Tonight, The Tonight Show will feature a musician who, about three weeks ago, was ready to start looking for a new job. Thad Cockrell will perform his song “Swingin ‘”, with some remote Roots accompaniment, in a presentation that was scheduled because Jimmy Fallon was buying a light switch at the right hardware store at the right time.
The unexpected reserve is one of those classic rock and roll fairy tales: for the past two decades, Cockrell has worked as a musician, releasing several albums under his own name and as Leagues, while also practicing his profession as a professional songwriter in Nashville. He went through countless ups and downs in his quest for that big break, but in late 2020, after releasing his sixth album, If in case you feel the same In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cockrell admits he was ready to call.
“[The album] go out and, you know, do what you can, but it’s as flat as anything can be, ”he says Rolling Stone. “I have been doing this for a long time, but to do this at a viable level, enough people need to sign up for the conversation.”
In a story he shared on Instagram that has since gone viral – and that Fallon recounted on The Tonight Show last week – Cockrell spent the early days of 2021 writing down his goals and intentions for the new year. They included finding a way to release all the songs he recorded during the pandemic, but also: “Look for a new career”.
He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do: he earned his master’s degree in family therapy and counseling and could always go back to that. A fervent cook, he was also considering working in restaurants or finding a way to bottle and sell the homemade hot sauce he had been making to friends for almost a decade. “I was just trying to find out,” says Cockrell.
When Cockrell sent his list to his management team, he already predicted that they were ready to leave him anyway. But over the phone, he was met with the news that Fallon had heard “Swingin ‘” and reserved it for The Tonight Show.
“It’s hard to explain,” says Cockrell of the lash. “Like, maybe it’s day and night, but there’s a sun shining somewhere. I couldn’t speak. I was like, ‘Are you fucking with me?’ And they said, ‘No.’ And I started to cry a lot. “
Fallon’s version of the story came at the end of last year.
A light switch in his house broke and he ventured to a hardware store to pick up the necessary supplies. “Ah, I know how to do that,” says Fallon. “I think I learned with basic electricity or something when I was in high school.” Cockrell’s music played over the speakers, causing Fallon to stop shopping and immediately pick up his phone to identify the track.
“It had a George Harrison, or ELO, Jeff Lynne feeling of vibrations,” Fallon says Rolling Stone of Cockrell’s “Swingin ‘”. “I just stayed there and listened to the entire song. I was mesmerized … I just kept listening. It’s a great song to put in the car on the way home. “
Fallon soon sent an email Tonight’s show music booker Julie Gurovitsch, asking if they could put Cockrell on the show. It was only after Cockrell was confirmed and he shared his story on Instagram that Fallon learned that his musical guest was on the verge of changing careers.
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An aura of fate surrounded If in case you feel the same practically since its beginning, although it took until this month to be fully realized. The album is a few years old and its creation and release were largely stimulated by Cockrell’s friend, artist Becca Mancari, who happened to play some of Cockrell’s songs for her Bermuda Triangle bandmate Brittany Howard. Howard fell in love with Cockrell’s music and linked him to ATO Records, which released the album last June; she also lent her voice for the album cut, “Higher”.
Cockrell started working on the album in Nashville, then went to Los Angeles to finish it. Although he was unable to connect with the producer of his dreams, Blake Mills, he ended up working with Tony Berg – who happened to share a studio with Mills. Although Mills, a talented solo artist and producer on his own, does little session work these days, he still contributed a little guitar to If in case you feel the same.
Cockrell describes If in case you feel the same like “a love letter for all the songs I was obsessed with growing up”. Each song is a tribute to a different set of artists and he adds: “It looks like a mixtape because it is what it should be. I liked music, not genre. I don’t write ‘Swingin’ ‘without David Bowie and Arcade Fire. “
“Swingin ‘” sums up the fighting spirit that Cockrell learned to embrace during a career that taught him a lot about disappointment and perseverance. “I think that’s what makes the album connect,” he says. “Because even if you didn’t make money doing something, if you make a record like it makes you a millionaire – I think it’s the only way to do that. It is as if you are fighting your own cynicism. “
That way, it makes sense that Fallon clings to “Swingin ‘”. As Cockrell himself put it in his viral video on Instagram, Fallon is the “king of the incinics”. His act revolves around big tent laughs; it is broad, silly and sincere, a little sarcastic and sassy, but never misanthropic or disenchanted. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that music – a form generally much more serious and sincere than comedy – has always been such an important component of his career.
“I would do band prints, and that was good for me because I had to open up to a lot of them,” Fallon recalls his days of stand up. “I opened for Monkees and Air Supply, Counting Crows, Fiona Apple. I played Woodstock! I think every comedian has that rock star thing somewhere in his brain, like, ‘Man, I wish I could go out there and do that’ ”. He adds: “You just want that reaction, and I think that’s what the song does – a great reaction. “
Although Cockrell may be the first Tonight’s show A reserved guest thanks to a casual trip to a hardware store, Fallon has always kept his ears open for promising and lesser-known artists. In 2011, your Late night The famous presenter of Odd Future’s national TV debut (ended with Tyler, the Creator jumping on Fallon’s back), while Nathaniel Rateliff and the Nightsweats, Alessia Cara and Julia Michaels made their late-night TV debuts on The Tonight Show (Rateliff and Cara in 2015, Michaels in 2017). Last year, Irish post-punk band Fontaines DC played The Tonight Show after Fallon heard them on Seattle’s famous radio station, KEXP.
For Fallon, these performances provide a unique joy that Cockrell will experience tonight: “Those are the moments when you’re like, ‘Yes, man, I know it’s difficult, the routine is difficult!’” Fallon says. “But it just shows, don’t give up.”