Songwriter Perry Serpa Takes on Nick Hornby's "Juliet"

Perry Serpa, one part veteran singer/songwriter, one part music PR guy, has immersed himself in a new project. As if dropping a four album series with his two decade, multi-member symphonic band, The Sharp Things wasn’t enough, he went out and recorded a new album.

In 2009 Serpa had just read a book by one of his favorite authors, Nick Hornby.  The book Juliet, Naked is a story about an antihero, Tucker Crowe, a retired world-weary rockstar, Tucker would have been a ne’er-do-well had it not been for Juliet, his masterpiece missive recounting his passionate affair with a married beauty after it crashed and burned. Crowe’s career then meets the same fate, albeit self-inflicted, but not before garnering high praise from every critic in musicdom.

The book offered an inherent challenge: it featured the details of a 10-song album. It being a work of fiction, said album would of course be otherwise confined to mere words on a page, never to be heard, and that was way too much for Serpa. He just couldn’t let it lie.

Serpa takes the 10 tunes off the page and into posterity using Hornby’s track listing, but also his influences and couplets, thus establishing a sort of unsolicited co-write dynamic with the author. If there is such a thing as "guerilla songwriting," this is it.  The album also lifts the title Hornby gives to the (fictional) tribute record of Crowe’s epic: Wherefore Art Thou? Songs Inspired By Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked.

With this, Serpa goes even deeper inviting revered indie musician, Scott McCaughey of Young Fresh Fellows, R.E.M., and the Minus 5 (actually referenced in Juliet, Naked) to sing on Wherefore/Juliet’s first track, “And You Are?” in an attempt to actually make the tribute record. 

In addition, beloved Americana singer/songwriter, Laura Cantrell joins Serpa on country-tinged, “Dirty Dishes” taking cues from the book for a duet reminiscent of Dolly Parton & George Jones. NYC music makers and friends, Edward Rogers and Don Piper voice Serpa’s incarnation of “The Better Man,” and close buddy, Aja Warren shares the mic on “Adultery,” an edgy ballad adorned with slide guitar by Ron Raymond. Serpa’s teenage son, Aidan, a guitar prodigy, also gets a fair amount of space on Wherefore?

Otherwise, the album is a true Serpa solo affair, with the songwriter taking responsibility for most of its noises and singing lead on everything else, most notably, from the Springsteen/Nick Cave inspired, “We’re In Trouble,” to the introspective ramble of “In Too Deep,” to the symphonic closer, “You And Your Perfect Life,” reminiscent of Scott Walker or Leonard Cohen and keeping to Hornby’s blueprinted 7-plus minutes complete with “Scotty Phillips’” incendiary guitar solo.

Wherefore Art Thou? Songs Inspired By Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked will be released digitally on Friday, October 5th on Shifty Disco in Europe (including UK & Ireland) and on Schoolkids Records, The World, excluding Europe. 

Schoolkids is also set to unleash the album on vinyl as a special release for Record Store Day Black Friday (November 23rd).

A portion of the proceeds will go to Ambitious About Autism, a UK national charity, co-founded by Nick Hornby, dedicated to improving opportunities for young people on the Autism Spectrum.

Check out "And You Are?" (feat. Scott McCaughey)