Eddie 9V. Remember that name.
In 2024, the Georgia-born Southern blues band dropped their record Saratoga on the famed label, Ruf Records. The title track is an explosion of blues bolstered by searing and soaring vocals, an infectious hook and blazing guitar work. The single “Love Moves Slow” is an absolute bop of a slow jam and has become the band’s highest streamed song.
The release of Saratoga put the band not only in the ears of blues enthusiasts, but also in the mind of Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys who signed the band to his label Easy Eye Sounds. It also put the band in the ears of Oscar nominated actress and current Avenger, Florence Pugh who posted about the band on her Instagram stories. The confluence of all these events is an obvious indication that Eddie 9V is destined for big things, so it’s time to hop on their bandwagon now.
Recently we caught up with Eddie 9V himself, Brooks Mason, to discuss the band’s 2024 album Saratoga, signing with Dan Auerbach’s label, and an unexpected fan in the form of Florence Pugh as the band gets ready to perform at Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Festival in Augusta, NJ on Saturday May 31.
I wanted to start things off with something in your bio that really caught my eye. It says you’re a guy who loves to tell stories, and on Saratoga, your more recent release, you got 12 of them to tell. Do you think that kind of storytelling type of songwriting really lends itself to the type of music you play?
This record wasn’t supposed to end up being 12 different songs on the album. We started out recording out in Denver with Nathaniel Raetliff’s drummer Pat Meese. We did “Saratoga” “Halo” and “Delta” up there. We were supposed to go back but we’re all the way in Atlanta, and he was all the way in Denver. [The record took] a year and a half, but I like to honestly make records within a month or two months. That’s why every song kind of sounds different, because you hear the album, and you’ll kind of hear what I was kind of listening to during that song. You have a song like “Red River” which is extremely JJ Cale based. A song like “Truckee” sounds more like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. So that’s why a lot of the songs sound different.
So were you happy with the way it turned out, even though it was not your traditional way of doing things?
You know at first, honestly, I wasn’t happy. It’s not that I didn’t like the album. It just took so long to make, and by the time it came out we were playing Saratoga (the album) on the road for almost a year and a half before we even released it. I was definitely glad to get it out. But now that I’m listening back to it, the songs are kind of growing on me, which is kind of weird, because normally I get sick of hearing them. But now I’m just kind of rediscovering it.
You say you were playing that album on the road a year, a year and a half before you released it. Would it be safe to say you have some new stuff cooking, and are probably workshopping it on the road??
To be honest we don’t really have any new songs that we’re doing. If anything we need to be playing more Saratoga songs. Man, a lot of the songs are just kind of tough to play. They have horns and take a song, for example, like a song called “Tides.” It’s really hard to play that guitar line and sing like … it’s almost impossible. That’s why we’re getting a new guitar player in the band so he can take over those grooves while I can focus on singing.
I just interviewed Chris Wood from The Wood Brothers last week, and he was talking about how one of his favorite things to do is to produce the song and then figure out how to recreate it for the live experience. Do you find yourself doing that? And is that something for you to get joy out of, or it can be a bit frustrating?
A perfect example of that would be a song called “Halo.” For the longest time we played it like the way we recorded it, but it morphed into this whole thing. Now, we do this thing where it’s literally like boiling rice. We build it up, and it starts boiling. It gets to a point where it’s just so like we’re going like 97, 98, 99, and then we stop. The whole crowd, it’s the breath, is just sucked out. Then we land on the downbeat even twice as loud. We learned how to do that from years and years of being on the road. I grew up playing all the joints where we had to keep the crowd’s attention. And by crowd I mean all the drunks in the bar. I think that really taught me a lot of lessons, and I’m still using it to this day.
Reminds me of that scene of the Blues Brothers.Â
Oh, yeah, the chicken wire.
Listening to the record, I’m just blown away by that soulful wail that you have. It’s just awesome stuff. Can you talk about the inspiration for your vocals?
Well, I wish I could say I worked for years on a ranch or something. I wish I had a cool story man to be honest, but you know it really just came from all the bars. We played so many smoky bars and it was just all those years of learning of Skynrd songs and learning to play Howling Wolf. Honestly, I guess my biggest vocal influence would probably be a local legend here in Atlanta, called Sean Costello and he died in 2008. He was my age [when he passed] and I never got to meet him. Chad [Mason] the keyboard player in my band used to play with him all the time. I used to check him out all the time and he was my y idol man I learned all his songs and the way he sang.
You released this album on the Ruf Records – a label that has one hell of a history and current roster. How did that kind of change the trajectory of the band for this release. Because all of a sudden you guys are in a lot more places playing bigger, more high profile shows. 
It’s kind of bittersweet, because we just ended our deal. We did three albums with Ruf and it ended perfectly. It ended well, we’re still all on good terms.
