Nat Myers comes over to Europe for the first time with "Yellow Peril"

“I’m always searching,” says the Korean-American blues poet Nat Myers. “Itinerancy is something that I’ve owned. I’ve done a lot of traveling, but lately it’s started to seep into my songwriting and my music. Life just feels simpler on the road. You’re just trying to get to the next place in one piece.” His debut album, Yellow Peril, is full of jumpy blues songs about hopping trains, burning up highways, running from some danger but also running toward something harder to define and even harder to catch. Full of intelligence and soul, contradiction and nuance, these songs reflect his restlessness and wanderlust in their fleet riffs, complex rhythms, and quick tempos, as he draws from a variety of stylistic strains and historical threads to weave a complex epic about life in post-pandemic America. 

During Covid videos Nat uploaded caught the ear of Dan Auerbach, the Black Keys frontman and founder of Easy Eye Sound Records, who reached out and asked to meet up in Nashville. Myers made several trips down to Nashville to co-write with Auerbach, famed songwriter Pat McLaughlin, and blues legend Alvin Youngblood Hart. Rather than record at Auerbach’s studio—where most of Easy Eye’s artists work—they set up a makeshift studio at Auerbach’s home, a 100-year-old stone house on several acres in Nashville. It turned out to be a more apt setting for Myers’ folk blues than a windowless studio, as though they were capturing a bit of American history in the ambiance of the front room and in the stomp of Myers’ foot on the hardwood floor. Yellow Peril is the result.

Steeped in history, in poetry, in old 78s, Yellow Peril nevertheless sounds current, capturing its creator’s idiosyncrasies as well as the country’s contradictions. Not only did these songs help Myers connect with his own heritage, but they allow him to keep moving through America—onward as well as upward. “I wasn’t raised with a clear understanding of my Asianness, and I didn’t really have a consciousness about who I was as a Korean American until very recently. I got very militant about it during the pandemic, and while I’ve chilled out a little since then, I’m all about Yellow Power. I want this record to raise my folks up.” 

In 2024 Nat Myers will be over at least twice, with his first ever Europe tour announced today:

23/01: Nancy, FR - L'Autre Canal
24/01: Besançon, FR - La Rodia
25/01: Clemmont-Ferrand, FR - La Coopérative de Mai
26/01: Orléans, FR - L'Astrolabe
27/01: Rouen, FR - Le 106
28/01: Paris, FR - La Maroquinerie
29/01: Lint, BE - 't Groot Verzet
30/01: Nijmegen, NL - Merleyn
31/01: Middelburg, NL - De Spot
01/02: Laval, FR – 6PAR4
02/02: Bordeaux, FR - Rock School Barbey
03/02: Payrin-Augmontel, FR - Festival Autan de Blues
04/02: Miramont de Guyenne, FR - Staccato