At a time when “wellness” has become a more talked-about topic in the public sphere, Marcus King has made his own musical statement via the release of Mood Swings, his third solo outing.
The Rick Rubin-produced effort is full of songs drawing from a particularly dark time in King’s life when he faced certain mental health challenges stoked by anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Originally started back in 2019, this 11-song outing was interrupted by the pandemic and a particularly toxic relationship King was emerging from before meeting his current wife, Briley Hussey. When the world started to open up again, King came out of the other end of it with 2022’s Young Blood.
Despite the success he enjoyed with that particular effort, the South Carolina native was in no shape to continue the deep emotional dive the still-unrealized Mood Swings would require of him.
“This album really started before Young Blood, and when everything opened back up, it felt like there was some pressure to get back out and get to work,” King recalled in an interview earlier this year. “Mood Swings was definitely not anywhere close to being done. The album is a journey and an experience for me, and I hadn’t completed it.
“During that whole process of doing Young Blood, I was really coming through a lot of substance abuse [issues]. I wasn’t entirely present when I was doing that record. When I look at that record retrospectively, I feel really detached from it. Mood Swings is very much the truest representation of me being as honest as possible [as an artist],” he continued.
Songs like the title cut, “Bipolar Love,” and “Save Me” find King delving deep into his psyche and past mental health wounds. Rubin played a key role in helping King navigate and complete the album. The storied producer, who has been meditating since he was 14 and is heavily into metaphysics, provided the environment to achieve this in the summer of 2023 while working with King at his Malibu-based Shangri-La studio and his spread in Tuscany, Italy. The 28-year-old guitarist/singer-songwriter was grateful to go through the experience.
“A big part of the record was trying to sample ourselves in a way,” King said. “Once we had all the basic tracks done, me and Rick could sit down with them. We went through everything and tried to strip it down to its truest, most vulnerable and most honest depictions of the songs.
“With this subject matter, [Rick is] the only guy I could imagine handling it. He really pushed me to go deeper and deeper and to access places, traumas and memories that I didn’t even know were troublesome to me. Sometimes you have to heal before you can really talk about something, and I feel like we did that with this record. The journey within was a really fascinating one because he’s all about putting yourself first and the audience second, and I didn’t really understand that concept until now,” he noted.
With all the recording under his belt, King started the tour cycle with a run of shows with his eight-piece band. He’s currently doing a different sort of tour, playing acoustic with guitarist Drew Smithers in intimate club settings. Along the way, there was also a performance at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. That show tied back to the Mood Swings project in that Rubin first reached out to King about it back in 2019 after seeing a clip of the latter performing on that hallowed stage.
“The Grand Ole Opry is like going to see your grandparents, pretty much,” King said with a laugh. “I try to go by there as much as possible, and they’re always really sweet and really as welcoming as possible. You don’t go there and smoke reefer in the dressing room. You’re on your best behavior and go out and play your best songs. It’s always cool to go back there. That stage just carries a lot of weight for me. You go there, and you’re surrounded by people like Vince Gill and the Marty Stuarts of the world.
“Vince Gill, to me, is the closest thing I can get to George Jones, who is my hero and his hero. He sang at George’s funeral that was held at the Grand Ole Opry. They’ve got the circle there, and in it they have an original piece of the stage from when it was still over at the Ryman Auditorium. You get up there, stand in the circle and perform. It was a blessing. We had my dad come and play with us. There is always something new and special to take away when you go and play the Opry,” said King.
JaM Cellars presents ‘Marcus King: An Intimate Acoustic Evening Featuring Drew Smithers’ at 8pm, Monday, Dec. 9, at the Uptown Theatre Napa, 1350 3rd St., Napa. Tickets are available at bit.ly/marcus-king-napa.
