In the latest edition of NahRight’s interview series, In The Lab, Yelawolf shares the backstory behind “Empty Bottles,” the ninth track on his second studio album, Love Story. The Gadsden, Alabama native says that he wrote the song “without any music on a railroad track” in Georgia.
“Just the melody came to me, the song, and even the double-time breakdown at the end,” Yelawolf says. “And then I took that idea to Malay and he made it come to life. That’s the only song I think that I have ever written without any music that made it to an album. It’s happened every once in a while. But they never really seem to work out. ‘Empty Bottles’ is the only song without any music at all. No guitar. No nothing. Just that melody and that’s it. That was the only song that I ever wrote. Every other time, it happens with an instrument: guitar, piano, synth line, drums. Something happens that makes you want to write. I’m not sure what that is. That’ll remain a mystery of what the hell makes you want to write those words.”
Yela discussed on his struggle between writing music on an iPhone versus writing on a notepad.
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“I was actually for a while on some ‘Man, fuck that. That’s wack. I’m not writing a record on my goddamn iPhone,’” he says. “But I’ve had moments where it’s like voice record an idea. Or driving down the street and I have this idea and I use the translator and I’ll speak my lyrics into the phone and it writes itself. So it’s pretty dope. I can actually—high-tech redneck—e-mail that shit to myself or if I write a song on my iPhone, I can e-mail [my manager] J. Dot and he can send it to copyright and I don’t even have to fucking pick up a pen. [Laughs.] And no one has to translate and I don’t have to write it legibly. I just get to send it from my phone. Sometimes, it works. But most of the time it is whatever I can grab: a napkin, a receipt. And write the song.”
Yelawolf also discusses his intent to produce his next album on his own and says he plans to release a lyric book for Love Story that is entirely handwritten. “Eminem hand wrote his verse too for his feature,” he says. “The lyric book has all the handwritten lyrics to every song and a bunch of the making of photos. It’s pretty cool.”
Yelawolf’s Love Story is currently available for stream. For more on Yela, watch the DX Daily below:
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