Black Stone Cherry's Heaviest Sounding Album: Jon Lawhon Talks 'The Human Condition' On Tower's Live Show

Black Stone Cherry released their new studio album, The Human Condition, on October 30th and streamed a full concert introducing the album on the same night from SkyPac in Kentucky. Bassist Jon Lawhon joined us on Tower's Instagram Live show, hosted by Whitney Moore, to talk about the road to the album and how the band has been handling the upheavals in the world right now in their 19th year of band brotherhood.

Lawhon gives us an insider view of setting up and playing the concert at Skypac and also of the recording process for the tracks from The Human Condition, which happened in his own studio, a "sanctuary in the woods". The history for songs like "Ringin' In My Head" goes back several years since it was a song they liked but didn't feel fit into their previous album Family Tree, and now its crazily relevant with its opening line referencing a "new disease".

When the band went in to record Family Tree, they had the specific goal of creating a purely Rock 'N Roll album, and leaving any Metal-leaning music to the side. They wanted to make an album that was fun for them and made people want to dance, Lawhon explains. It was a very successful album for them, but when it came time to work on The Human Condition, they had very different goals. Going into the studio, they spent the first three or four days just working on sonic directions and micing up the drumkit to get sound takes. They wanted to create the heaviest sounding album they'd ever created, but do it in a way that was true to each band member's identity. The result is The Human Condition and pure Black Stone Cherry.