Andy Thomas did not set out to write a love song. The accomplished guitarist and songwriter admits he has not written many of them, but this one arrived differently. “It kind of wrote itself,” Thomas says of “Nothing I Wouldn’t Do (For You),” his new duet with singer-songwriter Dori Freeman, out now ahead of his solo debut album ‘Highway Junkie’, arriving March 27th.
The song’s origin is as warm as the track itself. Thomas wrote it shortly after meeting his girlfriend, though it took time to find the right musical home. His producer Dave Schools, the Widespread Panic bassist and fellow Richmond native, eventually brought Dori Freeman into the sessions. Freeman, from Galax, Virginia, stepped into the studio and elevated the track immediately. “She brought the female counterpart to life and completely blew this vision out of the water,” Thomas says.
The result sits a little further into country territory than Thomas’s usual rock and roll attack, built on a bouncing rhythm section and his deft fingerpicking. The two voices blend with genuine warmth, trading lines on a song about the kind of love that makes the answer feel obvious. “This one’s very special to me, and is for that person you’d do anything for,” Thomas says. That sincerity comes through in every note.
‘Highway Junkie’ is a twelve-song debut that moves between southern rock, alt-country, and Buffett-tinged sing-alongs, all connected by Thomas’s run-through-a-wall energy on electric guitar. It is the work of someone who has earned his stories and is ready to tell them.