofferson, Bobbie Gentry, Jerry Reed. There is a common theme — possibly even a character thread — of the gambler, the outlaw who roams from place-to-place with no direction home.
“It’s a lot of minor keys and gambling songs, is what it is,” Lund says in a matter-of-fact tone. “It was just a few of us in my house. No studio. No outside producer. No adults in the room. No stress.” He continues, “There’s not a single electric instrument on the whole thing, just acoustic sounds and singing. In terms of having a vision, this is a record I’ve had in my sights for a while and it came out exactly how I’d hoped. We cut all the songs live in the same room with lots of bleed. A bunch of the songs we captured in one take, first time through.”
El Viejo pays tribute to Lund’s late friend and mentor, the famed Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Tyson, who passed away Dec. 29, 2022. With the album, he has also created an ode to the notion of stripping everything down and letting the tape roll — simply capturing a moment of pure vulnerability and organic inspiration in real time.
Much like his music, Lund is decidedly hard to define. The western Canadian singer-songwriter is an elusive artist — onstage, offstage, and in the studio — seamlessly weaving between the outlaw country, Western, and indie-folk realms with an honest curiosity and rowdy devotion to each. He was raised with the tried-and-true DIY sentiment of “if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself,” launching his career recording in his basement, printing his own shirts, booking his own tours, being his own manager and publicist… whatever it took to get it done. He toured for years with the indie-metal band The Smalls, and later turned his sights to writing Western songs, creating a unique and quirky hybrid writing style along the way. He has received multiple CCMA, Juno and international award nominations and wins. In 2022, Lund won his 14th career Canadian Country Music Award and made his debut at the historic Grand Ole Opry. A rural Albertan hailing from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with a long family lineage of ranchers and rodeo people, Lund is about as authentic as they come.”
