With his latest album, Harboring Pearls, acclaimed singer-songwriter Daniel Rodriguez looks at the recording process, and the ultimate unveiling of the record, as taking a leap of creative faith “by jumping off the cliff.”
“I preserved my own sanity. I preserved my own integrity,” Rodriguez says. “There’s something about not being comfortable, knowing my integrity and ethics, knowing my path and where I’m headed — I’m fueled by not choosing to be comfortable.”
Captured by producer David Baron at his Sun Mountain studio in Woodstock, New York, which is situated atop a ridge amid the ancient Catskill Mountains, Harboring Pearls was co-produced by Wesley Schultz, lead singer for indie-folk juggernaut The Lumineers.
“And what Wes wanted to do was make the song be the main thing,” Rodriguez says. “The process, the approach, and the sonic tapestry of it? There was no hiding behind the production. It’s still me and my voice.”
That voice is the hauntingly beautiful sentiments echoing out from the darkest depths of Rodriguez’s musical heart and restless soul, these melodies of steadfast resolve in the face of numerous unknowns, either tangible or intrinsic in nature.
“I’m not just a ‘happy-go-lucky’ dude,” Rodriguez admits. “And Wes wanted to help me embrace that, and kind of bring that out in the songs — the dark side, the sadness, and being able to tap into it.”
Whether it was personal heartbreak or the seismic shift in his daily life when Rodriguez exited his longtime band, Elephant Revival, Harboring Pearls is a snapshot of a human being simply trying to navigate the choppy waters of existence to the best of his ability.
“Now? It’s just me and the storm,” Rodriguez says. “All the chips are in on this one piece of art. Am I crazy? Do I trust myself? What I am doing? It’s this lingering feeling that I have no idea where it’s headed, but I need to go wherever it’s headed.”
That internal, more so existential quest of self, of purpose and pursuit, lies at the core of Harboring Pearls. Numbers like of “El Dorado,” “Anything and Everything” and “Graduation” paint vivid pictures of Rodriguez’s journey unfolding in real time.
“It’s about transcendence, and that’s been such a wild process,” Rodriguez says. “There’s been this pressure cooking with the songs. A lot of coal being compressing into diamonds.”
While at Sun Mountain, Rodriguez immersed himself in this full circle experience, a cathartic return to the region by which he was birthed from. Hailing from the small New England village of Gales Ferry, Connecticut, along the Thames River, Rodriguez felt at home in the backwoods of Woodstock, these mysterious forests and the intriguing characters that inhabit them.
“It’s just the personalities and the people that come out of that area and have lived there,” Rodriguez says. “And a lot of that rubbed off on me. It was a strong kinship. I felt at home.”
Alongside the musical talents of Schultz and Baron being stitched into the vibrant, sonic tapestry of Harboring Pearls, Rodriguez also tapped the likes of James Felice and Jesske Hume of The Felice Brothers, who also call Woodstock home.
Whenever the ensemble found themselves in the studio for extended periods of time, they’d simply put their instruments down and head out the door, usually going for a long hike in the snow across the ridge that Sun Mountain sits upon.
In those moments of solitude, Rodriguez’s thoughts would soon hover around growing up in Gales Ferry, those early days as a teenager busking on the sidewalks in foggy coastal towns along the Long Island Sound, usually strumming Dispatch tunes, and how everything he’s ever chased as an artist is now in his hands.
Years later, when Rodriguez was performing on large stages with Elephant Revival, he eventually crossed paths with Chad Stokes of Dispatch. The two became fast friends.
That bond with Stokes would then parlay itself into Rodriguez — who lives in Boulder, Colorado — finding himself as a guest of his when Stokes played Red Rock Amphitheatre not long ago.
While watching Stokes, Rodriguez found himself seated next to Schultz. The pair hadn’t met before until that evening, but soon found themselves as kindred spirits, this whirlwind conversation sparked about life and art that’s eternally perpetuating.
“And we did a bunch of songwriting in his basement studio in Denver,” Rodriguez says. “There was a lot of vulnerability opening up to Wes, where you really get to know each other when you’re in a small control room, just the two of you writing songs and playing music.”
And what resulted was this steadfast platform of trust and radiance offered by Schultz, one where Rodriguez felt comfortable standing on, the culmination of those sessions being this cultivation of truth and sacrifice the lies within each selection of Harboring Pearls.
“You’re on your own and these are your pearls,” Rodriguez says of this latest batch of tunes. “And you’ve been harboring them for so long. It’s time to pass them out.”
Harboring Pearls drops August 8th, 2025.
