The Texas wildman brings horns and swag to his latest offering with producer Beau Bedford
“Hit it, quit it, live it, spit it….get nasty,” Paul Cauthen croons in his new song “Hometeam.” Like the tracks on his 2022 album Country Coming Down, the song leans hard into funk sounds and swaggering attitude.
In fact, it’s so over-the-top that it’s easy to wonder if Cauthen is trolling you. Listen to the affectation, bordering on the ridiculous, that he puts on the line, “With your hair blown out and your nails just did, uh!” Trolling or not, it’s a blast to hear.
That’s the appeal of Cauthen, a big-voiced Texan who taps into a persona he calls “Big Velvet” when he gets funky onstage and in the studio. “Hometeam,” then, is very Big Velvet. It’s also the first new song since releasing Country Coming Down and signing with his new management of Q Prime. As with his past work, it’s produced by Cauthen’s longtime collaborator Beau Bedford at Modern Electric Sound Recorders in Dallas.
“‘Big Velvet’ is something I can kind of blame or put excuses on if I get wild onstage,” Cauthen told RS last year. “I like to put on my cape and lean into show business. We try to be Superman. When I was a kid, I was told by my granddad, ‘This is your kingdom. When you stand up on a stage, you’re the king. You’ve got to own everything in the room and show everybody that you got the light and you’re there to shine it.’”
Along with “Hometeam,” Cauthen appears on Diplo’s new Thomas Wesley: Chapter 2 – Swamp Savant album, lending his robust voice to the track “Rain on My Mind” with Sierra Ferrell.