Michael McDermott takes a hard look at the ‘World’ on new album

Staying home for months on end during a pandemic can make you stir crazy. If you’re like Chicago singer-songwriter Michael McDermott, it can stir your soul.

The 50-year-old musician looked inward while in the mandated coronavirus quarantine when it came to his songwriting, completing “What in the World” (Pauper Sky Records), his first full-length studio album of new songs in two years. (It’s set for a June 5 release, but before that we have the exclusive stream below.)

It’s a look into the life McDermott has experienced: the early success, the descent into alcoholism, rehab and finally redemption. That journey is captured on the full-on rocker “Contender,” the tale of someone who’s made it through the rock ’n’ roll rain.

It’s also a testament to the state of the world around him, he says.

McDermott produced the new album, much of the material written during his “morning writing sessions,” something he’s done faithfully as part of his six years of sobriety.

“I meditate, do some weird breathing stuff, then I write. Then I start my day.”

McDermott’s been very forthcoming over the years about his troubled life. He released his first album “620 W. Surf” in 1991. MTV fame quickly followed — as did the demons. His addiction to alcohol and affinity for cocaine soon infested his career and his world until family life would ultimately serve a wake-up call. Being a husband to singer-songwriter Heather Horton, and proud papa to a daughter (now 9 years old), set McDermott on a new path, one founded on sobriety. The family still calls the Chicago area home, in the house once occupied by his late father.

“After my parents died, I was going through the garage and found all these old budgets and contracts of mine for my first album,” McDermott said. “It cost $268,000. And I think we went over budget; the video alone was about $85,000. Now it literally doesn’t cost you anything because the monster ate itself. It’s been a really interesting journey.”

The new album’s title tune, recorded at Chicago’s Transient Sound, serves as its first single. It’s a song McDermott calls a “downtrodden anthem.”

“In [the title track] there’s Trump, drunk driving, gambling, thievery, immigration, welfare, billionaires, poverty, climate change, racism, journalism, socialism, neo-Nazis. I was obviously very concerned about [the state of the world] when I wrote it,” McDermott says.

The project over all has edges of Bob Dylan, John Prine and Bruce Springsteen; the comparisons have both haunted and inspired him throughout his career.

“I used to go out of my way to avoid these kind of natural [comparisons] but now I don’t worry myself with those things. It’s just in my DNA,” McDermott says. “Growing up in Chicago, I started out at the folk clubs where the shadow of John Prine loomed large. He was already [in Nashville] by the time I came up, but I would be at the Earl of Old Town [on Wells] ... this stupid kid wearing sunglasses and reading Allen Ginsberg, and all these 30-year-old folkies were like, ‘Who is that guy? Why does he think he’s Bob Dylan?’ [Laughs]

“The Springsteen-Dylan comparisons at first bothered me but as I got older I wear those influences proudly. In the song, ‘The Things You Want’ I even have girl saying, ‘Is that Springsteen or Dylan you’re quoting’ — kind of addressing the elephant [in the room].”

The album is heavy on McDermott’s brand of guitar-driven folk/Americana, with some throwback to good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll. But the messages are mostly deep and deeply moving. And there is hope amid the greatest of sadness.

“In June 2019 our nephew killed himself, and two days later his sister killed herself,” McDermott says, his tone subdued. “We’re still reeling from Ryan’s suicide and then my sister called and said Erin killed herself. It was a total nightmare. It crippled our family with grief. In ‘Blue Eyed Barmaid’ I made reference to him: He did two tours in the war, had PTSD, and that was song was written before he died.”

The album is dedicated to both of them.

“The [deaths] changed the direction of the album,” McDermott says. “The song ‘No Matter What’ has that mantra of ‘don’t give up; you’re worth it.’ I needed that hope to be there.”

You can pre-order “What in the World” at www.michael-mcdermott.com/store.