The Pink Stones

“This record was me trying to take everything I love as a listener and a player and shove it all into one thing without it sounding random,” says Hunter Pinkston, former punk turned cosmic country auteur, describing You Know Who, the boisterous, ambitious sophomore album by his band The Pink Stones. Ostensibly they play country music, yet all the pedal steel sobs, the two-steppinʼ rhythms, twangy harmonies, and lyrics about broken hearts and long days on the road are launchpads for wild experiments and unexpected stylistic forays. “Thereʼs obviously a lot of country and rock in our music, but thereʼs a lot of gospel and soul and psych and dub. I really wanted to get all of those things living peacefully together in one record.” Made up almost entirely of Athens musicians who play in other bands around town (including former members of the Drive-By Truckers and the Glands), The Pink Stones match their frontmanʼs vast musical vocabulary while adding their own twists to spacey honkytonk, pedal-to-the-metal trucker anthems, and ecstatic gospel. Together, they have the range to be whatever they need to be at any given moment, embracing the spirit of musical freedom that has animated the local music scene for more than forty years. Yet, The Pink Stones sound like no other Athens band. “We have the space to be free here in Athens and do whatever we want,” says Pinkston. “We get to do our own thing, and there are a million other really good bands doing their own things here as well. Everyone is friends with everyone else, and everyoneʼs doing something constantly, so youʼre always hearing something new. And you always have to stay on your toes.”