Drew Cooper - This Life (2022)

Anyone who has witnessed a performance from Drew Cooper can testify to that sentiment, to experiencing a stirring of the soul kind of sensation as the music washes over. The husky, soul soaked baritone of his voice is no doubt the very foundation his entire sound is built on. It’s a well-worn timbre that in one moment haunts you with the Teddy Pendergrass-esque stylings of old Motown, and the next moment you’re bobbing your head up and down in that involuntary way that only pure rock n roll can invoke. That rock spice is always going to be part of the meal with Cooper having grown up in the Midwest where classic rock dictated pretty music everything, but you are also going to taste a hint of country and, sometimes, the gospel influence of his youth. It’s hard to know what to call this hodge-podge stew of savory sounds, but Cooper serves it up this way. “Americana is the easiest way to explain it, but that’s a blanket statement for those that have their own sound. Am I rock? No. Am I country? No. I just sing it and play it how I feel it.”

This “what you see is what you get” demeanor made Cooper a quickly adopted brother in the Texas Red Dirt music scene where your songwriting goods is your only true currency. “Those Texas guys, those are real stories they are telling. Mainstream music writes to the masses. Those guys just write their lives. It’s all about the song and the camaraderie, a kind of potluck mentality. It’s not what you take from the table, it what you bring.” Cooper is a shot directly in that same vein. His own street cred in Arizona as a genuine songwriter laid a fast track into Texas where he is honored to spend half his time living, writing and performing among his tale-spinning brethren. His songs talk about every damn thing what with him having a very colorful life story to draw from. Becoming a father at the age of 23, losing faith with his family about his unstable future and spending years with his nose to the grindstone proving himself a reliable human being, the dues paid when gambling on his dreams, the victories of succeeding, the prison of addiction, the broken pieces of divorce, the dawning of new love, the growth of a family, the loneliness of life on the road and precious moments missed. It’s all there and Cooper is perfectly comfortable telling you all about it if you ask him. He’ll also tell you that he sees the body of his music catalog as positive despite years of very difficult times because, for him, writing songs with 20/20 hindsight allows him none of the initial shock of pain and all of the wisdom. “You don’t have to be unhappy to write good music, you only have to be honest.”