Purgatory

Purgatory is Tyler Childers' debut album. It’s produced by Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, who is famous for being the sound engineer for Johnny Cash’s American Recordings.

Tyler was delighted to work together with Sturgill, as he stated in a June 2017 Rolling Stone interview:

I didn’t come into the studio with a lot of expectations: ‘This is going to be this way, this is going to be that way.’ I obviously wouldn’t have needed him if I was going to be like that. He suggested we slow it [“Whitehouse Road”] down and get it into this groovy pocket, and I said, ‘Alright, let’s see what it sounds like.’

The album’s main theme is finding out who you are and where you belong. Tyler put it this way in the same interview:

A lot of these songs were written in the time between leaving my mother and father’s house and finding that middle ground. Getting into trouble and finding the way out of it, finding where you are supposed to be. Finding your place. Purgatory is hell, with hope. You have a fighting chance.