Oftentimes when describing a great live musical experience writers and fans alike will say an artist “took the crowd to church.” And there’s a good reason for that. The live experience — when it hits right — often feels like this like a collective, rousing spiritual experience shared by audience and artist alike.
Robert Randolph, the legendary New Jersey-born pedal steel guitarist, knows a thing or two about taking his audience to church. The son of a preacher, Randolph channels the passion and fire of a pastor on a Sunday pulpit — delivering rousing, moving and meaningful music and lyrics to his audiences for decades.
2025 marks a new chapter in Randolph’s career. His new release Preacher Kids marks his first solo album as well as his first release on the legendary Sun Records. Preacher Kids is a bombastic record filled with an unyielding excitement, deep soul and an infectious musicality. The album feels like a joyous rebirth for an artist who was already one of the best in the game.
Recently, we caught up with Robert Randolph to discuss his first solo record, his new band (who are preacher kids themselves), the woes of being a New York Giants fan, Sun Records, Shooter Jennings and his favorite spots to eat when he’s home in New Jersey.
This is your first solo record ever. People might not realize that this is not a Robert Randolph and the Family Band album, this is a Robert Randolph record. Why make the decision to go solo and have we seen the last of The Family Band?
My old drummer, Marcus [Randolph], got sick. He’s had a bunch of kidney issues and had a kidney transplant. So he’s trying to recover from that. The original band we kept trying to substitute over years. Once the drummer got sick, I just decided to go in a different direction and just go with a different sound. I want to let everybody heal up and see how it goes, try a new form of new inspiration and something fresh.
For this album you brought in Willie Barthell, Jay White and Tash Neal. I’m a big fan of Tash dating back to his days with The London Souls. Can you talk about why you brought in this trio of guys to be the new band?
What’s wild is we’re all really different in a sense. So this is all a sort of a new creation. Willie is this young drummer. He’s a real disciplined drummer who brings a different style of beats.
Jay White, he’s a gospel bass player that plays with a lot of feel and free form, and doesn’t think about it. He’s a really smart, intelligent player and is always bringing the noise and the energy. Then Tash…I always wanted another guitar player that could kick me in the ass. Tash is a great singer, performer, and a great guitar player.
It was just this new form of creating these songs like “Sinner,” and “Big Women.” All of these songs were actually made up as jams first. I got a habit regardless if Tash or Jay comes with something, or it comes from the recording studio or even sound check jams, or whatever … here I would hum melodies. That center melody [of “Sinner”] has been in my head for three or four years before I even recorded it.
The record is called Preacher Kids and every member of the band are sons of preachers. Did this shared experience make it easier for this new band to come together, because it sounds like you’ve been playing together your entire lives.
It’s kind of funny because all four of us are preacher’s kids from just different styles of churches. It’s kinda wild. I just saw an interview with Kurt Franklin this morning [on the day of the recording] and he said something like the Christian community is the most divided community. It has 12,000 denominations or something like that. So, you could sing a song, and if it could be a traditional gospel song, but if it’s black gospel right, depending on which type of church you’re from you sing and play the songs differently.
When you come from a black church, or you’re a preacher’s kid and we’re sharing stories throughout the years and then watching me watching all these documentaries of Aretha Franklin and Al Green and Marvin Gaye — we all share these similar stories.
I got a chance to talk to Aretha and she would tell me certain stories. There’s something common to these themes and all of the things we sort of laugh and joke about and some of these songs [on the album] come out of the stories combined of all the preacher kids everywhere.
I was reading about the record that the songs we’re hearing are exactly how you’re playing them live. I’ve talked with numerous artists this summer and some like to completely rearrange the songs they record for the live experience, while you’re sticking to the recordings. Has this always been your style or does it vary the record or even the song?
Man, it’s always different. It’s kind of like the better the musicians are the more everybody wants to add to whatever’s been recorded. So naturally, it just happens. We’ve all seen any version of Stevie Wonder and his band, or Jimi Hendrix and A Band of Gypsies … all of those songs are different. Every single live recording you hear it’s all different. The riffs are different. I enjoy both of them. Sometimes, I’ll say, ‘Hey, let’s just stick to the record version.’ Then sometime we’ll be in the middle of the show, and it comes up and everybody feels good, and we just add things.
That’s awesome. I did see the band live last year at Sea.Hear.Now and you all were great. I was stoked to see you because I always missed the band when you come to town.
