Black Stone Cherry
Black Stone Cherry are a band in the truest sense of the term. Almost twenty years on from their incendiary self-titled debut, plus eight albums - including six UK Top 20 hits as well as four top 25 US radio singles over the past two albums - and scores of devoted fans worldwide, the Kentucky foursome retain the fire and camaraderie of their teenage selves. They are a truly collaborative force, in a way that few other bands at this level are. Hard rockers of enormous heart. Four accomplished songwriters with rock, metal, roots, blues, soul and hip hop in their blood. Old friends with an instinctive, compassionate sense for what each other is feeling.
On Celebrate – produced by the band and recorded at High Street Studios in Bowling Green, Kentucky – they embody all this at the height of their powers. There’s happiness and heartache. Muscular hooks and raw soul. The life experiences of four men approaching forty (two of them parents), in one emotive, unpolished diamond of a record. Six commanding, stage-ready original tracks and an inspired cover of Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me) featuring Tyler Connolly (Theory Of A Deadman).
Celebrate’s roots stem from the road, where (in true Black Stone style) riffs and lyrics cropped up in soundchecks and tour-bus journeys across the world. In early 2025 they began meeting at guitarist Ben Wells’ home studio, two days a week, to write together in earnest. It was a rewarding experience. Surrounded by band posters, Star Wars figures and Elvis memorabilia – and with Wells’ three beagles as their first critics – they fleshed out ideas, often swapping instruments to nail the best ones.
The titular opening track Celebrate epitomises that dynamic mindset. Built on a heavyweight intro riff, it went through several verses and choruses, with drummer John Fred Young coming up with a melody that took it somewhere new. The final result is an ode to rejoicing in small, everyday milestones – a thoughtful response to the mental health challenges faced by so many of us. It’s the sort of thing Black Stone Cherry are masters of: taking a somber subject and flipping it on its head, creating a punchy, empowering rock song.
“Any piece of art is a snapshot of that artist's life,” singer/guitarist Chris Robertson reasons. “So I look at these songs as a culmination of everything we've lived since Screamin’ At The Sky. And we've been writing songs together for so long, we've lived through each other's experiences, so somebody will come up with a line and then it's just like… you set the typewriter down and it starts typing itself.”
“None of us are precious about that kind of stuff, because we're all fighting on the same team,” Ben says. “So John Fred might have a guitar riff, or me or Chris might have a drum beat. And Steve is our bass player, but he played slide on the last album, and there's parts on the new stuff where he plays guitar. It was cool to think you could start the day without a song, and five hours later walk out with a demo.”
Celebrate is an EP of contrasts. Neon Eyes was a soundcheck riff that exploded into a thumping, hard rock party-starter. I’m Fine is a dreamily woozy, Nirvana-laced grunge singalong. But it was the searing, mid-tempo heartache of Deep that struck a really pertinent chord – with Ben in particular. Following long struggles with fertility issues, he and his wife suffered a miscarriage midway through the writing process. Two days later, he was channelling the experience into Deep.
“I haven't really talked a lot about it,” he says, “but it was something that needed to come out, you know – I struggled too, going ‘well, this is something I really want to speak about? I don't know.’ But then I was looking for a song that would say everything that I was feeling. That song was a true moment where music was therapy, and I couldn't have done it without these dudes.”
The song’s sensitive, intimate quality reflects other experiences, too. In April, Steve received the devastating news that his father – a Rock n Roll musician, confidant and inspiration to his son, who’s also an accomplished music teacher – had been diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer. Like so many who’ve faced our mortality head-on, Steve found a kind of release in music.
“You see the connection it has with the audience,” he says, “And that's the beautiful thing about this band, because I would not be happy just going up there and playing whatever clichéd songs just to make a living. That's not me. It's never been me. I'd much rather work on a farm back home, if I had to pick between two things like that.”
“I think that's the secret sauce if you're a band,” he adds. “I can't speak for solo artists, because I've never had a desire to be one. My favourite artists are bands and what I've always studied from a lot of them, and even this band, is the importance of being good buddies. You’re just writing music with your bros.”
“It was really refreshing to have more space in the room and everybody bouncing immediate ideas,” Chris agrees. “The writing process this time was some of the most fun I've had writing in recent years, for sure.”
“That's probably why people really connect to our music,” John Fred muses, “there are a lot of emotions on a Black Stone Cherry record. It can be a sad subject matter, and on those songs we always try to make a positive message out of it. And then there's songs that are carefree – your ‘hanging-out and partying’ anthems. But that's what we're all experiencing as humans, you know?”
For a curveball, Celebrate is capped off with a strapping yet sensuous cover of Simple Minds’ classic Don’t You (Forget About Me), featuring guest vocals from old Black Stone friend Tyler Connolly (Theory Of A Deadman). Immortalised in John Hughes’ seminal 1985 coming-of-age film The Breakfast Club, it turned out to be a surprisingly natural fit for Black Stone Cherry. A happy pairing with the soulful gravel and sincerity of Chris’s vocals.
“I love that song!” the frontman laughs. “It was at Rock The Ring festival in Switzerland in 2018, I remember going out in the crowd and fist-pumping that whole song when they played it. I've just loved that song since The Breakfast Club, truthfully. But I was like, ‘how would we ever do this? Because I can't sing it low on the choruses, it just wouldn't sound like Black Stone Cherry.’ So we got in the studio and I just sang higher and went for it! But it came out really good.”
“Chris has been wanting to do that since he was about twelve!” laughs John Fred, who’s been friends with him since kindergarten. “And we’re really proud of how that came out. Hopefully we can start doing it live soon too.”
That excited, almost childlike streak shines through everything they do. It’s that ‘new band energy’, present in their electrifying live shows, the urgency of these new songs, their willingness to try new things, and to do it all themselves. It’s telling that no massive production was needed for Celebrate – just four dudes from Kentucky with a couple of old friends.
Indeed, Celebrate grooves, flows and rocks with the passion and attention to detail of a band who care deeply – and who listen to a lot of music. It’s there in the issues they address. The poise and introspection of these songs, married with pummelling intensity. The sassy wordplay of Up Down, a sexy, bass-swaggering rocker peppered with nods to Nelly, Ludacris and other early 00s hip hop legends. The suckerpunch Audioslave-style production values, implemented throughout the record by Chris, who mixed it with longtime engineer Jordan Westfall and assistant Mark Owens.
“Hearing the final stream, you get giddy when you listen back to it,” Ben enthuses, “because you're like, ‘man, I know that our fans are gonna love it because it is just as ferocious and old-school sounding, but also very new and adapted.’ I'm just really pumped about it.”
“I mean shoot, we've been making records for a long time now,” drummer John Fred Young says. “We're so lucky to have so many great fans worldwide. People want to hear the old songs, but they also want us to keep making new music. So that's a reason to celebrate, you know? We're very thankful, and we're super proud of this new music.”
No one in Black Stone Cherry takes what they have for granted, least of all their fans. They’ll play to thousands in an arena or festival field, followed by a 100-capacity pub, and put on the exact same show. You can feel it in Celebrate; the sense that their hearts are totally invested, their priorities clear. Time spent with loved ones. Supporting one another. Connecting with audiences. Music that makes you feel something. No polish, no faking it, just moments that matter.
“It’s an unpolished diamond,” Chris concludes, simply.