SUSTO, an acclaimed alt-country/folk rock/americana/indie band with a “die-hard fanbase” is slated to perform at The Arts Campus at Willits (TACAW) this coming Saturday evening, Aug. 5, for a standing-room show. If that sounds like a lot of genres, that’s because SUSTO is intriguingly hard to pin down. While the group’s latest album has the rhythmic feel of a rock band, confessional songwriting and catchy acoustic guitar licks are reminiscent of classic country and americana. Their unique sound, blended with electric underpinnings, sometimes verges into the psychedelia, and it is sure to provide an engaging and satisfying musical experience.
The show at TACAW marks one of SUSTO’s first stops on a tour celebrating the launch of their newest record, “My Entire Life,” released July 28. The Carleston, South Carolina-based band has released four previous full-length EPs and now shares a record label with the likes of The String Cheese Incident, Neko Case, Lucinda Williams and Ben Folds, to name a few.
Justin Osborne is the band’s frontman and lead writer, and this album chronicles his experiences over the past several years with illness, divorce and other challenges that life brings. Ultimately, the songs inspire an urgency “to keep living” and “distill wisdom from experience,” and all with a foot-tapping groove.
The band’s name originates from the Latin American concept “susto;” a “folk illness” characterized by somatic suffering due to the soul existing in a state of fear, or being displaced from one’s body — an experience akin to a panic attack. Osborne learned the term as an anthropology student, a pursuit which also landed him in Cuba for some time in the early 2010s. Osborne, feeling he’d hit a wall with music at age 26 after writing songs since 14, was in search of a different path.
However, he ended up surrounded again by musicians who, after hearing his songs, encouraged him to give a career in music a real go. Osborne jokes that he got knuckle tattoos (“Acid Boys”) after that to keep him out of any other field, and dove into writing and performing his music.
He moved back to the states and landed in Charleston, in his home state and a town he hadn’t fully explored. Long-time producer Wolfgang “Wolfy” Zimmerman connected Osborne with SUSTO co-founder Johnny Delaware, and the two instantly meshed musically. They went on to record what would be SUSTO’s first self-titled studio album released in 2014.
Many of Osborne’s lyrics deal with the struggles we face in life, loss and the challenges that often come with navigating major changes. Just as much, however, they extol finding joy, hope and love amid the madness. This mirrors Osbornes own philosophy of “finding ways to carry on and manifest happiness” throughout life’s “mosaic” of ups and downs. Osborne writes that music is like therapy to him, and his confessional style of songwriting “is [his] way of trying to make sense of the chaos — good and bad — around [him].”
Combined with the full-band sound, Osborne has a way of singing that makes you feel like you’re listening to a classic rock song. But, listening closer, the lyrics reveal themselves as poetry. SUSTO’s sound will have you dancing and grooving all night, and their lyricism will have you reflecting into the next day.
Osborne looks at music as a way to remind us that we are never alone in our dichromatic experiences of “being worn down and chasing dreams,” and writes: “the experience of sharing these songs with our audience is something I’m incredibly grateful for.”
SUSTO co-founder Johnny Delaware, who is also a collaborator on SUSTO’s latest release, will open for the band this Saturday, Aug. 5. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm. For tickets, visit TACAW.org