The cicadas hummed their late-summer song, a backdrop to the welcome dip in August heat. Outside Caffé Driade, a charming Chapel Hill, NC, spot tucked amongst the trees, I waited, coffee in hand. A text arrived: About 5 behind, apologies. It was John Howie Jr., punctual in his apology, a fitting introduction to a man known for his Southern gentlemanly manner as much as for his music with Two Dollar Pistols and Rosewood Bluff. Today, we were meeting to delve into Not Tonight, his debut solo album under his own name, released by Suah Sounds. We’d explore its origins, the balancing act of music and single parenthood, and his fascinating evolution from punk rock drummer to honky-tonk frontman, all facets of the compelling story of John Howie Jr.
John Howie Jr. projects an aura of approachability, a blend of confidence and humility. His rich baritone voice, naturally suited to country music, resonates with authenticity. This isn’t just country; it’s pure honky-tonk, the kind that would have my grandmother tapping her foot to the radio in her Danville, VA, kitchen, tuned to WAKG’s “Country Sunshine.” She loved the classics – Webb Pierce, Mel Tillis, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn. Pedal steel was her weakness, and she’d undoubtedly find much to love in Not Tonight. Like me, John Howie Jr.‘s early exposure to country music came through family, though for him it was his dad, not his granny, who spun the records. But we’ll circle back to that influence.
With his bands, the Two Dollar Pistols and Rosewood Bluff, John Howie Jr. crafted music for sawdust-floored bars, jukeboxes, and hearts seeking solace. Now, stepping out on his own, Not Tonight solidifies his place among the honky-tonk greats, an album that could comfortably sit in Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop in Nashville.
The seeds of Not Tonight were sown during a snowy winter in early 2015. John Howie Jr. recalls being snowed in with his dog at his then-girlfriend’s Chatham County home. That girlfriend was Sarah Shook, now a celebrated Bloodshot Records artist in the alt-country/Americana scene. When songwriters are snowbound with guitars, creation is inevitable. Shook overheard John Howie Jr. working on a melody, which became the Not Tonight track, “Happy.”
“She asked me, ‘what are you gonna do with that?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t fit the Two Dollar Pistols or Rosewood Bluff sound.’ She said, ‘I really like it,’ and that encouragement from a songwriter you admire changes your perspective. She suggested, ‘well, if it doesn’t fit on one of your records, why don’t you make a solo album?’ The idea of a solo project had never crossed my mind, even after two decades of leading bands as a singer-songwriter. Her suggestion sparked something, and suddenly this album was taking shape, almost by accident.”
But make no mistake, John Howie Jr. is fully responsible for the modern country classic that is Not Tonight. It’s a masterclass in crafting sonic heartbreak. From the George Jones-esque opening track “Wish My Heart” to the self-deprecating yet hopeful closer, the title track “Not Tonight,” the album is steeped in smoke-filled honky-tonk regret. Yet, remarkably, it balances vulnerability with a quiet self-assurance.
Image: Album artwork for John Howie Jr.’s “Not Tonight,” showcasing Todd W. Emmert’s artistic design.
“Right after that conversation with Sarah,” John Howie Jr. continues, referring to the genesis of the solo album, “my personal life took a nosedive. Suddenly, I had all the inspiration I needed to write, to pour my life into these songs.” By April 2015, when Shook and her band, The Disarmers (where John Howie Jr. played drums at the time), entered the studio to record their acclaimed Sidelong album, he had already penned seven complete songs for Not Tonight. “Completely finished. That was unusual for me, to have that many songs fully formed in such a short period. Ideas come and go, but to have them completed and ready to record in a month or two was unprecedented.”
“My personal life took a nosedive. All of a sudden I had the inspiration to write all these songs and write about my life.”
“I was living in a condo then, and I’d get up in the middle of the night with my dog, go downstairs to the kitchen, and grab my guitar. ‘Back When I Cared’ was written in the middle of the night. Finished. ‘I Don’t Feel Like Holding You Tonight,’ same thing. ‘Not Tonight’ was written before bed one night. They just poured out of me. No forcing, no overthinking. It was more like, ‘how fast can I get these down?’ Those are the fortunate songs, the ones that arrive effortlessly. It’s not usually my process, but in this case, writing about an intense relationship, they just flowed.”
