Stephen Stills’ New Band, the Rides, Play a ‘Word Game’ – Song Premiere
Click to listen to The Rides’ “Word Game”
With their new blues-rock group the Rides, Stephen Stills and the Electric Flag’s Barry Goldberg reached across generations to team with guitar wizard Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The trio are readying their debut album, Can’t Get Enough, for this summer, and they dipped into some old favorites for the record. Here, the Rides dig up “Word Game” – originally released on Stills’ second solo album in 1971 – and adapt it into a diesel-fueled jam with crunchy guitar riffs and loads of cowbell.
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“To me, this is classic Stephen: conveying the type of message about the world that he is so well known for,” Shepherd tells Rolling Stone. “He’s just calling people on their hypocritical bullshit.” Stills had a blast making the track electric, and the band whipped it into shape on the strength of drummer Chris Layton’s chops. “It probably could have used an extra day of practice, but because Chris’ groove is so good, we chose to go with what we had,” Stills says.
Can’t Get Enough was inspired by Stills and Mike Bloomfield’s 1968 album Super Session – which Goldberg played on – and contains group-written originals and covers of Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Iggy Pop and the Stooges and more. It’s out August 27th.