Good news: Sweet Crude’s newest album just came out: Officiel/Artificiel.
And there’s even more good news: Sam Craft, Alexis Marceaux and Skyler Stroup of Sweet Crude have recovered from coronavirus. The group had just ended a tour through Alabama and Florida when the band members fell ill, according to NOLA.com.
To be honest, Officiel/Artificiel has been out since April 24, but we’ve been, shall we say, a bit distracted. Meanwhile Sweet Crude has been busy, giving interviews to Billboard, OffBeat Magazine and our friends at NPR, among others.
Unfortunately, all that activity doesn’t include touring to support the album. Like musicians everywhere, Sweet Crude has had to lean on streaming technology to get the word out. Here’s Alexis and Sam performing the title track of Officiel/Artificiel … unplugged.
As Sam Craft told NPR’s Ailsa Chang, “We understand that there’s a huge community of musicians in New Orleans who are needing to totally reinvent their business. But what we see is that the fact that we’re all in the same boat has led us to supporting each other, in the digital way that we can. We’re used to disasters happening down here — usually of the hurricane variety — but we know the value of reaching out to one another and helping each other is priceless.”