Singer Nicole Atkins Doesn’t Recommend Insomnia, Alcoholism, Falling Down Sinkholes

The acclaimed singer and songwriter Nicole Atkins is pretty adept at reading clues that something is wrong. After she’d fall asleep on a Saturday and wake up on Monday, she knew it was time to get more aggressive about addressing her insomnia. Years before, a fall down an actual sinkhole made her realize that drinking had become a pretty big problems. On Nicole’s new album Drama, her first in five years and produced by Wilco’s Pat Sansone, she offers many songs that began as mumbled voice memos recorded in the throes of debilitating insomnia, which has since improved with a pretty simple adjustment. She shares that story, tales of growing up in a hard-drinking “party house”, and she calls out one particular hotel in Knoxville that had a dangerous sinkhole and were then total jerks about it. We also get to hear some brand new music from Nicole.

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