Back in the Room: Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats Bring Raw Joy to KEXP

There is something quietly miraculous about watching a band that nearly quit find itself playing the Apollo Theater. For Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, that trajectory ?" from the brink of giving up entirely to becoming one of the most celebrated Americana acts in the country ?" is not a rags-to-riches cliché. It is a testament to perseverance, honesty, and the occasional willingness to record a song you were not entirely sure you even liked.

The Denver-based outfit recently settled into KEXP's intimate performance space in Seattle for an afternoon session with host Kevin Cole, delivering four new tracks from their eagerly anticipated sophomore album, Tearing at the Seams, and offering a rare, candid window into the creative process behind one of the year's most anticipated releases. What unfolded over the course of the session was equal parts musical showcase and genuine conversation ?" the kind that feels more like eavesdropping on old friends than a radio interview.

A Band Reborn, and Busy Proving It

Rateliff was disarmingly relaxed as he settled in across from Cole, though he admitted that rest has been something of a luxury since the band's debut album detonated in 2015. "We had a little bit of rest," he said with a wry smile, "but we really haven't stopped working since the first album came out." Given the whirlwind the group has navigated ?" worldwide tours, collaborations with iconic institutions like Stax Records and Farm Aid, and now the pressure-laden task of following up a breakthrough record ?" that admission carried considerable weight.

The Night Sweats who appeared at KEXP feel like a band who have earned their stripes on the road and come back tighter, more confident, and more willing to take risks. That energy was immediately evident the moment they launched into the first two songs from Tearing at the Seams, filling the studio with the kind of full-throated, horn-driven soul that makes the group so instantly recognizable.

The Sound of Tearing at the Seams

The new material landed with immediate authority. Opening with "Be There" and "S'hoo Boot" ?" two of the album's most kinetic early offerings ?" the band demonstrated not only the effortless tightness born of relentless touring, but also a new dimension of musical ambition. The arrangements feel both warmer and more expansive than their debut, brimming with the kind of lived-in soul that suggests a group who have spent years listening to the greats and finally found the space to channel that influence on their own terms.

Later in the session, they shifted gears with "A Little Honey" and "You Worried Me," the latter rolling out on what Cole rightly described as a "killer, slinky groove." The contrast between the high-energy stompers and the more introspective, groove-laden tracks illustrated one of the album's defining qualities: the ability to make you want to dance while simultaneously giving you something genuinely worth thinking about.

"There's a lot of joy in your music," Cole observed during the interview portion of the session, and it is an observation difficult to dispute. Even the songs that carry heavier lyrical weight arrive wrapped in arrangements so warm and inviting that the emotional depth sneaks up on you.

New Mexico, Richard Swift, and the Making of a Record

The path to Tearing at the Seams was anything but linear. Rateliff described a recording process that unfolded in stages ?" first heading to New Mexico with producer Jamie Medford to lay down initial tracks, then bringing that material to renowned producer Richard Swift. What seemed like a finished album, however, didn't feel finished at all.

"It just seemed like a little too sad," Rateliff explained. "So I went back to Richard's again and ended up writing like eight more songs in five days or something like that, and it kind of helped fill out the record."

That burst of creativity ?" eight songs in roughly five days ?" speaks to both the pressure Rateliff was working under and the unique creative environment that Swift cultivates. The result, he noted with characteristic understatement, is that they now simply have too much material. For a band that once worried about whether anyone would care, that is a remarkable place to find themselves.

The most significant departure from their debut's recording process was the shift toward collective, live-in-the-room recording. Where Rateliff once built demos largely on his own before presenting them to the band, Tearing at the Seams was shaped by the full ensemble from the earliest stages. Mornings in New Mexico would see him developing ideas in solitude, but afternoons brought the whole group together to work those ideas into something real.

"It made us feel good," said one band member. "It was like, hey, we are a rock band. We're doing it the way people used to do it ?" we all sit in the room, we can hear each other, and we just play."

Richard Swift and the Art of Staying Out of the Way

Richard Swift's name comes up repeatedly in conversations about the Night Sweats, and Rateliff was effusive about why he returned to the celebrated producer for a second time. When asked why the band chose to work with Swift again rather than explore other options, the answer was revealing in its simplicity.

"I feel really comfortable working with Richard," Rateliff said. "I feel like we're family. We all do. It's just a really relaxing atmosphere, a really easy atmosphere."

That comfort translated into a recording environment where Swift's greatest contribution was, paradoxically, knowing when not to contribute at all. The band described a session during which they tracked seven or eight songs in a matter of days, working through arrangements on the fly, playing together without headphones, and filling the room with the kind of organic noise that makes live recordings feel genuinely alive. Swift, apparently satisfied, would simply knock on the control room glass and let them know they'd nailed it.

