Drake White has been a firm favourite on the live circuit here in the UK and with every visit, his audience has grown considerably.
In 2019, White suffered a set back with his health, which has seem him working hard during recovery so that he's been able to return to live performing and making music. Earlier this year, White released the songs ‘Hurts the Healing' and ‘Angel Side Of You', and he's been entertaining fans on Wednesday nights with his Wednesday Night Therapy live series.
Ahead of his Happy (Half) Hour with Destination Country on 19th August, I caught up with Drake to discuss his recovery, find out more about his upcoming album, and to talk about his return to touring…
Since we last saw one another, you've had well-documented health issues. How are you feeling now and what impact has that had?
It's arteriovenous malformation. It's a wad of veins and arteries in the back of my brain that we were taking care of by a series of embolizations, which was basically gluing it shut. Those were going good. On August 16th of 2019, it ruptured ion stage in Roanoke, Virginia, causing the symptoms of a hemorrhagic stroke. It paralyzed my left side so I had to essentially relearn how to walk. My brain was not telling my foot… when I would tell it to move forward or just as basic as walking forward, it wouldn't do it. We had to go through about eight or nine months of extensive rehab, and everything just started coming back to life through working really hard physically, through praying really hard, and all of that stuff, we got through it and we're able to get back up on our feet, literally. Mentally and cognitively, it almost supercharged it. It didn't affect the part of my brain that forms thoughts or conversations, thank goodness. I just wrote a lot and stayed diligent with my pen, and the Zoom writes started happening.
Immediately following that recovery, I actually did a show in Austin, Texas right before the pandemic. Then the pandemic hit and I'd been on my back basically for 10 months, and the pandemic started coming in strong. By the time all this was over, I was unable to do live shows besides the ones in my barn, and the ones on Wednesday nights that I did all year. We were basically out for 18 months.
How did it affect me? I'm a glass half full guy. I've been trained to look at the silver lining. It was hard, extremely, extremely hard but it got me closer to my wife. It got me closer spiritually. Songwriting, I just got these floods of these ideas and just really quietened everything down. I got back to nature, not that I ever left nature but I'm very inspired by what's going on in the seasons and in the outdoors. Getting back to that was great. It just inspired this whole record that I've got coming out. I just did what I do. I love to write, and I love to sing and play and just kept the band and everybody together through this Wednesday night therapy stuff. I don't think anybody can say it didn't affect their muse, the way they write or the way they do things. We just persevered and just kept on chipping at the wall until we were able to get back on stage. Now we're back rolling and we've got a big tour and got a lot of fans coming that are excited. It's been a crazy, crazy couple of years.
We've had a fair bit of new music from you in the past year or so with your ‘Stars' EP and the songs ‘Hurts the Healing' and ‘Angel Side of You'. You mentioned you have a new album coming. Will any of these songs feature on that?
‘Hurts the Healing' and ‘Angel Side Of You' are the first two songs from the record. We're going to release a series of five or six songs over the next couple of months, and then release a full 12 to 14 song record this summer, mid-September/late summer. It's something I'm really excited about. I've been wanting to get a record out for a long time. Through the business, through the commerce and the record labels, through injuries, through family… I've just had a lot of stuff to write about. We've never really quit playing if people have been following our Wednesday Night Therapies but we did have that span of nine months where I was unable to unable to do it. Everybody's talking about a comeback. I don't really consider this a comeback, I considered a revival. It has revived me and made me more inspired to do it. I'm hungrier than ever to go out there and perform these tunes. I'm just glad to be alive, glad to be doing it, glad to be in a spot where I've got a team, I've got a band, I've got a great bunch of partners, and we're putting together a great record, I believe.
Have those Wednesday Night Therapy streams been a saving grace for you because they've enabled you to keep performing and stay connected with the fans?
Yeah, definitely. I just had to play. I was speaking to my buddy Michael Hobby from A Thousand Horses when we were over here for a baby shower in our barn. I've always been a builder, and always loved to build things, and we built this barn. It got finished right as I had that injury. We were sitting there talking as bands do like, ‘hey, this pandemic looks like it's gonna be something that's gonna affect our business'. Little did we know what it would be but Michael essentially was like, ‘man, why don't you just jam in your barn?' We were able to go out there in the barn for, I think, 75 plus Wednesdays in a row and that's literally really close to my house so I was able to heal, walk over there, play, play new songs, write every day at my house and then go test the songs out in front of 1,000s of people that were watching online, without any of the risk of being on the road or anything. It was really a best case scenario, I didn't want it to be because I wanted to get out there on the road and do my thing, but truly, it was exactly what I needed. I think that's not a coincidence. I think my maker had a very big, big part in that. It was just perfect for, as far as the stroke was concerned, it needed to heal. I'm not saying it was the perfect thing and I didn't want it to be like that, because it was extremely hard, but as humans, we don't always know what is the best thing for us. It is my belief that as long as we believe that the best things are happening, and what's supposed to happen is happening, then we can just keep on going and keep rolling so that's what I did.
The live streams enabled you to get feedback on your new music too. Was it important for you to still have that outlet and two-way dialogue?
Yeah, it built this record for sure. You're exactly right. From an analytical standpoint, being able to sit there and watch comments and watch people. We took requests. I'm a very spontaneous performer in the fact that I like to keep it different and keep it moving and keep it going. We would try stuff the day of and that's exciting to me, that keeps it very fresh. We still do that live. But you're exactly right, when you can see it on a screen and see it analytically come through… ‘Hurts the Healing' is powerful and people are requesting and loving it. Now that we're back on the road, I don't really think I knew the impact of of the barn shows and Wednesday Night Therapy. I knew that I was healing and I was helping myself, and I thought that I was helping people, but there are 1,000s of people that are coming up to us over and over and over saying, ‘you got us through the pandemic. This music got us through. Thank you for doing that'.
It wasn't easy. It was my wife, and about 10 or 15 others. Zach Knutson, my creative director, he stayed over here with a mask on in the barn, just running all the cameras. It was very minimal at first and then as the pandemic loosened up, we quarantined around these people, and were as safe as we could be, but the same time I had to play. As long as I didn't put anybody in danger I was going to play. It snowballed into what you see now on Wednesday nights, and we never felt any pressure, we just had something to look forward to. As long as the human spirit has something to look forward to, then it's got a reason to live. It's got a reason to keep going. It gave me a reason to keep going to therapy, keep repairing my body and keep moving. That's the key to all of it, I believe.
You mentioned you have a big tour coming up. Might you be bringing that over to the UK in 2022?
There's no doubt. I've always been a nomadic spirit. I've always had a desire to want to travel the world and meet new people. The European markets, going over there and doing what we did with with Mac McAnally and Maren Morris and Kristian Bush… that that one writer's round that blasted into the small show at the O2 and now the bigger shows that we played with Lyle Lovett, Chris Stapleton, Brothers Osborne and Ashley McBryde a couple of years ago, our show's over there I absolutely love them. I love the fans. I love the response we get. I just think our music, especially now, the plot has thickened. It's a better book. There's a lot more to it. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be rowdy, it's gonna be the same Drake White show that people have experienced but it's just got a deeper plot now. It's just a different show and I think it's something that people haven't seen in a couple of years. Our shows over here in the States are selling really, really well. It's just different man. We're seeing this very passionate crowd, that's almost emotional to be back listening to live music. It's very palpable. It's very cool.
Drake White's ‘Hurts The Healing' and ‘Angel Side Of You' are out now. He will be joining Destination Country's Happy (Half) Hour on 19th August 2021 at 8pm BST and you can register to attend for free at https://destination-country.com/portfolio/happy-half-hour-with-drake-white/.
