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Atomic Junkshot Releases First Single from Peacedale Album

By Kath Galasso on May 2, 2024

Atomic Junkshot, the St. Louis-based Americana band, has just released the first single,
“Dirt Roads,” from its forthcoming full-length studio album entitled Peacedale.
Named for the studio in rural Connecticut where the gritty, 10-song album was cut, the
songs deftly deliver on the band’s influences ranging from southern rock to alt-country,
honky-tonk to blues and straightforward rock’n’roll. Ultimately, Peacedale carries an at-
times lyrically-edgy, diverse collection of Midwest-inspired narratives written by Atomic
Junkshot’s lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Aaron Perlut.

“We’re very proud of the record,” said Perlut. “It’s authentic to who we are and Greg
helped bring out the best in each performance. We feel like the songs are an
embodiment of the communities we live in, the folks we spend time with and the lives
we know to be true.”

Produced by Greg D. Griffith—who has worked in-studio with Amy Ray of the Indigo
Girls, Rachel Baiman, The Butchies, and others—the album will be released in-full on
May 31, 2024, and was recorded at Griffith’s Peacedale Studios in Bristol, Connecticut.

“The thing I love about working with Atomic Junkshot is, to my ear, they are as much
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as they are honky-tonk,” said Griffith, who also mixed the
album. “I love that raw punk element, whether it was intended or not. I was excited to
capture that as much as possible and feel like the end-product accomplishes as much.”
The single “Dirt Roads,” is a sarcastic narrative looking at the Lake of the Ozarks in
Missouri—made famous by the Netflix series Ozark—flush with images of three-legged-
dogs, trash cluttered front yards, meth shacks and E. Coli contaminated water.
Peacedale is Atomic Junkshot’s first full-length studio album following 2022’s Gun Show
EP, produced by Adam “Lightnin’” Hoskins, and the band’s 2023 live record, Live from
Luke’s House, produced by Lucas Jack and mastered by Mike Semple.

Atomic Junkshot’s lineup—bass guitar player Clay Mudd, percussionist Brian McCary,
Markus Everblus on harmonica and lead guitar and Perlut—performed on each of the
albums 10 songs. Grammy-nominated piano player Jimmy Wallace provided organ and
piano while Spencer Harris contributed backing vocals.

Founded in 2018 in St. Louis, since releasing its 2022 debut EP, Gun Show, Atomic
Junkshot has steadily caught the attention of Americana music fans. Critics have
described the band as “twisted southern rockers” and “the honky-tonk love child of
David Allan Coe and Blues Traveler;” and in reviewing a live version of the song “Dirt
Roads”—a studio version of appears on Peacedale—Chadwick Easton of Melody

Maker Magazine wrote “There is something pretty retro about the way they’re getting to
the hook … yet I’m quite hesitant to call any part of their framework steeped in old-
school cues. The approach is as classic as it gets … exclusive and original in every
department.”

Perlut’s songwriting is admittedly long and wordy, taking cues from his musical heroes
such as Ray Wylie Hubbard, Steve Earle, Tom Petty and Tony Joe White. The band’s
straight forward, country- and rock-inspired rhythms blend seamlessly with more
complex rock, blues and country-derived leads.

For more about Atomic Junkshot, visit the band’s website at AtomicJunkshot.com and
sample the new Peacedale album here on Soundcloud.