"This album is about relationships," she says. "It's about growing pains." Here, she's committed her genre-bending rock-and-roll show to record for the first time, stretching out her emotive twang over sky-high soft-rock, burning psychedelic rock ballads, stomping road songs, and sprinkles of pop. With production from her friend and longtime collaborator Sturgill Simpson, it shows both of them pushing into unexpected directions.
That's How Rumors Get Started was largely recorded in less than a week at East West is Los Angeles, in the tiny room where Pet Sounds and Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" were recorded. The band then headed back to Nashville to record overdubs at David Ferguson's studio, the Butchershop, where Johnny Cash posters hang on the walls and cigarette smoke lingers in the air. While Prince's first two full-lengths were recorded with her road band, the Price Tags, for That's How Rumors Get Started she worked with a group that Simpson helped her put together: guitarist Matt Sweeney, bassist Pino Palladino, drummer James Gadson, keyboardist Benmont Tench.
