group\u2019s shared hometown<\/a> of Providence, Rhode Island, with every song set around the city, including, perhaps, the very restaurant at which they were dining, the Old Canteen, a mid-20th century red sauce spot that hosted everyone from Frank Sinatra to Providence\u2019s infamously mob-affiliated mayor Buddy Cianci.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cI remember John specifically saying, \u2018This is the assignment,\u2019\u201d recalls drummer Dennis Ryan, who was so inspired by the meeting that he went home and immediately finished a song called \u201c507 Smith.\u201d It was a fictionalized account of the time Ryan and McCauley lived together in a ramshackle house at that address. One lyric \u2014 \u201chave a fresh-picked strawberry\u201d \u2014 is taken from a time their disheveled and frequently inebriated roommate greeted Ryan\u2019s mom at the house by offering her some fruit growing in the side yard. \u201cJohn liked the line about the strawberries,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201c507 Smith\u201d is just one taste of the mix of hyper personal and distinctly fictional Providence-based storytelling on Coin-O-Matic<\/em>, the album that resulted from McCauley\u2019s writing assignment. Out this Friday, it might be the most accomplished and fully realized record of Deer Tick\u2019s career. The album represents the foursome \u2014 McCauley, Ryan, guitarist Ian O\u2019Neil, bassist Chris Ryan (no relation to Dennis) \u2014 taking the reins of their future after suffering a series of challenges over 20-plus years together.<\/p>\n\n\tThere was a rough tour following the pandemic, and a 2018 stint in rehab for McCauley, which he\u2019s never before discussed. It all forced the band to refocus on its long-term viability and, in short, grow up. The members are all men with families and children now and they set about to find new ways to communicate and conduct intra-band business (including, yes, Slack).<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s such a fragile thing,\u201d Chris Ryan says. \u201cThere\u2019s no guarantee we can hang onto it, so it\u2019s up to us to do everything we can to make the most of the momentum, the success, and the reputation that we have to keep it going.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tJohn McCauley\u2019s train is<\/strong> late.<\/strong> He\u2019s decided to take the three-and-a-half hour Amtrak from Providence to New York, talk with Rolling Stone<\/em> for an hour or so, then hop right back onto a train and head home. \u201cAnything to avoid a Zoom,\u201d says McCauley, who, before we even get to fully discussing the album he\u2019s currently promoting, tells me he\u2019s \u201chad enough screwdrivers on the Amtrak\u201d to reveal the title of what the next<\/em> Deer Tick record might be.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cWe want to do a party record, recorded in New Orleans, Steve Berlin as producer, and we want to call it A Thousand Beers Later<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cOn the cover will be us at an archaeological dig, dusting off all the bottles of beer. I got the whole concept.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tThis, McCauley explains, is how pretty much all Deer Tick records have begun since 2014\u2019s Negativity. <\/em>As Deer Tick\u2019s founder, McCauley has evolved into a role akin to quarterback: He calls the plays and conceptualizes each record by envisioning album artwork and then writing backward from that. Before he knew what any of the songs on the group\u2019s latest would be, he knew it would be called Coin-O-Matic<\/em> and that its cover would depict the 20th-century tobacco vending-machine business that served as a front (and primary headquarters) for Providence\u2019s Patriarca mob family. Almost as if on cue, McCauley\u2019s cell rings with a call from his local city councilman. He ignores it. \u201cSee, I\u2019m getting into the Rhode Island thing!\u201d McCauley says. \u201cCouncilman Foley, how you doing!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tIn its earliest 2000s iterations, Deer Tick were generally composed of McCauley and whoever he found to play with. But the band\u2019s current four-piece lineup has been in place for a decade, and each member has been in the band for much longer than that. It may have taken 20 years, but McCauley seems prouder than ever to be in a collective with multiple singers and songwriters (all bandmates, apart from Chris Ryan, write and sing).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tCoin-O-Matic<\/em> represents the full realization of McCauley\u2019s collaborative dream. The record was self-produced by the entire group but helmed largely by Dennis Ryan, who engineered the record and enlisted Chris to help build studio equipment. O\u2019Neil\u2019s songs (\u201cEverything Born,\u201d \u201cEndless Loop\u201d) form an important emotional backbone to the collection. The band has figured out how to flesh out one another\u2019s songs while giving the songwriter who first came up with the idea complete creative control over the composition. It\u2019s a hard-won balance that requires complete trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cWhen we were younger, we probably had a bigger ego about our individual songs,\u201d O\u2019Neil says. \u201cWe were still trying to prove ourselves to each other. When I was younger, I had a feeling of inadequacy when I was trying to write songs along with the main songwriter in the band.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tYears ago, long before their Italian feast at the Old Canteen, McCauley pitched the quartet on a concept record of songs that sound like they could be on the jukebox in a Seventies Mafia movie. Coin-O-Matic<\/em> is not that, but it is a story about a city the four Providence natives worked on together for years. \u201cACI,\u201d McCauley\u2019s semi-fictional heartland rocker about a man locked up in Rhode Island state prison, started as a goofball soundcheck riff on Bruce Springsteen\u2019s \u201cGlory Days.\u201d (McCauley\u2019s father, a former state legislator who went to prison for tax evasion years ago, loved the song. \u201cWhen my dad heard it, he just started laughing his ass off,\u201d says McCauley.) \u201cDog Years\u201d is inspired by the senior living complex where McCauley\u2019s grandfather lived.<\/p>\n\n