“It's from Nashville's first gay club,” Howard said. “I'm just borrowing it because the person who owns it doesn't have high enough ceilings.”
Howard bought the house from singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton and her husband, John McCauley, of the band Deer Tick. Behind the house, between an old fishing boat Howard rebuilt and an archery target shaped like a deer's head (“I have strange hobbies,” he noted as he walked through the backyard), there was a garage that had been converted into a a home studio. Howard finished recording the “What Now” demos in this comfortably scruffy space with guitars adorning the walls, a movie screen hanging from the ceiling, and a sauna next to the door.
“You have to have a sauna in your studio,” he said. “To sweat.”
A small control room was dominated by a large antique mixing console once used to record Prince's debut album. Howard is a big fan and apparently the feeling was mutual. In 2015, he invited her and the Shakes to play at Paisley Park and joined them on guitar to sing “Gimme All Your Love.” One of the new songs, the dynamic and moody “Power to Undo,” feels buoyed by her spirit.
“When I was doing it, I thought, 'Prince would have liked this,'” Howard said. The song, he explained, is about trying to leave someone who keeps coming back. “There's a part of you that says, 'I kind of want to go back,' and then the older, wiser part that says, 'Don't you dare.'”
“What Now” feels like a breakup album, though tinged less with bitterness about her exes and more with a hard lens directed at herself. “Out there, there's a love waiting for me,” Howard sings on the opener, “Earth Sign,” with his voice floating over spare, ethereal piano chords. “I can feel, I can't see/But will I know when I feel it?”
Howard produced the album alongside Shawn Everett, who engineered “Jaime” and Shakes' second album, “Sound & Color.” She recalled that “Earth Sign” was a 30-second bonus demo when Howard brought it into the studio.