Rateliff offered an illuminating perspective on what separates a good producer-band relationship from a bad one. A producer, he suggested, can easily overwhelm a group ?" walking into a room and effectively making their own record rather than amplifying what the band already does best. "There's already eight of us in this band," he noted dryly. "There's plenty of ideas to kick around." Swift, by all accounts, understands that implicitly.

The Weight of Success ?" and the Song That Started It All

No conversation with Nathaniel Rateliff can avoid the gravitational pull of "S.O.B.," the barnstorming, foot-stomping breakout single that transformed the band's fortunes almost overnight. What makes the song's origin story so compelling is how reluctant Rateliff was to include it on the debut album at all.

"It was really the last song we recorded for the record," he recalled, "and it was Pat and Richard Swift kind of convincing me ?" like, everybody likes this when you play it live. We should probably do a version of it. Let's just try not to make it so dad rock."

Rateliff admitted he thought other songs on the album were stronger, better constructed in the ways he cared most about as a writer. "S.O.B." was not something he imagined placing on the record at all. And yet it became the song that changed everything ?" launching the band into festival headlines, international tours, and the kind of cultural conversation that most artists spend entire careers hoping to enter.

The irony is not lost on him. "It's just a surprise," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Just everything that's happened to us in the last three years."

That success, of course, brought its own complications. The sophomore album's shadow loomed large, and Rateliff was candid about feeling pulled in multiple directions ?" wanting to honor his artistic instincts while also being mindful of the audience the band had built and the new listeners they hoped to reach.

"We had put out records we really cared about for years, and nobody else really cared that much about," he said. "So there's a pressure to do what you want to do artistically, but then also ?" how do we reach more people with what we're trying to do?"

From the Brink to the Apollo

Perhaps the most striking element of Rateliff's story is just how close the band came to not existing at all. Before "S.O.B." found its audience, before the world tours and the Stax affiliation and the Farm Aid partnerships, Rateliff was a musician grinding out years on the road with increasingly little to show for it. Families were aging. The math wasn't working. The moment of reckoning was approaching.

"I was just waiting for somebody's dad to tap me on the shoulder and say, 'You did a good job, but maybe it's time to throw in the towel,'" he said, laughing softly. "I would have been okay being a gardener ?" but I'd rather be doing this."

Asked what advice he might offer to artists still grinding through those discouraging years, Rateliff paused before offering something genuinely useful beneath the humor. "Keep going to school," he said first, drawing laughs. Then, more seriously: "Just be honest with yourself. Always. I think that's what we've always tried to do."

That honesty, apparently, is now going to the Apollo Theater. The band's album release party for Tearing at the Seams is set for that legendary Harlem stage ?" a venue so storied in the history of American soul and R&B that even Rateliff seemed slightly awed by the prospect. "It's not gonna be James Brown live at the Apollo," he laughed. "A lot to live up to."

Imperfections, Character, and What Makes a Record Real

One of the most telling moments of the session came when conversation turned to the inherent tension between capturing the band's explosive live energy in a studio setting. It is a challenge every great live act faces, and the Night Sweats are nothing if not a great live act. But Rateliff seemed genuinely unbothered by the question ?" because, for him, the imperfections are the point.

"There's definitely a few mistakes here and there that you're like, 'Oh yeah, that was played live,'" he admitted, "but I love that about records. Hearing the mistakes. Not just what we're doing, but classic records ?" you can hear the squeak in the kick pedal on the drums. That's character."

It is a philosophy that aligns perfectly with the band's overall aesthetic: honest, physical, and rooted in the tradition of music made by people in a room together, responding to one another in real time. For all the tools modern production offers, Rateliff and his bandmates seem most alive when the headphones are off and the only monitor is the air between them.

The Night Sweats in Full

Before the session wrapped, Rateliff took a moment to introduce his bandmates ?" fumbling endearingly over the order before collecting himself. The Night Sweats are, by any measure, a formidable ensemble: Patrick Nice on drums, Joseph Pope III on bass, Jeff Dazey and Andres Vial on saxophones, Scott Frock on trumpet, Luke Mossman on guitar, and Mark Shusterman rounding out the group. That they navigated multiple guitar tunings across a relatively short set ?" deploying five different instruments across 35 minutes at a recent show, Rateliff noted with mock exasperation ?" speaks to the musical demands of the new material.

As the session concluded, Cole thanked the band with the warmth of someone who knows he has just witnessed something worth preserving. And he had. Tearing at the Seams arrives not as the work of a band chasing its own success, but as something far more durable: the record of a group of musicians who nearly walked away, chose not to, and came back with something to prove ?" not to the industry, not to the critics, but to themselves.

Tearing at the Seams by Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats is available now. The band's extensive tour runs through the summer, with international dates in Europe followed by a full U.S. run beginning in April.