Pete Yorn stops in Arizona for two intimate shows

This week, Arizona gets a double dose of Pete Yorn. He’ll be in Phoenix on December 11 at Crescent Ballroom and in Tucson at La Rosa on December 12 on his You & Me solo acoustic tour.

He dropped “The Hard Way” in 2024, and it’s a succinct and gorgeous rootsy record that wastes none of its 25-minute, 26-second run time. Its directness is part of what makes it so haunting. In previous Yorn records, there’s often a sonic lift that sweeps through, creating a mood shift. This one, well, it says what it has to say in its moment and leaves you in its emotional wake. It’s country-tinged and carries with it the heart and soul that genre exemplifies.

On the musical aspect of the record, Yorn says it’s reflective of what he’s been doing live.

“As far as the production goes, I worked with someone I’ve never worked with before — Josh Gudwin. In hindsight, though, I’ve been playing so many acoustic shows, and the majority of my shows have been these one-person solo shows. Maybe some of the production unconsciously came from wanting to represent that,” Yorn says.

The two had worked together years ago, and in recent years, Gudwin reached out to Yorn.

“We had sort of kept in touch, but not really. Then he texted me. He mixes for a lot of really big pop records, like for huge artists like Bad Bunny, and has won multiple Grammy Awards. He’s also really into Nick Drake, the Eagles and Zeppelin, and a lot of roots music. He said he’d love to work together, so it started there.”

A health incident put things on hold, and then Yorn’s dad passed away. He also realized while writing one of the record’s tracks, “Someday, Someday,” that it was about a friend who passed away. A lot of loss and feelings directly related to that were behind his compositions.

“I think that’s where the title ‘The Hard Way’ came from. It was like all through all the adversity I had to face, I came out realizing that you gotta just fucking put your head down and get right into what you’re doing. You can’t avoid any of this stuff. It just informed who I was in the studio. So that’s all in there — all part of the personal journey. Coupled with working with Josh and his meticulous process, it all created a record that’s unique as far as my other records go.”

You’ll get to hear songs from the record at the show, but Yorn says he doesn’t like to have a set list or too much of a plan. “A non-plan is my plan.”

“I’ve just done so much work and so much practice and know so many songs, I can pivot on a dime. I just like to feel the room. I take requests. If someone wants to hear a certain song or deep cut, I’m like ‘fuck yeah, let’s do that!’”

No booze is a more recent part of his personal path, and while he says it wasn’t necessarily a problem, not drinking took some getting used to.

“It (drinking) was just slowing me down,” he says.

“It’s like that Verve song — ‘The Drugs Don’t Work,’ it was just slowing me down and making things worse. Coupled with that health scare, I just said ‘here’s a good time to stop’ and when it was time to get back on stage, there was no buffer, none of that lubrication I’ve had since I was 18.”

It wasn’t easy, but he went head-on at it. A number of the first shows, he says, involved a panic attack, but time and perseverance made it better. “I got to the point where I’d talk about it on stage if I needed to. Like, ‘Hey, if I run off stage, I’ll be back, I’m just overwhelmed.’ Now, it’s way better. I’m able to enjoy the shows so much, and I’m grateful for that.” 

I tell him that what he’s saying reminds me of the Buddhist adage, ‘chop wood, carry water,’ that extols the benefits of persevering in the face of, well, any or everything sometimes.

“Chop wood, carry water was my mantra, especially during the pandemic. I’d be walking around the house thinking ‘holy shit, what are we doing? I’ll just chop wood, carry water, just break it down to the most simple thing.’ Or when I’m on stage, I talk about how in this crazy AI age, you don’t know what’s real. The only thing that I know is real is me holding that piece of wood, the guitar in my hand on that stage, singing these songs in my own fucked up way. That’s real, and I can trust that, know what I mean?”

Pete Yorn plays at 8 p.m. on December 11 at the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix and at 7:30 p.m. on December 12 at La Rosa in Tucson.