MEDIA
Dillon Warnek “Good Man” by Joseph Hudak
It’s not when you die, but where you die that matters. In this Faces-like jam off his upcoming LP Now That It’s All Over, Nashville songwriter Dillon Warnek spells out lengthy instructions to his pallbearer pals to make it seem like he croaked on the straight and narrow. Before they tell his wife the bad news, they must a) usher out his mistress(es), b) hide all the drinks, and c) move his corpse to the kitchen to “make it look like I was fixing the sink.” And that’s only the first verse. Fleshed out by barroom piano, harmonica, and slide guitar, “Good Man” is a Weekend at Bernie’s rave-up with lyrics so sharp and clever, they make living hard and dropping dead sound like a blast.
Lesser Known Artists of the Last 35 Years
Margo Price on Dillon Warnek
I met Dillon Warnek backstage in a green room in Australia where he was drinking all the tequila on our rider. At the time, he was playing guitar with Courtney Marie Andrews, who was opening the shows for me during our first tour in Oz. Warnek had a big personality and was talking 100 miles a minute, rambling on with self-deprecating jokes and a dark sense of humor that I connected to immediately. He spoke with so many words, it was a miracle his tongue could even keep up. Later, when I heard his songs, I understood why. He has a sharp wit and a writing style that seems both familiar and foreign at the same time. He is a songwriter’s songwriter, and some of his songs are too smart for the general population. Like many of my favorite songwriters, it is both his greatest talent and greatest downfall. His stark originality and colorful vocabulary may be detrimental to him ever having “massive mainstream appeal.”
My band backed him up on his latest EP, Fruit From Crooked Trees, and I sang on a song called “Morning In Memphis.”
Just Released: Now That It’s All Over
Just released on March 26th, Now That It’s All Over by Nashville-based singer-songwriter Dillon Warnek is an album worth exploring. Warnek has a tendency to ramble, but that’s because he has an excellent command of the English language and a way of making words bend to his rugged point of view and dry sense of humor. “He is a songwriter’s songwriter,” says Margo Price, whose backing band played on the new album and who offered her voice to the album’s title track.
