Guided by the restless visions of brothers Brad and Matt Shultz, Cage the Elephant has reached commercial and creative heights the now-fortysomething boys could barely fathom growing up via modest means in Bowling Green, Ky. Yet it’s been anything but a seamless glide to fame, fortune and Grammy wins — ceaseless touring, personal setbacks and internal band squabbles marked Cage the Elephant’s bumpy rise to prominence. Most prominently, there are the various, often precarious, travails of their dynamic frontman Matt, whose most recent dust-ups featured an arrest for possession of loaded firearms and a hospital stay spurred by the significant side effects of a prescription drug he was taking to lessen his long-running bouts of depression. Matt’s issues — which also included a divorce from his second wife before remarrying her late last year — delayed the writing, recording and release of their sixth studio album, Neon Pill, which finally dropped in January.
The new record largely picks up where Cage the Elephant’s last album, 2019’s excellent Social Cues, left off, employing the sleek sonics of ace producer John Hill to ear-wormy results. A mid-album trio of tunes highlights the band’s evolution from straight-ahead guitar rock to more diverse stylings: “Float Into the Sky,” a woozy psych-pop rumination that culminates with a trippy fadeout; the driving, Strokes-like drums and rhythm guitars of “Metaverse”; and the piano ballad “Out Loud,” which finds Matt addressing his fragile psyche via modest vocals that bely his usual Jagger-esque delivery: “Man, I really messed up now/Too afraid to say it out loud/I can barely breathe, who’m I tryin’ to be/I’m still tryin’ to figure it out.”
Personal demons aside, that’s not to say Matt has been surprised by Cage the Elephant’s longevity and success.
“From a really young age, I’d always imagined having a lifelong career,” Matt said in a recent interview with Spin. “Dream big, right? And it’s been tenfold more fruitful and more special than I could have ever dreamed. In an odd way, having gone through so much, it’s really energized us as a band moving forward. Yeah, 18 years in and to still be captivating people’s imaginations is pretty amazing, honestly.”
Cage the Elephant plays Riverbend Music Center on Aug. 30 at 6:30 p.m. Info: riverbend.org.
This story is featured in CityBeat's Aug. 21 print edition.
