Cruising Down 'Sunset Drive'
Denitia’s wheels are always turning.
Nashville-based singer-songwriter and country artist Denitia has been busy since releasing Highways in 2022, moving back to Nashville from New York, and hooking up with a number of local progressive musical collectives since – including the Black Opry, Color Me Country, CMT’s Next Women of Country, and the CMT/mtheory collaboration Equal Access.
She also just released a new album, Sunset Drive, but Denitia tells Good Country that she’s already working on new material, envisioning where the muse might take her next. It’s that tension between the present and future that seems to motivate her. And, it’s a sweet spot for inspiring the reflective, highly narrative songs she writes.
“The creative element is what lights me up and what keeps me alive and keeps me feeling inspired,” Denitia tells Good Country, calling from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after a show the night before. “So, there's always that element, whether it's around the visuals for the record that I'm putting out, or if I'm just writing more music and constantly searching.”
Denitia recorded Sunset Drive with friend and longtime collaborator Brad Allen Williams, also known for his guitar work in Brittany Howard’s band. The pair created soundscapes grounded in traditional country music, with shades of Denitia’s earlier work in pop and rock adding texture to already lush arrangements. On opening track “Good Life,” for example, swirls of pedal steel thread through melodic heartland rock, accenting glimmers of past heartbreak in a story about moving forward.
Lyrically, Denitia considers Sunset Drive to be loosely conceptual, with a thematic emphasis on freedom, escape, and the open road. This is epitomized on “Lavender Coast,” a vivid and evocative romantic fantasy about two lovers leaving the world behind, like a cosmic cousin of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” “Gettin’ Over” applies that escapist fantasy to a shitty job, and is a welcome addition to country music’s canon of songs about the drudgeries of work life. And closing track “Anywhere You Could Run” is a sweet and tender reminder that you can always go home again.
Such reminders are at the heart of Denitia’s work, which she says she makes in an effort to move and connect with other people. “Every day when I'm getting up to do all this, it's all in service of how I want to contribute, add value, and give people stories to see themselves in, or stories to find empathy in.”
Below, we catch up with Denitia about Sunset Drive, moving back to Nashville, and the unparalleled power of live music.
You’re a week out from releasing the record. How does it feel to know that this music will be out in the world soon?
Denitia: It's always a funny feeling when you realize that no one else has heard the songs that you know inside and out. So, I'm really looking forward to sharing this. This album feels very liminal. It feels like a snapshot in time of a moment between worlds, like moving from one chapter of life to the next, and all of the sort of fraught feelings that come with that. It really feels like a concept to me, which is exciting, and I'm excited about how the visuals are playing together with the music. And, yeah, it's a super busy time. I'm constantly doing something, working on something, and I'm also always writing as well. I'm always searching for the next thing that the muse wants me to say. So, I'm just in the flow right now.
Tell me more about that liminal space idea, as well as about the origins of the record. Was there a song or concept that served as a catalyst for you?
The first song that appeared for this album was literally the title track, “Sunset Drive.” And this album, I'm always talking about it being like a snapshot, because I was writing about what was happening in my life right then and there. It feels pretty personal in that way. I had uprooted my life from New York in search of community and peace and I knew I was turning the page in life in a big way. I landed in Nashville after living in New York, in the city, for 10 years, [then] upstate for two years. And I came back to Nashville and sort of started my life over.
I was reflecting on leaving my life behind in New York and I was thinking about how my previous album, Highways, was about finding my way back home and realizing that “home” is wherever you want it to be. Then Sunset Drive was kind of like, “Alright, well, if that's true, what if you continue on this journey of life, taking home with you everywhere you go, but now the sun is setting and you're going into this uncertainty? You can't really see what's ahead.” And that's what inspired the concept of Sunset Drive as this continuation of Highways.
You mentioned earlier that you are always writing. How did that factor into plotting the record? Were you pulling from older material in addition to writing new songs?
About 90 percent of this is all new material that was written in real time from February of 2023 to about July of 2023. So, they were all being written in the same time period, towards the same general concept. Two of the songs existed before and this is maybe their third or fourth life. One of those is “Lavender Coast,” a song that I started writing maybe 10 years ago. I made a demo of it back then and then when Brad and I were working on Highways we recorded a version of it. It was still not landing exactly how we wanted it to land. When thinking about one of the elements of this record, which was longing for escape and looking for freedom, “Lavender Coast” is that song. It's kind of like, “Hey, should we just get out of here and go find some natural place to live under the stars, and just forget about all of this?” And it just really fit with this one, and so we re-recorded it for this album.
