Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats On World Cafe

Many artists wait for the day they can stop working as servers and make a full-time living as musicians. Today's guest, Nathaniel Rateliff, is a platinum-selling artist whose generosity onstage makes the music business seem like the service industry. Nathaniel pushes his vocal cords to their very brink, rips open his rib cage to share his heart and leads his seven bandmates with absolute passion – all in service of making sure his audience has a good time and feels something.

Before Nathaniel was serving audiences with The Night Sweats, his life was based around a different type of service. Nathaniel grew up in a very religious house in rural Missouri where no secular music was allowed. He first played drums for his mom onstage as she led the worship at local church. Later on, he worked at a plastic factory, drove trucks, gardened, put out other albums and then he found his sweet spot: Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats. The band broke through with its 2015 self-titled album, and its now-platinum single, "S.O.B."

Listen in the player above as the full band performs music from its latest album, Tearing at the Seams, and Nathaniel talks about the difficult conversations that inspired some of the songs.

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