The rising tide of Sidelong then shifted focus, putting Not Tonight on the back burner. “I knew the trajectory of the Disarmers,” he explains. “I knew their ambitions, so I wanted to get some of my ideas recorded.” In early April, John Howie Jr. went to Kudzu Ranch, the studio owned by Rick Miller of Southern Culture on the Skids (who also produced Not Tonight). Kudzu Ranch has been John Howie Jr.‘s recording home since the Two Dollar Pistols’ You Ruined Everything in 2001. There, he laid down acoustic guitar tracks over a click-track for three or four songs, “just to have something tangible, to keep the momentum going until I could properly record everything.”
“It’s just a great, funky, old studio,” John Howie Jr. says of Kudzu Ranch. “A converted garage filled with Rick’s instruments. He’d just acquired a 1962 Stella acoustic 12-string, the kind Leadbelly played, and I ended up using that on ‘Wish My Heart.’”
Miller’s production history with John Howie Jr. began with the Pistols’ Here Tomorrow, Gone Today in 2007. “When you’re making records, especially personal ones like this, comfort with the producer is crucial. Rick is excellent at suggesting ideas, guiding you, without being forceful.” John Howie Jr. sees a good producer as akin to a good therapist. “They don’t give you answers; they create the space for you to find your own.”
Honky-Tonk Roots, Punk Rock Heart: The Musical Journey of John Howie Jr.
Drums were John Howie Jr.‘s first musical passion. “I started playing drums in 1981, around 12 years old,” he recalls, “and I played drums forever.” Songwriting came later, with bands like Finger, but drumming was his primary role, playing for artists like Chris Stamey and Chapel Hill’s June. June’s rendition of Roger Miller’s “I’ll Pick Up My Heart (And Go Home)” hinted at the honky-tonk direction to come for John Howie Jr.
Brad Rice, a guitarist who’s played with Raleigh luminaries like The Accelerators, The Backsliders, and Whiskeytown, witnessed John Howie Jr.’s early songwriting. “Even back in Finger, John could take personal experiences and turn them into songs with real depth and weight,” Rice remembers. “It was always authentic.”
Around his mid-20s, John Howie Jr. felt the pull of songwriting more strongly. “Around 1995, I picked up my dad’s acoustic guitar and just let the songs come out. They emerged as George Jones imitations, almost instinctively.”
But country music wasn’t always John Howie Jr.’s focus, nor was he always a country fan. “I grew up surrounded by it. My dad loved Waylon, Willie, Merle Haggard, and blues artists like Howlin’ Wolf. My mom was a jazz pianist, and she only listened to jazz – Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan.”
As a teenager, John Howie Jr., like many, carved out his own musical identity. “You know, Sex Pistols, Ramones. It wasn’t about rebellion against my parents; I just wanted my own thing, separate from their tastes.” In his late teens, he “dropped out of college, worked part-time, bought a ticket, and backpacked around Europe drumming for a punk band.”
“The bandleader was a Johnny Cash fanatic, and I was just discovering the Burrito Brothers – this was around ’88. He was the first person my age who shared my love for that music, and also the music my dad loved. It was like he gave me permission to like it, outside of my dad’s generation. Once that happened, I fully embraced it.”
His father, thrilled by this shared musical ground, became his country music mentor, making tapes of Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, and Lyle Lovett, alongside Haggard, Jones, and Willie. “He’d educate me, saying, ‘that Hee-Haw image of Buck Owens isn’t the whole story,’” and would launch into Bakersfield sound history lessons.
Image: The Backsliders band photograph from 1997, featuring Danny Kurtz, Brad Rice, Chip Robinson, Steve Howell, and Jeff “JD” Dennis, icons of the alt-country scene.
John Howie Jr.’s immersion in country music coincided with the rise of the alt-country scene in North Carolina’s Triangle area in the early ‘90s. Bands like The Backsliders gained momentum, attracting national attention as labels sought the next Seattle.
