Drivin’ n’ Cryin’s ’97 Album Retitled, Re-Released

In 1997, after an extended run on Island Records and a one-album deal for Geffen, Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ took it back to indie basics for their seventh album, appropriately self-titled and released on Clay Harper’s local label of that time, Casino Music. Produced by onetime Stiff Records/Jam/Clash associate Kosmo Vinyl, a friend of Harper’s, the album was a hodgepodge of new, old (a couple songs dated back to Kevn Kinney’s previous Milwaukee-based band The Prosecutors) and even a cover (John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane”).

Long out of print, the album is being reissued (on vinyl for the first time) with fresh remastering (courtesy Chris Griffin) by New West Records on July 27th, bearing new cover artwork (courtesy Kosmo) and a new title: Too Late to Turn Back Now!

As Kinney remembers, the album originally took life as a series of 45 r.p.m. singles for Casino. “Kosmo had done a couple of Clay’s singles…production and artwork… I owned every Stiff 45 and would drive from Milwaukee to Chicago to get the newest ones! I was so honored to have [Kosmo’s] energy collaborating with us in this small, hot studio! This is why I do this. This is who I am. Gone are the major labels. Gone are the tour buses. And the trappings of big empty studios and expenses,” Kinney recalls of the recording process. “None of those things have anything to do with making art. Well, one single turned to two, and since we were already four songs in, let’s add a few more and make an album!”