It was so wild because we were actually finished with the album, but we were stuck in between. It was like “Hey, should we play the new song?” And [the band was] like, “No, we don’t really know the new songs because we haven’t played them yet.” (laughs) I think the only one we played was “7 Generations.” It’s always strange even when I’m doing record store performances — you never really know the song until you actually have performed it many times.
You worked with Shooter Jennings on this album as producer. What did he bring to the table?
Shooter was the great denominator. He was a great mediator and arranger for really understanding that we could write songs from jams, or we could finish a song and have a great good song from these jams. Most times many producers would say, ‘Let me hear you write a song on acoustic.’ Then a producer wants to put all of the instrumentation and arranging together. So you have this worded song. You really just have these words, and now you’re trying to figure out how you get the best feeling around these words that you wrote on your porch one day on acoustic guitar or in the room. So Shooter understood like, ‘Hey, man when I watch you, you guys go off and you do all these other things, so let’s start out with that and let’s just write the songs from that.’ Even though they start as jams he’s like ‘Let’s make them into great blues rock, soulful songs.’
By the tone of your voice when describing the process it seems that focusing on building songs through the music before the lyrics was more exciting for you.
Yeah, I would say exciting, because we got a lot of chances to explore and do all of these different things. We probably wrote like 40 songs for this record. So we were trying to figure out what were our favorites. There’s probably seven more songs that are unbelievable that are not even on there. But for me, it goes with the question you asked earlier about the live version. I just know that probably six months to a year from now the live version of these songs will be better than what’s recorded. That’s just naturally what happens for us. I know they’ll be different and have more elements to it because you just keep expanding on it. So it was really important to have Shooter understand that. I’ve worked with many producers, and it’s kind of like, ‘Oh, no, you can’t put the guitar there.’ Well, why can’t you? Or, it’s like, ‘Well how about we have no steel guitar.’
It’s funny because we were all talking about it at the bar last night. Do you know how many conversations I had with producers, who say, ‘Let’s cut out the guitar?’ My response, always be like, ‘Hey! Have you ever just seen a moment where Jimi Hendrix is just standing there and not playing his guitar? Have you ever seen a moment where there’s no guitar and Stevie Ray Vaughan is just standing there singing with no guitar?’ It’s so hard for producers to understand that we’re guitar players, solo guitar players that sing and play guitar. But imagine … which song is it that Jimi Hendrix is standing there doing a whole verse with no guitar.
Probably it’s the one that never made the record. If that was me in your place I probably would have been insulted. It’s essentially, tell me you’ve never listened to anything I’ve ever done without telling me.
The guitar helps us all sing better and have the feeling because that’s just the type of artist we are. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve had to explain that and then have to fight with producers. They’ve told me, ‘There can’t be a guitar in this verse.’ I’m like … wait, what?
It’s like it’s telling Patrick Ewing not to do a fadeaway jump shot.
Yeah, yeah. Never do that again. (laughs)
Circling back to the record for a second. This really feels like a bit of a rebirth for you. It’s just bursting with this new energy.
There’s an excitement. Those guys are all younger than me. So you got young people with new, exciting energy, and that was not necessarily the case [with the Family Band] but it’s happened to a lot of musicians as they all get older. There’s a quote that I remember from Carlos Santana where said, ‘When I go in the studio, I go in with all of the hip and cool people from today, not the people that were cool 50 years ago.’ You just get these new perspectives and this new energy. Tash is a guy that could overtake any song at any time, which is a great thing.You just gotta let it happen.
Pedal steel has all of these characters. You could do rhythm, you could play chords, or just scream and solo on a thing all day. Having the advantage of having [Tash] there helps me get into all of the different other beautiful elements of the guitar. That happens in a song like “7th Generation.” With “When Will the Love Rain Down” featuring Judith Hill and “Big Women” — my playing was exactly what we jammed on. There were no overdubs. It was kind of funny because Shooter was saying he just listened to “When Will the Love Rain Down” and he was trying to figure out how to create a song around. I sent that song to people and they will always be like, ‘Can you just take the guitar out of here in this spot?’ Judith Hill just wrote and sang the lyrics all around the atmosphere of what happened.
Yeah, that’s a beautiful song. When I listen to her sing it feels like the opposite. It feels like the lyrics were written first and you guys developed the song around it.
I love it. For me, I think it’s some of the best playing that I’ve ever done. That’s why we left it like that. I told the guys if I try to overdub it is not gonna have anywhere near that feeling, because that feeling just came from being in the moment. We can go back and be a guitar nerd and try to do this and do that but it ain’t gonna be the same feeling.
