Jay Buchanan has always possessed one of rock’s most commanding voices, but for his first solo album, he decided to test just how far that voice could travel when stripped of everything familiar.
The Rival Sons frontman retreated alone into California’s Mojave Desert for three months to write Weapons of Beauty, choosing an underground bunker as his creative sanctuary. The space, owned by a childhood friend who breeds exotic reptiles in the desert, offered exactly what Buchanan felt he needed: total isolation.
The bunker came with no cell service, no running water, no electricity and no secure door. Accessible only through a long tunnel, it was about as disconnected from modern life as a songwriter could get. Buchanan has admitted that creating at home, even with family nearby, is nearly impossible for him. To fully tune into his work, he has to tune everything else out.
The lack of a functioning lock on the bunker door added an edge to the experience. A previous break-in during the pandemic had left the entrance compromised. At night, Buchanan improvised his own alarm system with water bottles lined up near the door and kept a pistol within reach as he slept. The solitude was intentional. The vulnerability was real.
The desert retreat followed his work on Deliver Me From Nowhere, a Bruce Springsteen biopic in which Buchanan portrays the singer of the Stone Pony house band. After filming wrapped, he returned to California, stocked up on supplies, and headed straight for the Mojave.
What emerged from that underground experiment were songs steeped in intensity and introspection. Tracks like True Black and Deep Swimming reflect the psychological weight of extended solitude, though Buchanan has said he did not consciously set out to make something so extreme.
Once the writing phase ended, he brought the material to producer Dave Cobb in Savannah, Georgia, where the songs were fully realized in the studio. The result is a record that carries the raw atmosphere of its origin story while benefiting from Cobb’s seasoned touch behind the board.
Weapons of Beauty may mark Buchanan’s first solo outing, but it is hardly a cautious step. Instead, it stands as a testament to how far an artist will go in pursuit of creative clarity, even if that means descending into a bunker in the middle of the desert to find it.