Photography by Tim Gebauer
John Henry
“Work hard like my daddy said / Study like my mama did” begin John Henry’s smoldering vocals on his new single, “Work.” In 2018, SLM covered the release of Henry’s then-new single “American Pain,” in which the singer-songwriter explored the core values of this country, a track that we summarized as capturing the current zeitgeist. With “Work,” off his upcoming record Out at Sea, to be released October 2, Henry continues this exploration.
Specifically, in “Work,” Henry looks at the middle-class squeeze—stagnant wages, rising costs, the nearly impossible tasks of paying for college or raising a family on one non-extravagant income. The song was inspired after talking to a friend, who is Henry’s parents’ age. They told him about how, back in the day, they could work a summer job to pay for two semesters of college courses. Henry thought about his sister, a lawyer, who graduated with so much debt, he thinks of it as “insurmountable if she wasn’t so lucky to be in the profession that she’s in.”
“Just the cost of day-to-day life has risen so high that a lot of times the people who are working hardest within our community are the people who are struggling the most,” he says. “It's a difficult thing for me to deal with, to see people being called lazy or unmotivated when they're having to work two jobs to make ends meet.”
Still, he wanted to write something accessible, even fun to listen to. Henry, who is also the booking agent for Off Broadway, is best known for his brand of heartland rock, and it’s not too long that “Work” listeners have to wait for that big, booming chorus with drums and horns. Close your eyes, and it’s easy to picture bobbing along in the audience of a darkened concert venue. (And, indeed, Henry will be playing an album release show. More on that later.)
The video, inspired by 1960s talk shows that the artist watched on YouTube, lightens the mood as well. “Instead of people sitting around, yelling at each other, there was a roundtable discussion,” Henry says. “And I liked the black-and-white coloring.” For the first half of the song, Henry, appearing on grainy gray film, is seated between the host and another guest, singing the lyrics. Halfway through, we cut away to a performance, reminiscent of late-night, by Henry and bandmates.
“Work” is enjoyable but weighty, but Out at Sea’s origins are more serious. Work on the album began early in 2018, after a bandmate died of suicide. “I was thinking about how the norms of society that we had been taught were good were being cast aside in the current time that we're living in,” Henry says. An example would be treating people of all different beliefs with respect and care. “And my writing led me to want to explore that. Why do I feel cast apart from our community? Our country? Why are things that I was raised to believe were the right things now being looked at as weaknesses? Why were the people who needed help the most being cast aside?”
The stigma around mental illness, he feels, is lessening, but there’s still that Midwestern stoicism, a resistance to seek help. “Even though we were good friends, we still didn't know the pain that he was in,” Henry says about his bandmate. “And that is something that I have regrets about. But at the same time, you can't read people's minds and you can't read people's hearts.” So in honor of his friend, Henry launched a Kickstarter campaign for album pre-orders, with donations and matches benefitting National Alliance on Mental Illness St. Louis. He wants people who need help but feel like they can’t afford it to have options.
You’ll have two chances to see Henry perform this fall. On Friday, November 13, he will be playing a socially distanced album release show at The Pageant with The Sleepy Rubies. The Kranzberg Arts Foundation and the Open Highway Music Festival (of which Henry is a co-founder) are also teaming up to present the Blue Sky Bruch series, an outdoor concert/dining event in Grand Center. Henry will play two shows on Sunday, October 18, at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255. The line is available 24 hours, every day.
