Formed nearly 30 years ago, the Bottle Rockets helped forge a now-popular subgenre-small-town, middle-class, Midwest American roots rock-part right-to-the-gut poetry, part rock ’n‘ roll, all truth. Bit Logic is a different sort of album for the St. Louis natives and shows them at their most self-aware, self-challenging, and socially alert.
Recorded in St. Louis at Sawhorse Studios, engineered by Mario Viele and produced by longtime studio collaborator Eric „Roscoe“ Ambel (The Del-Lords, Steve Earle), the Bottle Rockets‘ 13th album has them looking at their unique stylistic blend through a different lens. While one of the group’s earmarks is constructing blue-collar anthems, Bit Logic has the quartet focusing outside themselves, at how change and adaptation affects the bigger picture.
„We were not planning any kinda ‚theme‘ to this album, but one kinda showed up,“ said lead singer and guitarist Brian Henneman. „If it’s about anything at all, it’s an album about existing in this modern world. Trying to dodge depression and anger. These songs are views from the moments when you’re mostly succeeding at it.“ Yet, to balance those times when success may seem just a breath out of reach, the album includes the infectious pop masterpiece „Maybe Tomorrow“ which offers an optimistic and buoyant outlook on momentary failure.
The band returned to its more democratic songwriting approach this time, which generated four co-written songs, in contrast to their previous and critically acclaimed album, South Broadway Athletic Club, which Henneman primarily wrote. Leading up to their time in the studio, Henneman sent around some bare-bones acoustic iPhone recordings that would serve as the album’s blueprint, and the group fleshed out one song a day by means of three 4-day studio sessions.
The group went into the recording sessions with a fresh outlook-to bring out more of their Americana influences and to write a record that more accurately reflected their collective approach. What they found while doing so surprised them.