Eddie 9V has powered up. From the day he first slung a guitar on a local stage, the Georgia-born bandleader announced himself as an artist to watch. But in the last few meteoric years, Eddie’s music has crossed oceans and airwaves, transcending his cult-hero status to become a beacon for fans of real music everywhere. “Eddie 9V is something else,” wrote the UK’s Classic Rock – “A man who genuinely inhabits golden-era American roots, playing the most instinctive blues you’ll hear all year.”

Check out the gig listings and you’ll find this rising star playing a bigger club every time he blows through town. Scan the charts and you’ll find his most recent album, 2022’s ‘Capricorn‘, locking horns with the giants of rock ‘n’ roll. “‘Capricorn‘ debuted at #1 and that was a cool feeling for a week, until Bonnie Raitt kicked us off,” reflects Eddie with a smile. “But hey, that’s a cool story to be able to say…”

We’ve rode shotgun with Eddie for a couple of decades now. Born Brooks Mason in June 1996, he was playing guitar by the age of six (“One of those with the speaker in it – the most bang for your buck, y’know?”). Even then, manufactured pop music held nothing for him, and his years at Union Grove High School were instead soundtracked by local heroes like Sean Costello, alongside his studies of “older cats” like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Freddie King and Rory Gallagher.

“I wanted to see what made them groove and tick,” he explains. “I’ve been making up lyrics on the spot for years. I believe that came from my Uncle Brian at our family fish fries – he taught me about what made people laugh and what kept the audience’s attention.”

Coming up on his home state’s live circuit – first with covers band The Smokin’ Frogs, then with highly rated blues-rockers The Georgia Flood – Mason soon turned heads, even representing the Atlanta Blues Society at the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis. But his true birth as an artist came when he buried his birth name and adopted that striking solo moniker. “A lot of people wanted me to be the Brooks Mason Blues Band, but that’s been done,” he reasons. “I wanted to start from scratch – and I ain’t never heard of no bluesman named Eddie 9V.”

From the start, Eddie’s output pricked up ears, with 2019’s ‘Left My Soul In Memphis‘ dubbed “fresh and life-affirming” by Rock and Blues Muse and the chaotic free-for-all of 2021’s ‘Little Black Flies‘ praised by Classic Rock Magazine as “like having all your best mates in the speakers”. In 2023, he got his best reviews yet for ‘Capricorn‘, a record tracked at the near-mythical Macon studio of the same name, that led The Guardian and Classic Rock’s Henry Yates to declare: “As an artist, he sounds fully charged”.

But the great artists evolve, and in both its songcraft and execution, ‘Saratoga‘ finds Eddie painting with more colours from his palette. “I was shooting for a more Americana-type album this time, less blues songs and solos and more focusing on the songwriting,” he explains of the eleven originals co-written with his brother, the much-respected Southern musician, Lane Kelly. Unlike the anarchy of earlier albums, meanwhile, the sessions mostly saw the multi-instrumentalist siblings hunkered down at their own Echo Deco Studio in Atlanta, self-producing the new tracks with Patrick Meese and inviting guest players to supply horns, fiddle and lap steel.

“It was definitely more me and my brother in our home studio recording everything. There’s a lot of guests, for sure, but it was mainly overdubbing. We did the songs ‘Saratoga’, ‘Delta’, and ‘Halo‘ at Crown Lanes Studio in Denver, Colorado, and it was nice to take a break, walk outside, see the mountains, feel the fresh air. At our studio, it’s just muggy with mosquitoes. But sometimes it’s good to not have distractions.”

Likewise, the new songs of ‘Saratoga‘ deserve nothing less than your full attention. Eddie’s latest album announces his new groove with the crisp, purposeful beats of the opening title track, an instant favourite that gets under your skin with its almost disco-style harmonies and joust of horns and slide guitar. As Eddie says: “That song is about being in a lonely tiny town that feels impossible to escape.”

‘Halo‘ struts from the speakers on Eddie’s falsetto howl, before the lush yearning of ‘Cry Like A River‘ and ‘Love Moves So Slow‘ (co-written by Spencer Pope) brings vintage soul into the modern age. The brittle riffs and spacey vocal of Delta mark another gearshift, flowing into Red River’s reflective-yet-kinetic groove. ‘Wasp Weather‘ speaks to Eddie’s love of rapid-fire streams of consciousness. “That’s my favourite lyrically ’cos I like spewing words that don’t make sense into songs. ‘I got a big mud house that I can’t keep clean, it’s useless’ – I love that line.”

The album plays out in style with the trilling alt-folk of ‘Truckee’ “We got high and did shrooms and camped on the Truckee river in California,” he explains of the inspiration – the wistful ‘Tides‘ and ‘Love You All The Way Down’. Eddie even slips in a brass-blasting take on Mac DeMarco’s ‘Chamber Of Reflection’, before bringing the record home with ‘The Road To Nowhere’s’ shuddering, tremolo-drenched country lament, his trademark twang utterly transformed into a vintage croon.

Eddie 9V is right: this latest album takes us all over the musical and emotional map, while announcing that his recent career peaks are just the start. “‘Capricorn‘ was a big jump for us,” he reflects. “But I’m already writing new songs, y’know?”

