Soundbites: King Tuff's Homecoming 

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• Courtesy of Luke Awtry
• King Tuff

Despite all the years of music lessons I took and all the wonderful instruction I received from a host of school music teachers, it was David Bowie, the Thin White Duke himself, who gave me the best advice on making music. OK, he didn't give it directly to me, per se, but in the excellent documentary David Bowie: The Last Five Years, which chronicles the British singer's final album before his death in 2016, Bowie offered an essential tip for any artist.

"If you feel safe in the area you're working in, you're not working in the right area," Bowie said, referring to artists' efforts to fulfill fans' expectations. "Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting."

I've never had much patience for musicians who keep releasing the same record over and over, never changing their sound or challenging their fans. I'd much rather see an artist step outside their comfort zone, even if they fail. (Shout-out to T-Pain, who released an Auto-Tune-free album of covers this week, including the rapper's take on Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." Who saw that coming?)

That sort of risk-taking is one of the (many) reasons I love the new King Tuff record so much. Brattleboro's own indie rock royalty released his latest LP, Smalltown Stardust, earlier this year. The album is full of mentions and callbacks to the Green Mountains that King Tuff (real name Kyle Thomas) left years ago to reside in Los Angeles. As he dreamed of a return to more rural settings, his sound followed suit: The stoner metal and psych-rock tendencies of his earlier work shifted into harmony-rich, '70s folk-rock-inspired tones. The result is an album drenched in thick sunlight and the smell of pine needles, a get-back-to-nature catechism for post-COVID-19 nomads.

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"I think I've been trying to get back to the woods ever since I left them 12 years ago," Thomas told me from the road as he prepared for a homecoming show at the Stone Church in Brattleboro on Friday, March 25. "The woods seem to be calling louder than ever before, but it's like I have some mission I need to accomplish before I can rightfully go back."

The sense of wonder and peace in the natural world that permeates Smalltown Stardust has been on Thomas' mind for a while.

"I've wanted to make this record for a long time," he revealed. "I wanted to make a real Sunday morning kinda record. Just something nice and warm and easy."

Thomas received invaluable help on his mission to folk out from his LA housemate, singer-songwriter and producer Sasami Ashworth, who performs as SASAMI. The two have been collaborating since they moved in during the pandemic, cowriting and coproducing each other's albums.

"She really helped bring it to fruition with her sweet sense of melody and harmony," Thomas said of Ashworth, also praising "her skills at arranging. It feels like the record 40-year-old King Tuff needed to make."

Even his longing for Vermont may have rubbed off on Ashworth. Thomas said the California native fell in love with heavier music after he took her to see some of his fellow Brattleboro musicians, the metal outfit Barishi.

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"She wasn't in the mood to go to a show, but I dragged her to it anyway," he recounted. "The minute [Barishi] started playing, I turned around, and she was just losing her mind."

Ashworth channeled her newfound love of metal into her highly regarded 2022 album, Squeeze. She also took Barishi out on the road as her backing band. Thomas described seeing a band he'd known since its members were kids playing stadiums with Sasami as a "joy" — and another distinction for a small Vermont town whose music scene continues to punch above its weight.

"I honestly don't know what it is about Brattleboro," Thomas said. He described the town of just over 12,000 people as feeling like both the "center of the universe, somehow" and "nowhere, but in a good way."

Playing a show at the Stone Church, a venue Thomas considers one of his favorites in the country, should bring an extra layer of feel-good vibes to his upcoming visit. While he has no immediate plans to return home for good, he envisions himself in a less urban setting than LA.

"My ultimate dream is to buy a small wooden hut in the forest with a painting studio and many plants and books," he said. "I'd paint by day and write weird little tunes all night. Then the gnome will truly be home."