Eddie 9V’s 12-track Down Here trades solitude for live collaboration

By Grace Kim

Eddie 9V’s 12-track album Down Here was recorded in less than a week and is out now through Easy Eye Sound, with The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach producing. Marcus King, Pat McLaughlin and Daniel Tashian joined the creative process alongside Auerbach, according to Eric Alper’s account of the sessions. Alper describes the Atlanta blues-rock musician’s release as a Southern soul journey. It mixes blues, country, gospel, soul and rock and roll.

Less than a week, and no longer alone

The sessions changed Eddie’s usual method. Earlier albums often found him writing, producing and playing every instrument himself; this time, Alper says, he let other musicians into the process. The result, as Alper hears it, lets solos, grooves and performances develop naturally in the room rather than remain fixed by a lone producer and guitarist.

Alper also treats the compressed schedule as part of that spontaneity. His point is practical: there was barely time to unpack the guitar cases, let alone complete an ambitious record. Collaboration, rather than extra tracking time, supplied the movement.

What does collaboration change for Eddie 9V?

For Eddie, the practical change is a looser division of labor: he shares the musical workload instead of controlling every layer alone. The three guests do more than decorate the songs; their presence helps shape the record’s live pulse. That allows Eddie to trust other players, accept unpredictable passages and hear his own guitar playing from within an ensemble.

“It was all about capturing that magic moment, that fire,” Auerbach says. Alper connects that aim to Eddie’s guitar playing and the energy he brought to the sessions. The clearest result is the opener, “Whole Lot Coming for You,” where three guitars play together live in the studio and create the dense, energetic attack Alper praises.

The songs and the memories behind them

The title track recalls Eddie’s childhood on a 100-acre farm in Monticello, Georgia, with his grandparents, Mimi and Papa. Alper hears Creedence Clearwater Revival in its rhythm, then points to vegetable gardens, country life and Mimi riding her old John Deere lawn mower.

That specificity gives the title track a personal center that, in Alper’s view, resists the polish of a studio-constructed memory. “Blowin’ Up,” by contrast, carries a country-inflected groove and darkly comic storytelling. He notes that the song reached No. 1 on the Americana charts, giving Down Here its clearest measurable result.

Alper identifies the range across the rest of the record. Eddie recasts the disco-soul classic “Rock Your Baby” as a Southern drive, with Duane Allman-inspired slide guitar. “Satisfy The Way I Do” began as a slower, Al Green-flavoured demo, or initial recording, before Auerbach redirected its course, while “Horses” draws inspiration from soul singer Darondo.

The gospel-tinged closer, “Come And Get Me Lord,” addresses loss, change and the emotional uncertainty of a new chapter in life. In Alper’s reading, that focus makes the ending the album’s most inward-facing moment.

From age six to the bigger stage

Eddie picked up a guitar at six, explored metal and indie rock, and discovered Howlin’ Wolf through footage of a Newport Folk Festival performance. Alper presents that discovery as a turning point, followed by marathon four-and-a-half-hour sets in Atlanta clubs. Some sets earned little more than the money in the tip jar.

His earlier albums include Left My Soul in Memphis, Little Black Flies, Capricorn and Saratoga. Alper links this sustained output and relentless touring with Eddie’s international following. Eddie has also recently joined The Black Keys on the road and performed with them on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The test after Down Here

Down Here gives Eddie a new form of freedom: sharing the workload, trusting collaborators and allowing unpredictable moments to remain on the record. For listeners, the practical change is audible from the opening track, because the album foregrounds musicians reacting in the room instead of Eddie constructing every layer alone.

Alper’s final judgment is that the record’s central pleasure comes from hearing a player with serious technique enjoy the freedom of letting everyone play. Down Here points to future records that may gain from the same balance: Eddie’s authority at the center and other musicians’ instincts in the room.