“Sometimes your enemies/Come in the form of a friend.”
Much of the new Kashus Culpepper single — “Believe,” which Big Loud released to radio on Sept. 3 via PlayMPE — is menacing. What the bad stuff is, isn’t necessarily clear. A drug deal, a robbery, gang activity, a lie, a murder? Cases could be made for all of those scenarios — or none of them — it doesn’t particularly matter. But “Believe” most certainly hints at betrayal, like Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty,” though instead of Mexico, it’s cast in the Southern United States, judging from its swampy musical tone and Culpepper’s Alabama roots. It’s steeped in mystery and probably best left that way.
“I wouldn’t say it was a full, cohesive story,” Culpepper explains. “It’s a collection of thoughts, especially the verses. You know, just these random thoughts that I’ve got in my head.”
He had plenty of time to pull those thoughts together. Culpepper was booked for a co-write with writer-artist Foy Vance at Anderson East’s place in East Nashville in January 2024. It snowed, and snowed some more, eventually dumping more than seven inches. Nashville isn’t equipped to handle even a dusting, so as the streets got slicker, they had incentive to hang out awhile, especially when they clicked as writing partners.
“I like working with kids like him,” Vance says. “He’s still a young kid, but he’s seen war, he’s been away from home, he’s had hardship, he’s slept rough, he’s traveled. Not everyone at his age is that switched-on in a heart level. So I met with him and liked him immediately.”
As they shared their stories, some of Culpepper’s hard-knock experiences began to coalesce into a foreboding first verse about nightmares and phony people, closing with the reference to enemies presented “in the form of a friend.”
“Growing up, a lot of times my pastor would say stuff like that,” Culpepper recalls. “Sometimes the closest people around you will hurt you, or sometimes the enemies do come in the form of a friend. And it does sound like I’m kind of preaching.”
Vance, as Culpepper remembers it, took a seat at the piano and began working through different sonic paths, though he may have begun on guitar. He eventually settled on a progression for that opening verse that started on a minor chord. It added to the sense of danger in the lyrics.
“That’s the fun bit where you’re kind of Jackson Pollock-ing the whole thing,” Vance notes. “You just throw shit around the place and see what happens.”
At the chorus, Vance threw a major wrench in the proceedings. Or, to be specific, a major chord. It’s the same base chord as the opening triad that launches “Believe,” but the center note is a half-step higher. That one subtle alteration flips the rainy minor sound into a bright ray of positivity.
“That little change just uplifts it,” Culpepper notes. “It’s almost like, ‘Oh, we’re going to be better.’ ”
Sure enough, angels “all come around” during that chorus, and the singer hangs on to the knowledge that with their help, he can face the darkness —maybe even become a better soul. “That’s what I believe,” he announces in the chorus’ payoff line.
Verse two brings more danger, in the form of bloodshed, fear and hints of a chase. He needs those angels to come around again for the second chorus as he runs “out of rope” and “out of strength.” Once those two verses were completed, they played through the four stanzas they had, front to back, looking for clues about the song’s finale.
“It sort of tells you, you know, does it want to go somewhere else?” Vance notes. “It clearly felt like it did.”
So they wrote a bridge that takes on a desperate tone, mourning the loss of “my best friend” who’s “still holding me from the edge.” It seems to tie in with the “form of a friend” in the opening stanza and the sense of angels in the chorus, though even Vance isn’t sure what to make of the song’s story. Its mystery is actually one of its strengths.
“Sometimes you can kind of say something that, if written down, it would look obscure,” he says. “But there’s a transcendent quality when you get all the composite parts. In the right order, it says something beyond itself. That’s one of the wonders of song.”
Vance played drums on the demo, attempting to inject some Bill Withers energy, and they got East to help out.
Culpepper cut the master version of “Believe” with producer Brian Elmquist of The Lone Bellow in Sheffield, Ala., at the Ivy Manor, a 1927 multistory brick-and-stone mansion that has been renovated as a studio with a relaxed, homey vibe.
“You can go stay there and hunker down for as long as you want, which is my favorite thing to do,” Elmquist says. “The good music is made when you get these people really tired and really vulnerable. They start playing, knowing you can get the best out of them.”
Elmquist heard “Believe” as a “soul Lone Ranger” work and was intent on capturing that with Southern elements and gospel thrown in. “It’s like a voice of one crying in the wilderness,” Elmquist says, “like John the Baptist or something like that.”
Electric guitarist Diego Urias applied Western tones and stabs of drama, and bassist Brian Dawley overdubbed staccato eighth notes on piano in the vein of Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” or Starship’s “Jane,” instilling extra tension. Elmquist and the crew also developed an instrumental break built around baritone guitar after the second chorus to set up the bridge.
“The bridge is my favorite thing I’ve ever done,” Elmquist says. “It’s just so insanely cool how it lifts [and] gives Kash a big plateau to sing off of.”
Elmquist became a bit of a preacher when they cut the final lead part, encouraging Culpepper to think of the divine guidance that had led him to this juncture. They timed the “Believe” vocal so that the mansion physically simulated the shadowy nature of the lyrics.
“We had to do the song at nighttime because I had to really get into it,” Culpepper says. “We had to dim the lights, and I had to really just put my mind in these places that I talk about in the verses and just really get into it.”
Elmquist and Lone Bellow bandmate Kanene Pipkin built an elaborate gospel choir by singing into the same microphone two voices at a time, layering 18-20 total voices in three different frequencies.
Big Loud issued “Believe” to digital streaming partners on Aug. 12 and waited just three weeks to send it to radio, focused on Americana, adult alternative and country, where it bears some resemblance to a Jelly Roll single. “My team just really believes in it and really wants it to be on the radio,” Culpepper says.
The team, to rephrase it, believes in “Believe.”