The Wild Feathers amp up harmonies on sophomore record

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - After six years touring the country coast-to-coast, the four-part rock band The Wild Feathers still find themselves hanging out together even at home in Nashville, Tennessee.

"We actually really do love and really like each other, which is bizarre," said singer and guitarist Ricky Young of his bandmates Taylor Burns, Joel King and Ben Dumas, who are all in their early 30s. "Our wives are like, 'Why are you hanging out with those guys?'"

As a band that features three singers, their self-titled debut album in 2013 recalled cosmic California rock like The Eagles with their folk, acoustic harmony sound. But on their second album, "Lonely is a Lifetime," released last week, the band wrote the songs during sound check, which allowed them to plug in, amp up their melodies and get a little wilder.

"We're not really into the whole Americana, country kind of fad that is going on right now," said Young. "We just want to be a rock 'n' roll band."

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, the band talked about getting along on the road, sounding like Pink Floyd and recording in a church. The answers have been edited for brevity.

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AP: What's the secret to staying friends after years of living together on a tour bus?

King: Nobody knows the trouble we've seen, so nobody else can relate.

Burns: Doing it in a van and 200-plus shows a year, just killing yourself, that's the time you would most want to kill each other, just snap at each other. If we made it through that... I don't know, maybe we'll end up hating each other.

Young: We were old enough and somewhat mature enough when we all started doing this together that we got a lot of that bad stuff out of our system. That young, cocky, 'I know what I am doing.' We are all very humble guys.

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AP: How do you write songs together as a band?

Burns: One thing about us, we are very democratic and open to a lot of things. A lot of people will get very protective of their songs and we all can, too. But we know that like part of our thing is the multiple singers. So we try to leave space when we're writing, or at least I do, subconsciously. I am kinda like, 'OK, I am going to leave space for someone to do something here,' so it becomes a Wild Feathers song.

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AP: One of the standout songs on the album is a psychedelic jam that is over eight minutes long. What inspired you on that one?

Young: We were actually unapologetically referencing a lot of Pink Floyd and everyone is like, 'It sounds like Pink Floyd,' and we're like, 'Yeah, we know.'

King: Good. Nobody sounds like Pink Floyd these days.

Young: Once we fell into the pocket and we got confident with it, it kind of took on a life of its own in the studio. That's one of the only songs we did live completely, which is the hardest one because it's so much work.

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AP: Producer Jay Joyce recorded the album at his Nashville studio, which he converted from an old church. What was that like?

Burns: It's got this amazing live room, pretty much where the congregation would sit. And we recorded from the pulpit on a few songs, like you're looking out. And there's a huge cross behind you... It didn't feel like this pretentious, fancy recording studio, even though it like has all the things you could ever possibly want. It just felt really homey and vibey for us.

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Online:

http://www.thewildfeathers.com/

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Follow Kristin Hall at twitter.com/kmhall