Joe Pernice Teams Up with Hip-Hop Producer Budo as Roger Lion

BY Alex HudsonPublished Jun 10, 2015

Massachusetts-bred, Toronto-based musician Joe Pernice is known for his bands the Scud Mountain Boys, Chappaquiddick Skyline and the Pernice Brothers. Now, he's got yet another project, this time with hip-hop producer Budo (who has worked with Macklemore). Their duo is called Roger Lion, and they've got a self-titled debut on the way.

Roger Lion is due out on September 18 through Team Love Records. In a curious, rambling press release, Pernice explained that the collaboration came about after Budo contacted him on Twitter about remixing a Scud Mountain Boys track. Pernice apparently thought it was a prank, but he quickly became a fan of Budo's work. It seems that they made the album without ever meeting.

The songs on the album were apparently inspired by, uh, songwriter Josh Ritter's divorce. According to Pernice, "I don't know jack shit about his divorce or his marriage. I don't even know his ex wife's name for that matter. And I don't want to know. But for some reason I've been writing these songs, thinking about Josh Ritter's divorce."

Scroll past the tracklist below to hear "A Dead Man's Song," which is a dark ballad overlaid with smoothly grooving hip-hop instrumentation.

If you're suitably impressed, Roger Lion is available to pre-order here.

Roger Lion:

1. Twenty Thousand Times
2. A Dean Man's Song
3. Locked Up for Years
4. Telescope
5. Redemption is a Myth
6. Love Surrendered
7. The Adulterer's Mustache
8. Oh, My God
9. Let's Divorce

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