Joe Rian & The AM Drinkers

Think Yer in Luv

Rian Records

Joe Rian was raised by his adoptive parents in Rock Falls, Illinois, close to the Iowa border, surrounded by farms and manufacturing. The town had a big steel mill, fabricating drive shafts and ingots of steel.

Rian won a guitar signed by Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan from a radio station contest when he was 20. He didn’t want to destroy this beautiful and valuable prize, so his father purchased him a guitar that Christmas that he could trash if he wanted to. Unfortunately, his mother passed away during the holidays that year, changing the course of his life. He moved back home to work at his dad’s machine shop after the tragedy, and began practicing guitar and writing songs. Rian would eventually get out and attend six different colleges before getting a degree from the University of Chicago, where he’d settle down and call home.

Rian got a job at renowned Chicago venue Buddy Guy’s Legends and soaked in the pure musicianship on display there every night. He got another job at the Moosehead Bar, which booked big band and jazz acts. “I just watched the pros do their craft, and let it rub off on me. I’d get on stage once in a while and play with some of the bigger guys.”

Rian would busk in the summer and make more money than he would at his minimum wage jobs. He cut his teeth in the streets and learned how to entertain a crowd, knowing his job was for people to have fun. Rian moved to the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago in the ’90s, next door to Peter “PJ” Christie of the Sony Records band Sardina. They became good friends and started an art rock project making music. When his father died, Rian began spiraling into depression and drugs. An orphan again, he left Chicago to relocate and center himself in order to get healthy.

Rian drove Christie to New Orleans and then moved to Colorado, where he learned to play Americana music between Boulder and Vail. He played a festival in Ireland and worked on his demos. After five years he moved back to Chicago and recorded his first EP, 2008’s Back in Bridgeport, with his new band the Additives. The four-piece band included piano player Sheila Bertoletti, who’d one day become his wife. They followed up with 2009’s Should It End.

Rian began recording his first solo record in 2013 with members of the Bloomington, Indiana band the Peyton Brothers. He’d drive down with engineer Jaime Gartelos, who’d continue working with Rian throughout his career. They began recording in Bloomington but found the commute from Chicago to be cumbersome. On top of this, Rian and Bertoletti started a family, had children, and moved into a house. Rian let music go for some years and focused on restoring motorcycles. Someone reached out to him about a sync placement and he revisited those unmastered recordings. He sold his motorcycles to fund finishing the album, and in 2019 released Switchyard Sessions. Rian followed up with 2023’s Midwest Boy, about growing up as a country kid, baling hay and doing farm chores, with a drinking father’s morning hangover and how it affected the family.

Think Yer in Luv is a fun heartland rock album designed to make you feel happy, as it touches on alt-country, blues rock, and rhythm-and-blues-tinged rock ’n’ roll. It’s a sincere album but doesn’t take itself too seriously. It wants you to come along for a joyful ride. Each song is like a little snippet of one of the best days of your life.

The album opens with the title track, “Think Yer in Luv,” as Rian sings, “Now you feel like you’re a person in motion. And you got that spring in your step. You’re not hungry, leave those scraps on the table, your mind keeps repeating all those things that she said. Think Yer in Luv, think yer in luv. Now you feel like you’re a person of promise, and you git that little shit-eatin’ grin. You check your phone a-hopin’ that she gonna write ya, your mind keeps repeatin’ all the things that she said. You can’t sleep, oh you’re beaming with excitement. Do you wait three days, is that still a thing? You hope that thing went just as nicely as you liked it but you still have those doubts that are creeping away. Think Yer in Luv, think yer in luv, think yer in luv, now that phone makes a ring-a-ding, you’re gonna get it. She says she wants to do it all over again. Let’s gets some drinks, I got a band I think you’ll like ’em. I guess Thursday it’s gonna be a thing. Think Yer in Luv, think yer in luv.”

On “New Day,” Rian chimes, “Like the night before Xmas and your very first kiss, some things in life you just can’t miss. Like your favorite jeans or a good gravel road. Like when your daddy took you to your first fishing hole, you’re gonna wake up to a new day. You’re gonna wake up to a beautiful day. Like a first romance or a wedding dress, tears that you cry when you’re baby’s on your chest. Like a drive-in movie on a hot summer eve. Like a well of emotion when you do a good deed. You’re gonna wake up to a new day. You’re gonna wake up to a beautiful day.”

“Amarillo,” written by Peter Christie, features Rian as he chants, “Well I ain’t goin’ back to Amarillo anytime soon. Well I ain’t goin’ back to Amarillo anytime soon. Ounce of mushrooms and a pound of weed, four packs of Camels and a bottle of speed. Red light searching on a desert road. Oklahoma line, 20 miles to go. Well I ain’t goin’ back to Amarillo anytime soon. Well I ain’t goin’ back to Amarillo anytime soon. Well the cops pulled over doing 95. I ate all the mushrooms, I was barely alive. They took my gun and they took my cash. They took my car and they took my stash. They left me trippin’ on a desert moon…No, I ain’t goin’ back to Amarillo anytime soon.”