Basically, I was in an Indie rock band for a long time and we were spinning our gears. We lived in a double wide trailer, and I said screw it. I set up one mic and I distorted the hell out of it, and I made a demo record. I sent it to Alligator Records and I sent it to Ruf Records. I sent a typewritten letter just saying, “Hey, I think I’d be a good young addition.” Alligator said the record was too distorted, and Ruf Records said they loved it. So he (Thomas Ruf) signed me, and honestly man we were just doing straight up blues. It was just for the longest time we were going to be an early ’60s blues band and that’s what we wanted to do.
Then we got managers, and they said, “Well, you know the blues is great. But let’s try to write a song that you know people want to sing and come to the shows.” And so that’s kind of what happened with Saratoga. Well, really, it happened with Capricorn. We started writing a little bit better music. Then I started noticing people come to the show singing those songs. So I was like, “Wow, maybe we need to delve into that.” And so honestly, man, you know that we did that, and Ruf launched us from a bar band playing around Atlanta to to playing all over around the world at blues festivals.
Saratoga was our last record on the Ruf, and we just signed with Easy Eye Sounds, which is Dan Auerbach and Concord. So we’re moving on up. We’re excited, but I’ll never forget, and I’ll never not mention Ruf Records for being there at the beginning,
How’d you guys end up working with Dan Auerbach?
It really was the perfect timing. It dropped from the sky. I was walking down to my mailbox in my apartment complex, and we just literally put out Saratoga maybe a week and a half before. I get a call from a manager, and he says, “Hey, Dan brought you up in one of their label meetings where he said he wanted to personally meet you.” I went and met him up in Nashville at their label party. I made sure to bring him some really cool records. I went record hunting that morning because I know he’s a record guy. So I found him some really cool old funk records, and I gave it to him. So then I went up to write with him and we were supposed to do two days. He extended it to three and we wrote like eight songs. It was crazy. And I think hopefully, we can start recording in September.
How does that work with a guy like that? He’s a musical genius. What did you take away from those three days like? Did your perspective on anything change?
He’s such a great songwriter and such a great person. I’ve been writing on my own for a bit and with friends. It was one of those things where I was on a three-hour drive home and I was like, “Holy shit! That just happened!” That’s when it kind of sank in. When I was doing it. It just felt like writing; it was crazy. The first hour I was with him he brought out Elvis’s old piano player. We wrote a song in 30 min, and then he brought out another guy. Then he brought out a guy that wrote a “Long Tall Woman in a Black Dress” for The Hollies. It’s pretty crazy. Your mind starts to slip, and you look to the right and you see all these Grammys. But then you mentally have to slap yourself and just say, all right, focus.
You’re doing the big fest the Crawfish Fest this weekend. I was talking to Galactic, who’s also playing the fest, they they have a little bit of a different mentality when they play an outdoor festival, as opposed to a club show, because club show people are there to see them, whereas you have to fight a little harder to win the crowd over. What’s your take on this?
Honestly, we’re such a loud band when we get to the festival [it feels like] we can finally let our hair down a bit and actually play the way we want to play. We play a lot of these clubs man, and there’d be no one there. So the sound guy would be really pissed. But usually now we have a little bit of a crowd, so it kind of soaks up the sound. [At festivals] we can turn up our amps from a three to like Spinal Tap — an 11 or 12. We’re more free at a festival. It can be a little weird sometimes people are 30 to 50 feet away from the stage. But we don’t care. Honestly, I’d say half the shows we just play to each other in the band — if it’s a bad show, if it’s a good show, whatever.
To close things out what are 5 things you’re really stoked about, whether it’s for the band, for yourself, for 20 rest of 2025.
Man, you know I’m stoked that I’m as of now I’m not dying for rent. I’m not selling my gear when rent comes up. I’m finally making a little bit of money now. I’m still not making anything right now, but more than I did. I just took my wife on a vacation. That was, that was a 1st for us.
We’re able to add a little bit more people and make it more of a family, because I always want to add to the family.
The other night our monthly listeners on Spotify jumped 50,000, which that’s never happened in my whole career. Normally it jumps around 2,000 a day, but it jumped 50,000 in one night. So I’m stoked for just people finding out about us.
The actress Florence Pugh shared about us in a recent story on her Instagram. And that’s just crazy man.
I guess the last thing to wrap it up is I’m just to be happy where I’m at man. Even if this is as big as I get I can go home and tell my grandkids like I lived a hell of a life.
Oh … and I’ll say one last thing. It was pretty crazy. I actually DMed Florence to thank her, and she DMed me back. Dude. It was crazy.
Eddie 9V performs at The Pavilion Stage at Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Fest at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, NJ on Saturday May 31 at 5:15 p.m. Click here for tickets.
