Songwriter Scott Sean White will be releasing new album Even Better on the Bad Days in January of 2024, and he has released the album’s first single “Pulling Weeds”. The track already features highly in his live set lists and connects with audiences in a unique way and was co-written with Ben Roberts and Adam Wheeler.
It’s a song that, in some ways, is quietly unassuming, but as it builds on the details of daily life and its message comes through, it suggests an iron-clad determination that won’t be easily swayed to clean house in one’s life and make sure that the elements remaining are conducive to success and happiness. Its very quietness is convincing that an internal decision has been made.
We’re very pleased to debut Scott Sean White’s video for “Pulling Weeds” here on Wildfire today. While it’s a live-play video that showcases White’s personal craftsmanship and playing, it also has a chosen setting that reflects the messages of the song. In a pleasant home that’s become a little overgrown, there’s clearly some work to be done giving the place the attention that it deserves.
Both the video and the song really bring home the idea of personal responsibility. It’s up to us to determine what, or even who, we allow in our lives and sometimes that means taking stock when things get out of hand. And finding that quiet determination, if necessary, to get things back on track.
Scott Sean White says of the song :
One co-writer was late that day, stuck in traffic – so the other fella and I just hung out in the parking lot talking. He was 2 week out of rehab, just trying to save his life and his family, and he told me the wild, wild, heartbreaking, AND beautiful story about ALL of it.
When our other friend finally showed up and we got in the room to write, he threw out this title – not really even knowing what the other guy and I had been talking about while we were waiting for him. It’s not what the whole song is about – but it definitely found its way in there.
When I play this song at shows – I usually just say, ‘I don’t know about y’all, but I spend a lot of time and energy on things I should not spend my time and energy on.’
On the track “Pulling Weeds”, Scott Sean White handles acoustic guitar and vocals, Dave Brainard is also on acoustic guitars, as well as dobro, bass, keyboards, and percussion, Fred Eltringham is on drums, Justin Ostrander is on electric guitars, Andy Rogers is on banjo, Ben Roberts does harmony vocals, and Jenny Tolman also does harmony vocals.
Scott Sean White says about the new album coming up:
When I started planning this record, I felt like I needed to have more up-tempo songs and more full band songs… Just to kind of take the next step from the first record, to progress forward. The challenge with that was finding a sound that made sense with my voice and my songs, because a record with my name on it was not gonna be anything remotely resembling mainstream Nashville. It had to be me. That’s why I went and talked to my friend Dave Brainard to see if he would consider producing the project. He’s an outside-the-mainstream guy. He produces left-of-center songwriter records, so I felt like he could help me find that sound that would make sense for my stuff. And boy – did he ever.
White started making trips once or twice a month back and forth from Texas to Nashville in 2005, signed his first publishing deal in 2007, and for the last five years, has been there writing for his current publisher for two weeks of every month. And while he writes songs that can find a fit in the musical mainstream, he also makes it a point to write songs that are true to him that are not exactly commercial.
He chose the songs for this new album because:
They make me feel something and I hope they make people feel something, too. I hope people feel less alone when they hear me sharing the struggles I describe in some of the songs. I hope people smile when they hear some of them. I hope they make people think, like they made me think when I wrote them. But I also hope that there are days when they just turn the album on in the car on a road trip and blast it as loud as they can.