As far back as he can remember, Capricorn Studios was calling Eddie 9V. As a kid scanning the sleeves of his favourite vinyl records, this fabled facility in Macon, Georgia, was always the secret ingredient, adding a little grit and honey to every song born on its floor. Capricorn and the bands who blew through it urged the Atlanta guitarist to ditch school at 15, play his fingers bloody throughout the south, and turn apathy into acclaim for early albums ‘Left My Soul in Memphis‘ (2019) and ‘Little Black Flies‘ (2021).

Eddie spent his first quarter-century admiring Capricorn from afar. But in December 2021, the 26-year-old finally put his thumbprint on the studio’s mythology, corralling an eleven-strong group of the American South’s best roots musicians to track his third album. “There was overwhelming excitement at being in such a legendary studio,” he says. “But we hugged and got right to work. Everyone was joyous, loving, and flat-out playing their asses off.”

You don’t come to Capricorn Studios for polish. Frozen in time since its opening day in 1969, the mojo from sessions by giants like the Allman Brothers and Otis Redding still hangs in the air, while the recording philosophy remains gloriously raw. That suited Eddie, whose output has been celebrated for its warts-and-all snapshot of what went down. “In a world where everyone is trying to sound the best, I’m trying to sound like me,” he reasons. “I always want the listener to feel like they’re in the room with us. So I’d leave it in if a drum pedal squeaked or someone laughed during a take on the Capricorn album. It’s our way of putting a stamp on the song.”

Eddie’s old-school ethos goes way back. Born Brooks Mason in June 1996, he acquired his first guitar aged six, “One of those with the speaker in it – the most bang for your buck, y’know?,” ignored the prevailing pop scene at Oak Grove High School in favour of local heroes like Sean Costello and studied “older cats” like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Freddie King, and Rory Gallagher “to see what made them groove and tick.” His shoot-from-the-lip lyrics adds Eddie came from family fish fries, where his Uncle Brian “taught me to make people laugh, how to hold an audience’s attention.”

When Eddie infiltrated his home state’s live circuit – first with covers band The Smokin’ Frogs, then its more adept blues-rock offshoot, The Georgia Flood – he quickly pricked up ears everywhere he played. His artistic vision became full realized when he killed Brooks Mason and adopted the solo moniker that promises an electrifying night out, “Eddie 9 Volt”.

“There are too many Joe Schmo R&B bands,” he reasons. “I was on the road with another band, and we were talking like mobsters. So, we gave each other names – mine was Eddie.”

Already, there has been massive acclaim for his early output, with ‘Left My Soul in Memphis‘ dubbed “fresh and life-affirming” by Rock & Blues Muse and ‘Little Black Flies‘ praised by Classic Rock as “the most instinctive blues you’ll hear all year.” But as the Capricorn sessions ticked closer, Eddie fused the nervous energy into his best songs yet. “Coming off a straight blues record, I wanted to show people we’re more than that,” he reflects. “I was listening to Muscle Shoals and soul, a lot of music recorded at Capricorn in the late-’60s too. So, we spent way more time crafting the new tunes. Each song took a week to write, instead of five in one night like ‘Little Black Flies‘.”

‘Beg, Steal and Borrow‘ is ballsy soul with Eddie’s spit flecking the mic. “Yella Alligator” is as swampy-sounding as the title, with slide guitars lapping around cardboard-box beats. ‘Bout To Make Me Leave Home‘ is a propulsive shuffle, Eddie’s vocal seemingly made up in the moment. The gospel touched ‘Are We Through‘ catches a breath before How Long drapes mellow organ over bone-dry riffs. ‘It’s Goin’ Down‘ fuses porch blues with psychedelic woodwind, while ‘Tryin’ To Get By‘ brings brassy strut while concealing lyrics from the perspective of a man on a downward spiral, surviving on the crumbs of a love affair. “The lyrics and meanings of these new songs are way deeper,” says Eddie. “Take the song ‘It’s Goin’ Down‘. It’s really about my struggle with alcohol, the dangerous nightlife of bars, and the drugs offered to you in the music industry. But then, one of my favourite tunes, ‘Yella Alligator‘, is about a fictional psychedelic party in the bayou…”

Likewise, Capricorn is an album of thrilling musical contrasts. Bob Dylan’s ‘Down Along the Cove‘ is a pugnacious blues-rocker, followed by Khristie French’s gossamer lead vocal on the spiritual ‘Mary Don’t You Weep‘. ‘Mellow Missouri‘ is dusty as a great lost soul session, while brass punches through the glassy chords of ‘I’m Lonely‘. Finally, the album ends with Eddie’s laughter as he realizes he has no more to give: “I gotta come out of this room…!”

Never meet your heroes, they say, and many young artists have been overwhelmed by walking the holy ground of their dream studios. At Capricorn, Eddie 9V breathed in the history – but the album he spat out is worthy of sharing the name, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the studio’s greatest hits, and taking music back to the golden age. “We made this record,” he considers, “the way they would have done in 1969…”