Hot off the heels of his recently released and critically acclaimed album, Class of 98, Eric Hutchinson is thrilled to announce a companion album, “Class of 98 -Deluxe and Unplugged.” It contains all of the songs off the original recording , plus gorgeously stripped down versions of each track. It also includes a brand new, never-released song entitled “Never Ever Over You.”
“Like any true son of the 90s, I know a grunge song is only good if you can rock it unplugged too. All of my songs start with me and an acoustic guitar, so reinterpreting these rockers was a fun and easy transition.” – Eric Hutchinson
Sometime last year, Eric Hutchinson came to a strange realization: he kept daydreaming about high-school. The adolescent dreams, hopes, fears, anxieties and emotions the singer faced as a kid began flooding back; suddenly, he felt transported back into his teenage self. Growing up in suburban Maryland, Hutchinson’s teenage years were filled with the type of alienation and private angst recognizable to most anyone who’s ever been 17, now in 2020 the singer was finally ready to write about it. The result: Class of 98, a 90’s alt-rock-inspired autobiographical record that chronicles the singer-songwriter’s adolescence. “It took me a long time to understand myself,” Hutchinson says. “Writing this record allowed me to get into the time machine and go back and look around my old life and report from my current point of view. That was fun.”
After experimenting with a series of genres like Americana/soul and jazz on his last few albums Modern Happiness and Before and After Life, the singer-songwriter turned to the pop-punk alt-rock of his youth for the riff-heavy Class of 98, taking inspiration from bands like Green Day, Oasis, and Weezer. “That music is in my guitar DNA,” says Hutchinson. “I love 90’s music, and this type of sound was so formative for me.” To help round out the record, Hutchinson recruited Justin Sharbono (formerly of Soul Asylum) to offer his distinctive guitar playing and enlisted the sonic guidance and mixing talents of Paul Kolderie, who’d made great 90’s records with bands like Radiohead, Hole, The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom and The Pixies.
Taken as a whole, Class of 98 arrives as Hutchinson’s most playful yet distinctive work. For Hutchinson, the experience of delving back into his high-school youth helped him learn a lot: about his upbringing, about parenthood, and about himself. “I like the 90’s way better,” he says, “when I’m not living in them.”
Track listing:
1. Rock Out Tonight
2. Cooler Than You
3. My Old Man
4. Ann Marie
5. Good Things Come
6. Sweet Little Baby Rock N Roller
7. If They Don’t Care (Then We Don’t Either)
8. Drunk At Lunch
9. Lovely Lori
10. Whether I Like It Or Not
11. Never Ever Over You – Unplugged
12. Cooler Than You – Unplugged
13. Ann Marie – Unplugged
14. Rock Out Tonight – Unplugged
15. Good Things Come – Unplugged
16. Lovely Lori – Unplugged
17. Drunk at Lunch – Unplugged
18. My Old Man – Unplugged
19. Sweet Little Baby Rock N Roller – Unplugged