You mentioned the different ways you’re playing your guitar, which is a very specific type of guitar you’ve been playing almost your whole life. How cool is it to find new ways to explore this instrument that has become synonymous with your career?
This whole process was just amazing man, you know. We got so many other great songs and a lot of it came from out of freedom. Shooter is just such a great guy to work with because he understands that process.
This is your first record on Sun Records which is one of the most famous labels going. How does it feel to be on something with such a rich illustrious history like that?
Oh, it’s great because they have a really cool brand, and it was like, you know, I have. I’ve had a you know a bunch of musicians call me and go, hey, how’s it working with sun? And it’s kinda like, cause they, you know, it looks cool. They do a great job with the brand and they have history. They are really focused on having guitar players help with the rebranding and dive into the history of their catalog. It’s a great kind of partnership with them.
Your music has been in commercials. It’s been in the NBA. But nothing brought a smile more to my face than hearing you on Amazon Prime Thursday Night Football. It’s probably the highlight of any Giants Thursday game to be honest. Can you talk about being involved with a cultural phenomenon? For some, it’s a paycheck. But you’re now part of the presentation of football — something musicians like Hank Williams have become synonymous for.
You’re a sports fan, right? I don’t know if you play music or not [Writer’s Note: not at all] but you know if the NBA or NFL calls you to do that you wouldn’t even give a shit about how much money they’re paying you, right? Because you’re just like, ‘Oh, man, it’s kind of one of our dreams!’ It’s everybody’s dream. Literally every artist is like, ‘How don’t you get that? I want that!’ We’re all sports fans, and we all want to watch the game and have our songs in them. So it’s a satisfying, gratifying accomplishment because they definitely don’t pay you a lot of money…
Because of the exposure.
Yeah, it’s exposure, and we love to do it. Everybody’s watching those games. We all have like business people and they’re like, ‘We’re trying to get more money out of them!’ And it’s like bro, stop calling them for more money that’s not what they do. In some cases like I did the Friday night Knicks thing and they would come around and ask for a specific song. In this case Thursday Night Football was thinking of using another song or another artist. I had to say, ‘Listen, guys, Hank Williams, Jr. sang the official Monday Night Football song and none of that song had anything to do with what’s on his record.’ He created that, and everybody wanted to be in that position which actually he didn’t even have to put out another record ever again because, you know, Monday Night Football.
I just have to ask for my own edification — what’s your football team?
Giants.
They’re the Giants alright, but hey at least we’ve seen four Super Bowl wins in our lifetime.
Hey, I went to the last two of them that they won.
That’s pretty amazing. Do you have hope for him this year?
One of my Italian friends, who’s just like a regular bricklayer in Jersey, we have had this running joke for the last couple of years. He’ll say ‘Hey, what are you doing on Sunday?’ and I say, ‘You know I’m gonna go pick some apples or pick some pumpkins because no need to be watching the Giants.’
I can’t say I haven’t done that or gone to target.
My wife is actually happy because she’ll say ‘Oh, I thought you wanted to watch football today?’ And I’ll respond “No, honey, we’re going to hang out today.”
Maybe we’re better this year? I mean our schedule sucks, but we could be better.
Listen, we just want to watch some good football. You want to see them throw the ball downfield to the ball. I’ve seen Russell Wilson at a bunch of the Knicks playoff games, and every time I see him I’d be like, “Hey, Russ, just throw the ball downfield, that’s all. That’s all Giants fans want to see!”
No, it’s so sad.
It’s like we haven’t seen a ball thrown down a field in like five years.
And if it gets downfield, it’s because someone broke a tackle.
If you’re throwing the ball downfield, every Giants fan will be happy. If the games are competitive and the ball’s going downfield every Giants fan will feel like there’s some progress whether we lose the game or not.
Let’s transition to something we can enjoy talking about — food! You’re a Jersey guy when you’re home what are you go-to must eats?
If I’m going on the road for a long time I gotta go to New York to Katz’s Deli, of course. But when I’m home … there’s a place called John’s Market. It’s run by old Italian guys and it’s been in Orange for almost 100 years. It’s got the best chicken parm. You’re gonna eat the best meatballs that they make. And the owner, he’s a real 90 year old Jersey Italian in Orange. There’s also Town Hall Deli in South Orange. And order broccoli rabe at Porta in Asbury Park!
What are five things you’re excited for in 2025?
Just happiness, man. Going out and being able to travel and play these songs, and really excited to go out and perform these songs, you know, because I think it’s some of my best work in a band is exciting, and they’re great. And there’s all of this new energy.
