Nashville Now
On the new album Livin' in the USA, singer-songwriter Adam Weiner shows you how to protest and party at the same time
Adam Weiner knows you’re angry. So, when the Philadelphia singer-songwriter began writing a new album for Low Cut Connie — both the band he leads and the stage name under which he performs — he looked to a specific great American hero for inspiration: Fred Rogers.
“Mr. Rogers said, ‘What do you do with the mad that you feel?’ Remember that speech while he’s putting his sweater on?” Weiner tells Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast. “We all get angry; we’ve got to use it. We’ve got to use it to motivate us: get in the streets, use your voice, vote, talk to your community, organize. Do that first, and then we’re going to have fun. But we’ve got to do both things.”
Weiner channels that energy to activate and organize into Livin’ in the USA, Low Cut Connie’s eight studio album, which dropped on Friday — just in time for Independence Day. A collection of 10 songs, the album leads off with the forlorn title track. It’s a song about feeling alienated in your own country that Weiner wrote in response to the current administration’s assault on its citizens. “Livin’ in the USA, but it ain’t my home,” he sings.
