My Days of 58<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cOne day out of the blue,\u201d Callahan explains, \u201cmy son asked me, \u2018Are you working on a new album? What\u2019s the title?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Do you have any ideas?\u2019 He said, \u2018How old are you?\u2019 I told him. He thought about it for a second, and he said, \u2018How about My Days of 58<\/em>,\u2019 which is a very poetically phrased thing.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cIt was a strange thing to come out of a 10-year-old boy that hates to read and likes gaming and The Simpsons<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t know where he got that, but it fit perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tCallahan is speaking with Roling Stone <\/em>over Zoom from his Austin home studio. Even if he didn\u2019t publicize his age, it would be apparent: Now actually 59, his hair has more salt than pepper in it, but he also looks content with what seniority in the world of independent rock has given him. He\u2019s surrounded by paintings, like the one on the cover of his 2011 album Apocalypse<\/em>, and guitars hanging from his wall.<\/p>\n\n\tThe new album, one of dozens Callahan has released since emerging from the late-Eighties lo-fi cassette community, contains self-analytical songs about maturing as he\u2019s aged (\u201cPathol O.G.\u201d), fatherhood from both his recently deceased dad\u2019s and his own perspective (\u201cEmpathy\u201d), and living up to his wife\u2019s expectations of him (\u201cThe Man I\u2019m Supposed to Be\u201d). Where the music he recorded decades ago using the name Smog was sparse yet exacting, the folky arrangements of My Days of 58<\/em> sound loose and live, thanks to Jim White\u2019s drumming and lively horn and string arrangements that enhance Callahan\u2019s confessional and often hilarious lyrics. \u201cWe take life seriously, laugh in the face of death,\u201d he sings on \u201cThe Man I\u2019m Supposed to Be,\u201d which he punctuates at the end with a falsetto \u201chee-hee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tYears ago, the openness of My Days of 58<\/em> might have seemed unimaginable for Callahan. Smog\u2019s early albums sounded brittle and brooding, until he found his voice in the late Nineties and started recording ultra-ironic meditations on death and desire, sometimes at the same time (see: \u201cDress Sexy at my Funeral\u201d). At the time, he was unapproachable, literally, conducting interviews by fax, though he now downplays the number of facsimiles he actually sent. In 2007, he started releasing albums under his own name, and in 2014, he got married and had a kid. Beginning with the release of Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest<\/em> in 2019, Callahan started feeling comfortable showing his true self in song.<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tOnce elliptical in interviews, he\u2019s also more open talking about himself now. During an hour-long talk with Rolling Stone<\/em>, he looks back on how fatherhood changed him as an artist and on a fundamental level. He\u2019s eked out a living, he says, that supports himself and his family, which has helped him find peace with getting older.<\/p>\n\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tBlues musicians are celebrated as they age. Why don\u2019t you think it\u2019s the same for you?<\/strong>\n\tI\u2019m surprised you consider your genre \u201cindie.\u201d\n\tI\u2019m not a very sentimental person, but when I reflect on the early days of independent music, something happened there. People were taking things into their own hands and setting up their own shows. I was carrying boxes of my records into record stores on tour and trying to sell three or four copies. In retrospect, it was kind of a special time that is gone now.<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n\n