Another one that I brought back to life was “Wild Light,” which was a song I recorded for an alias project that I put out in 2016 under the name of Adesuwa. I was experimenting in this indie pop format at the time and looking for my sound. And always loved that song. We re-recorded it as a piano ballad, put a string quartet behind it, and really just focused on the drama of this idea that there's always this one person or one place that you'll return to no matter where your journey takes you.
You touched on your work with Brad and it sounds like you have a really special creative relationship. What do you think it is about your musical partnership that works so well?
We've been friends for more than a decade. We met in New York. We have a lot of this shared language around the ‘80s and ‘90s, even going back to ‘60s country music, classic country music that we grew up on. And that's the anchor for me. I'm always trying to have my feet on the ground, rooted in traditional country and what that means to me, and then kind of stretching out from there for this record. We just have this high-trust relationship where we're gonna communicate really well.
As you’ve said, the record has roots in your decision to move back to Nashville after many years spent in New York. What has it been like for you to be back in Nashville?
It's been really cool. In terms of my coming to this genre of country and Americana and all that is adjacent, it's really been timely, with all the opportunities that I've been able to take advantage of in Nashville, because it's so oriented around roots in Americana music. I've got a lot of friends that are like family to me, that I've known since I went to Vanderbilt all those years ago, that are in Nashville, so it feels like home to me. It feels like I have family and friends there, and the community that I've made through Black Opry, through the Equal Access program, just meeting different artists and different people who are sort of aligned around some of the same things – it's been really nice… I’m excited to be a part of today's Nashville. I'm excited to be lending my voice to some of our political folks that are progressive and trying to just move our state forward into progress. I think we need as many progressive voices to come together as we can get right now in Nashville.
It’s been great to see the progressive side of Nashville’s culture represented more broadly lately. There’s still plenty of work to be done, but that’s the Nashville community I know and love, and I don’t think people outside the city realize all that goes on here.
I think you're right, that people don't. I think some outside viewpoints are not thinking of Nashville as this progressive, artistic community. We've got a long way to go to effect change, but there are so many people who are doing the work every day, around the clock, to try to make sure that we move our politics forward, in the right direction. I'm new to that. I'm new to playing fundraisers. I played a fundraiser for [U.S. Senate candidate] Gloria Johnson, a couple of them, and some benefits for gun reform. I've always wanted to be a part of change, and I want to use my voice for that. I'm grateful to the people who are organizing around that and helping artists like myself get plugged in.
Well speaking of things you’ve participated in, you’ve really been up to a lot over the last year, with your work with Black Opry and CMT’s Equal Access and Next Women of Country programs. What has that felt like, particularly considering the years of work that brought you to this point?
I've been at it for a while. Coming back to Nashville a year and a half ago, I didn't expect it to be this momentous. So, it's been really affirming, because there's been a long time that I thought I should pick up my guitar and write the music that I know, which is this music, and put my feet back down in the country music that I was obsessed with as a kid, that formed me and made me who I am…
I'm really excited for what programs, especially like Equal Access, are up to, just lifting up underrepresented voices in country music. I think that they're really serious about it, and they put their words into action. It's epic and I think it's going to have permanent ripple effects. I'm just grateful for those kinds of opportunities, and grateful to align with people who are passionate about reaching past the status quo in country music.
Not long after the record comes out you’ll hit the road on Mickey Guyton’s upcoming tour. What are you feeling most excited about when you look ahead to playing this music on the road?
I'm excited to get to some of these cities that I haven't played in a while and haven't played in this iteration of myself as an Americana artist. And every time I see Mickey popping up on TV, I'm just excited for her to have a big moment with her record.
I feel like my role is to bring music to people in person. There's a lot that we do, you know, with social media and streaming and everything, but the in-person live music experience is so special and so sublime to me. You're really emphasizing the power of presence and the power of being in the room together and having an experience and having an exchange. And I'm really looking forward to doing that.
Lead Image: Denitia by Chase Denton.
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