“I saw one of the Backsliders’ early shows in 1992. I was practicing with Finger in Raleigh, and our bassist said, ‘there’s a band downtown playing our kind of music, Gram Parsons, Buck Owens.’ I went to see them. They had Bob Ricker on pedal steel, and they blew me away. I’d never seen anyone under 40 playing honky-tonk like that. It planted a seed that maybe I could do it too, though it took a few years to get it together. You can’t do that kind of music half-heartedly.”
“There weren’t bands like us in the Triangle then,” recalls Steve Howell, Backsliders co-founder and guitarist. “We were heavily influenced by the Burrito Brothers sound, pedal steel and all. The two-guitar sound with Brad came later. Dwight Yoakam’s first couple of albums lit a torch for me. It felt like fresh air.”
Dwight Yoakam’s neo-traditional country, which hit the mainstream in the mid-’80s, validated the underground movement merging punk, ‘60s garage rock, and honky-tonk. By the ‘90s, bands like Uncle Tupelo were fusing punk and traditional country, birthing alt-country. North Carolina’s Triangle area became a hub for this movement.
“I finally got it together around ’95,” John Howie Jr. remembers, “and started finding like-minded musicians. Whiskeytown’s rise certainly helped, putting the scene on the map. Violinists became fiddle players.”
The Two Dollar Pistols formed in 1995, releasing their debut, On Down the Track, in 1997. 1997 was a pivotal year for the Triangle music scene. The Backsliders released their debut studio album, Throwing Rocks at the Moon, on Carrboro’s Mammoth Records, produced by Dwight Yoakam’s guitarist and producer, Pete Anderson. Whiskeytown also released their classic Stranger’s Almanac in 1997, with Backsliders Brad Rice and Danny Kurtz later touring with Whiskeytown. Coincidentally, the Two Dollar Pistols’ first drummer, Chris Phillips, also drummed for Squirrel Nut Zippers, whose Hot album, also on Mammoth, went platinum in ‘97.
Image: Album cover of “Step Right Up” from 1998, a live album by The Two Dollar Pistols, capturing their energetic stage presence.
“When John started the Pistols, I recognized a kindred spirit,” admits Howell. “I booked them with us whenever possible. Years later, I helped him make the Pistols’ live album Step Right Up in 1998, their first for Yep Roc Records. I have great memories of that time.”
The Two Dollar Pistols went on hiatus in 2008, and John Howie Jr. formed Rosewood Bluff, perfectly suited to his honky-tonk, barroom, and Southern soul visions. They released two acclaimed albums, Leavin’ Yesterday (2011) and Everything Except Goodbye (2014), and shared stages with legends like George Jones and rising stars like Shovels & Rope. Members of Rosewood Bluff, The Disarmers, and Raleigh’s Tonk all contributed to Not Tonight.
Despite being central to this thriving scene, John Howie Jr.’s motivations weren’t fame and fortune. “Much to the frustration of musicians, record companies, managers, and a reason I left the Disarmers – that’s never been my goal. I’m not judging those who seek that. I just want to write songs, have them sound the way I hear them, have a band sound a certain way, and make records sound a certain way.”
“Two Dollar Pistols played SXSW a few times, but,” he pauses, choosing words carefully, “it’s a strange environment. Do I want people to hear my music? Of course. Much of the music I love, I wouldn’t have discovered without artists pushing and being ambitious. But…the record industry, especially with social media – the selfie culture – I have no interest in it. Now at 49, it’s ‘what you see is what you get.’ Take it or leave it.”
“Priorities Change”: Heartbreak and Honesty in Not Tonight
Not Tonight isn’t John Howie Jr.’s Blood on the Tracks. Asked about similarities, he considers, “Records like that, or Beck’s Sea Change… I love those albums, and they clearly address relationship endings. But Not Tonight might be different because it was written in real time. It’s not a post-breakup reflection. When I left the Disarmers and my four-year relationship with Sarah Shook ended, eight of the ten originals on this record were already written over two years. I realized I had an album documenting, in its own way, the unraveling of that relationship.”
“Relationships have problems, bumps in the road or the beginning of the end. These problems were clearly the latter.”
