THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “One of the most profound lessons ZZ Ward learned from growing up listening to the blues greats was to be authentic to your story. When the L.A. singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist began to write new music, she found herself in the midst of one of the biggest life changes a person will ever experience: motherhood.
The resulting music is her truest and most blues-infused to date. Liberation speaks to both an authenticity of living and a sense of intrepid creativity. This is ZZ’s Sun Records debut, and it commemorates an exciting era for her as she returns to her blues roots on a label that is the vanguard of Americana. “I didn’t plan to make a blues album about motherhood, it just sort of happened naturally,” ZZ shares. “I’ve always written to get through things in life. Suddenly, I was faced with a new job that’s 24/7 with no breaks, and that’s what I wrote about. But when you get tested, you discover who you are, and this album comes from a feeling of empowerment.”
At the time she wrote this fiercely individual body of work, ZZ found herself without a home for her music after a decade on a major label. It was a painfully complex time, and she sought solace in the blues, her most formative influence. ZZ started singing the blues at the age of eight, spurred on by her bluesman father and his righteous record collection. She started performing blues music when she was just 12 years old. However, as a professional female musician, ZZ often felt she had to compromise her blues tendencies to satisfy music industry demands. “I used to care so much about what other people wanted my music to sound like, but after I became a mother my priorities changed,” she says.
For ZZ’s new music, she began to write about her life as a new mother through a lens of the blues. She had just toured for the first time as a working mother, bringing her son along the way, and she had a second baby. Motherhood and the challenges working mothers face began to seep into her songwriting. It was a time of self-rediscovery, and empowerment and she took this sprawling catalog of music to multi-platinum producer Ryan Spraker (Eli “Paperboy” Reed, Weezer).
Songs began to take shape that reached back to the soul-blues stylings of Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner and Nina Simone. Also seeping into ZZ’s new music were the artists she was weaned on by her father — the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Etta James and Big Mama Thornton. Signing to Sun for this new era was serendipitous. “It was the perfect alignment for me — Howlin’ Wolf recorded for Sun!,” ZZ enthuses.
On Liberation, greasy Chicago blues, foot-stomping Delta blues, rootsy garage rock, and vintage soul commingle for a ZZ-curated survey. The album features a program of originals and re-imagined blues favorites done in ZZ’s singular way. Love Alive, conjures classic Son House-style blues replete with clapping, hollering, and a ZZ twist. It eases into the type of emotionally resonant chorus that makes the hair on your neck standup. Love Alive is about keeping a relationship vital during challenging times, and here ZZ’s voice soars with tattered glory. “Having kids can really test your relationship. This song is about keeping the love alive during the trying times of early parenthood,” ZZ shares.
Naked In The Jungle evokes the dirty denim Americana of Creedence Clearwater Revival with clever metaphors that address the plight of new motherhood. “It’s like you’re dropped in the jungle with no tools, and no one to guide you,” ZZ says. “The thing that works one day, doesn’t work the next, and you’re contending with a lack of sleep.” The title track is a tear-stained soul ballad, wafting luxurious longing, evoking classic sides by Aretha, Etta and Nina Simone. “Years ago somebody said to me, ‘You know what you want to do with your music, yet you always look to men to give you the OK,’ ” ZZ reveals. “This song, and this album, came from this feeling of not being that little girl asking for permission to do the music that’s in my heart.”
Put The Gun Down was ZZ’s first single from her 2012 debut, Til the Casket Drops. It broke into the charts and stayed there for 10 weeks, followed by 365 Days, which hit No. 2. Til the Casket Drops also snuck into the Billboard Top 40 Alternative Chart. Her sophomore album The Storm, released in 2017, peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Charts, highlighted by singles featuring Grammy winners Fantastic Negrito and Gary Clark Jr. Ride, featuring the latter, was the end-title song for Cars 3. Last summer, ZZ was personally picked by Slash to open the tour for his own blues album.
Liberation isn’t just a one-off for ZZ — her blues journey is both a reclamation and a rebirth and will continue. “This is who I’ve always wanted to be — a blues artist, on my terms,” she says. “It just took me a long time to get here.”
Watch my exclusive interview with ZZ Ward HERE.
