TUNES // Al Riggs – Hometown Heroe

Post by Misha

I had this dream that hell was just Los Angeles, but everything cost 50% more and everyone was forced to work only minimum wage jobs.

Al Riggs is a prolific folk artist out of Durham, North Carolina. His 2017 album, Hell House, was written “about being an introvert who suddenly found themselves thrust into multiple communities and subcultures through jobs and houses and other people’s jobs and houses. Songs about wolves and queer teenagers running away from home on Halloween night also worked their way into what became the planned first half of an 8 or 9 track album.”

The remaining songs, says Riggs, were written in the chaos after the 2016 presidential election. One pays homage to the founders of the Air Horn Orchestra, a band that would play cacophonous protest music outside former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory’s mansion. 

The resulting album is quiet and raw in all the right places, channeling the spirits of The Mountain Goats and The National (incidentally, two of my favorite bands).

Hometown Heroe is an understated song about death and winter. Buy Hell House here. Also check out his newest album, a collection of b-sides called The Summer Water Temple.