“I couldn’t make it work,” he admits about being a couple in the same band. “Some people manage it, but it’s not for me.”
“There were many issues. I was likely going to leave the Disarmers anyway because, as a single parent, being away for months at a time isn’t okay with me. When you’re a single parent, you only see your child half the time. Being gone for two or three months on top of that… it’s not the relationship I want with my son. We’re close. I have full custody now, a good setup where I can tour on weekends, but months-long tours are different.”
“Underground” on Not Tonight captures heartbreak and loneliness with stark honesty. “That song is about realizing you can’t go back to certain places. My girlfriend started working at a bar I’d worked at for eight years. I’d stopped going unless I was playing, life with a kid changed my habits. When she started working there, I’d go to see her.” He observed that the regulars from his time were mostly gone, replaced by a younger crowd. “But it was the same stuff, the same drama, people drunk, trying to kiss the wrong person… the drama, man!”
“Part of it was recognizing I didn’t belong there anymore. That world had been a big part of my life, but I no longer wanted it. ‘Underground’ is about revisiting that and being amazed at how much it once meant to me and how little I want to do with it now. I’m getting older. Priorities and interests change, and what you’re willing to tolerate changes.”
“When I’m Not There with You,” a sawdust-floor country two-step, features the Two Dollar Pistols. “One of the benefits of this album taking so long,” John Howie Jr. explains, “is that if I’d recorded it in 2015, they wouldn’t have been on it because we weren’t in touch then.” Alec Ferrell, whom John Howie Jr. met through Durham hip-hop artist Shirlette Ammons, adds a tasteful guitar solo to “Wish My Heart” and bass on album highlight “Never Could Say Yes.”
“‘Never Could Say Yes’ was the last song I wrote for the album,” he recalls. “That’s the morning-after song, when you wake up and realize, ‘right, I’m not going to hear from this person I’ve talked to daily for four years.’ It’s confusing, shattering, and, for me, very painful for a while.” The track uses a drum machine, adding to its hypnotic groove. Subtle ABBA-esque backing vocals elevate it to a modern classic that wouldn’t feel out of place on a mid-90s Dwight Yoakam album.
The sole cover on Not Tonight is a reimagining of Cat Stevens’s “Maybe You’re Right,” revealing a hillbilly blues undercurrent in the original’s folk arrangement. It’s one of John Howie Jr.’s most powerful vocal performances. “I’d been playing that song around the house since I first heard it in my early 30s. Lyrically, it fit so well with the album, I included it.”
Was writing these songs cathartic? “I always feel better after writing a song I’m happy with,” he answers, then pauses, “but you don’t just walk away from four years of family, living together, two bands… it takes time.”
“I’m somebody’s dad. I write songs and make records, you know? Those are the priorities for me.”
Through it all, John Howie Jr. maintains perspective. “Relationships end. I’m fortunate. I’ve lived in Chapel Hill since 1991. Two marriages, ten or twelve relationships, and I’m on relatively good terms with all of them. Relationships are messy, people get upset, angry, bitter.” He’s found his priorities, appreciating where he is now and where he’s been. “I’m somebody’s dad. I write songs and make records. Those are my priorities.”
John Howie Jr. is happy with Not Tonight. “I’m really happy with it. It’s something I needed to do. I’m grateful to my ex-girlfriend for the initial idea. It has some of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.”
Does his son approve of his father’s career? “Yeah, he does. Thank God, he’s not interested in my music. He listens to ‘70s and ‘80s R&B, or current music that sounds like that. As of this morning, he wants to be a geneticist and/or a paranormal investigator, at eleven years old,” he laughs, “and I’m good with either.”
Image: Portrait of John Howie Jr., photographed by Kevin Clark, capturing the artist’s thoughtful demeanor.
John Howie Jr. is touring the East Coast to promote Not Tonight, starting with the album release party at Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC, on Friday, September 21st. The show will feature an expanded Rosewood Bluff lineup, including cellist Sarah Glasco and guitarist Alec Ferrell. For tickets and info, visit the Local 506 website. Learn more about John Howie Jr. at his websites here and here.
