On the Fifteenth-anniversary deluxe version of Snowman Melting, Jim “Soni” Sonefeld introduced in a really particular visitor to reimagine the album’s “Sitting within the Inexperienced Grass”: his Hootie & the Blowfish bandmate Darius Rucker.
The brand new model, which premieres beneath, marks the primary time any members of the band have recorded new music collectively since Hootie & the Blowfish’s 2019 album, Imperfect Circle, and is the primary time two members have labored collectively on music exterior of the official band.
The stripped-down music is a beautiful testomony to escaping from town and taking outing to breathe in nature as the 2 band members commerce verses. Tiffany Turner, spouse of the music’s producer Lee J. Turner, gives backing vocals.
“This [song] appeared virtually to be written for [Darius],” Sonefeld informed Billboard. “I assumed the acoustic, kind of Americana type would swimsuit him nicely, and he completely knocked it out of the park, for my part.”
Moreover, “I assumed ‘Sitting within the Inexperienced Grass’ was a pleasant message that represented a little bit little bit of what Darius has gone by, his double profession in rock music and nation music, having to stability the busyness of the machine that’s the music enterprise with looking for peace in your life as nicely,” Sonefeld individually stated in a press release.
“Friendships undoubtedly change by a long time. Darius and I don’t see one another as a lot,” he continued. “When you could have youngsters and companions and distance, it’s arduous to be the identical individuals you had been driving round in a van within the early ’90s. However we’re nonetheless household, we’ve been in a position to watch our children develop up and see them onto their journeys. And so ‘Sitting within the Inexperienced Grass’ I assumed was match for Darius. We’re each in a spot the place our children are leaving the home, in school or finished. It’s not as if we’re going out to pasture, however it’s a massive second of time, this season in our lives.”
Whereas the Fifteenth anniversary of Snowman Melting arrives this 12 months, subsequent 12 months marks an enormous anniversary too: the thirtieth anniversary of Hootie & the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View, which catapulted the band into superstardom and has offered greater than 21 million copies within the U.S. As to how the band will commemorate, Sonefeld says it’s too quickly to inform. “We’ve been speaking about how we would strategy a tour/recording alternative as a band,” he says, “However we haven’t come to any conclusions about supporting that anniversary with both a tour, or new music, or each.”
For now, the band’s solely plan is to assist its Hootie & the Blowfish Basis with its annual fundraiser, which is able to happen within the spring.
Snowman Melting, initially launched in 2008, was produced and co-written by Francis Dunnery and captured a transitional time for Sonefeld. “Snowman Melting comes out of a time in my life after I was attempting to determine who I used to be,” Sonefeld stated. “A interval the place a man who was sufficiently old to know higher was nonetheless studying life classes. My life was altering so quickly – separation, divorce, the band’s final tour and indefinite dormancy for Hootie & the Blowfish. After which a remarriage and a rapidly enlarged household. The songs paint a transparent image of what my life appeared like in 2006-2008. I can all the time look again and clearly see the ache, the enjoyment, the transition.
The deluxe version, out Sept. 29 through Vere Music, additionally features a new rendition of “No Cause” with Edwin McCain.
The re-release comes after Sonefeld revealed his memoir final 12 months, Swimming With the Blowfish: Hootie, Therapeutic and One Hell of a Trip, and a solo EP, Bear in mind Tomorrow.