“Good to Be Alone” is another song written by Rian, as he moans, “It’s another night in the city, and I’m alone with my inhibitions, thoughts and feelings. They say it’s nice to be alone, they say it’s good to be alone. In the morning the boys are packing the pork for the city, and I watch as they smoke out on the docks in the cold. I smell the sweet stench of ammonia, feel sick on the crossing…but I’m optimistically hopeful of better times ahead. but until then I’ll revel in my mind.”

On “Sumptin Gonna Happen,” Rian groans, “You make me feel so fine, like a diamond cut out of glass, don’t look at me that way, somethin’ gonna happen, sumptin’ gonna happen, sumptin’ gonna happen again. I lucked out meeting you, just keep the good thing happenin’, God damn, you make me feel young. Sumptin’ gonna happen, something’s gonna happen again. When you look at me with those big brown eyes, there’s nothing I can do, I just surrender my precious emotion, there ain’t nothing a poor old boy can do.”

“Liquor Store” features Rian as he wails, “Walkin’ to the liquor store late one Friday night. He never saw it coming till it hit him in the eye. I was a beer bottle comin’ from across the street. Just about killed him, he could barely speak. Walking to the liquor store late one Friday night. Grego has a black belt in his mind, he looked like Steven Seagal on the overweight side. Some words were yelled from across the street, next thing you know it was 9 on 3, walkin’ to the liquor store late one Friday night. Oh, he gonna get the big one, oh, he gonna get the little one too. Joe, get the guy that’s runnin’ his mouth. I saw him throw it, so hit where it counts. I got the other, I’m fine, watch tese moves…as Grego did his moves, Some jujitsu, karate, whatever he said he knew. He wan’t lying he was freaking them out. Just another southside beer bottle crowd, walking to the liquor store on a Friday night.”

On “Lemonade Stand,” Rian howls, “Down at the corner lemonade stand, we’re making drinks as fast as we can. Squeeze the lemons and pour on the ice. Put on sugar until it tastes nice. Just another day at the lemonade stand. It’s a hot summer day, it makes us all sweat. The lemonade sign says a cup for 5 cents. We cheer and clap as the cars go by, wave and holler as we say goodbye. It’s just another day at the lemonade stand. The money’s rollin’ in and we’re making a mint, I’ll buy a GI Joe with the kung fu grip. Jo fo gets a Barbie with a makeup stand. We may need an investment man. Just another day at the lemonade stand. The coppers came by, they dais they got a call, seems you need a permit to do anything at all…tell that old lady she can’t keep us down. My daddy get a permit, we’ll be back around.”

“Start All Over Again” features Rian as he shouts, “Baby pack up your bags, baby pack up your bags, we’re headed out west, gonna get some new digs, and pretend to start it all over again. You can’t run from trouble, you can’t run from pain. But it sure damn helps to have a new tank of gas, and pretend to start it all over again. We gonna leave all our troubles behind, look in the rear view mirror and leave it all behind. We gonna forget all tose demons of our past. Everything’s better with a new tank of gas.”

On “Whatchu Gonna Do,” Rian belts out, “Hey, everybody it’s Friday night, what you gonna do? I wants go out and drink and dance, that’s what I wanna do…I wanna go out and smoke that mother nature, that’s what I’m gonna do. Hey, hey, pretty girl, what you gonna do? What if I get you on a Friday night after the kids are in bed? Put on that nice little one-piece jean dress, cowboy hat on your head. I’ll pay the sitter and I’ll pick her up, that’s what I’m gonna do. Let’s go out and two-step that oval, that’s what we’re gonna do.”

On the closer, “Someday,” Rian croons, “Someday I’ll be gone, so let’s take this dance real slow. Dirt is wearing on my feet, don’t know which way to go. Hold my shoulder, lay your hand on my hip. Let’s do the box step and just dig in real deep. Please release me, don’t let me go. All things come and go. So let’s take this dance real slow. Then you’ll release me, but don’t let me go. Earth is spinning fast as our time rolls by. Close your eyes and hear my heart beat one last time. Think of those times that passed us far away, and if your legs get tired you can stand on my feet. Please release me, don’t let me go.”

Chicago alt-country blues-rockers Joe Rian & the AM Drinkers’ new album, Think Yer in Luv, is a reminder that the architecture of the lives we’ve led was built on a foundation of falling in love, moments with our parents, roguish adventures in our cities, and traveling this country. Its songs touch on lounge, rockabilly, jazz, and the heart of rock and roll, while reminding us that there’s joy in our time with our loved ones, dancing, singing, and making art. It’s an album that cherishes the small moments of our lives that made us who we are, and that reminds us that no matter how bad things may seem, the sun will rise again and we all start each day fresh.

Richard Ludmerer

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