Fourteen years ago, singer songwriter Lee DeWyze won season 9 of “American Idol” singing a song he now admits didn’t really fit him at all: U2′s “Beautiful Day.”
“I hated that song,” DeWyze admits to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a recent interview before his show Oct. 6 at Eddie’s Attic. “It’s not a song I wanted to do. They just wanted you to do covers and be a performer.”
He said there was still a stigma in 2010, the early days of YouTube and Facebook, to be on “American Idol.” “There were people who felt like you were cheating the system,” DeWyze said. “Flash forward now. Everyone and their mother does covers on TikTok.”
Now at age 38, DeWyze feels like he’s at his creative apex with his newest album “Gone For Days.”
“I know it’s crazy to say this, but I’m at a point my writing is the best I’ve ever done,” he said. “I’m more comfortable with who I am as a writer and as an artist. I’m feeling this rejuvenation.”
The pandemic was “brutal mentally,” he said. “I lost myself without the ability to go out and perform.”
HIs latest album was inspired by the town of Bristol, Tennessee, where he attended a festival last year. “It’s the biggest littlest town I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I didn’t want to make another album in Los Angeles. I had to get out there.”
So with the blessing of his wife Jonna Walsh, he travelled cross-country and rented a 200-year-old home in Bristol for two months to write and record the album.
“The floors creaked and lights flickered,” he said. “It was unnerving at first. But over time, it actually became comforting.”
To add to the surreal nature of his surroundings, he resided across the street from a funeral home. DeWyze would sit on the front porch writing songs with a cigarette in his mouth and watch grieving people enter and exit the establishment.
This led him to write the existential “Devil in the Details,” the album’s first single. “It poses a lot of questions people ask themselves, about God and the devil, about why we’re doing this, why does any of this matter,” he said.
In the past he wrote his music in Los Angeles, a sunny, facile city that somehow led him to write very dark, atmospheric fare, which actually became popular for TV show producers. His songs ended up on shows like “The Walking Dead,” “Elementary,” “Suits” and “Nashville.”
By writing in Bristol, despite the environs, “Gone for Days,” he said, is comparatively hopeful. DeWyze said he met his demons and befriended those feelings, “all the things you generally hide away from, the things you normally shove under the rug or in the closet.”
DeWyze said he sees music as a “form of a movie. With this album, I envision myself in a cabin in the woods packing up my bag and just going somewhere with no destination.” He cites the opening song “Into the Wild” which includes the lyrics, “When morning breaks and the sun fills up your lungs/ Keeps you awake for you know what must be done/ Now I breathe the light at the end of the tunnel.”
In the end, he said, ‘the whole album came alive. There was an awakening in me. I felt like an artist for the first time, like I’m putting out my first record. I’m that connected with it.”
The first album that inspired him as a child was Cat Stevens’ “Tea for the Tillerman” and he feels “Gone for Days” fits that mold. “It’s like a concentrated version of me,” he said, “all the things I love about songwriting and storytelling.”
And coming back to Eddie’s Attic in Decatur is a special homecoming for DeWyze, At age 17, years before “Idol,” he traveled from his home in Chicago to compete in an open-mic competition there and much to his surprise, he came in second. He has performed there several times since. His upcoming show will be a solo acoustic show, just DeWyze and five guitars.
“The environment there is amazing,” he said. “It’s ideal for me as an artist. I’m pretty pumped.”
And DeWyze is fine performing on a Sunday evening: “I love Sunday shows. There’s something calming about it. I think it’s that day before everyone gets back into the week. It’s nice to give people a release on that day.”
IF YOU GO
Lee DeWyze
8 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 6, $20, Eddie’s Attic, 515 N McDonough St, Decatur, www.eddiesattic.com
About the Author
