Okkervil River Are Roky Erickson's New Backing Band

Psychedelic rocker Roky Erickson hasn't released an album in 14 years, but that will change on April 20 when Anti- Records issues True Love Cast Out All Evil, which will feature Okkervil River as his backing band.

The disc includes unreleased tracks Erickson wrote throughout his over 40-year career. Some of them touch on "confessional" topics like electric shock therapy and imprisonment Erickson, who has paranoid schizophrenia, has weathered and things that he's learned from those experiences.

Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff produced True Love Cast Out All Evil, which gestated in recordings Erickson made at home and while he was in the Rusk State Hospital For The Criminally Insane in the late '60s.

"I feel truly lucky that I got to produce this record," Sheff says. "When we started out, I was given 60 unreleased songs to choose from. There were songs written during business setbacks during the [13th Floor] Elevators' painful breakup, songs written by Roky while he was incarcerated at Rusk, and a great deal of songs that reminded me of the sense of optimism and romanticism that I think sustained Roky through his worst years and ultimately reunited him, a few years ago, with his son Jegar and his first wife Dana.

"Because we started with so many songs to choose from, the quality of the material we ended up with was exhilarating. This is not a cynical comeback record, a lukewarm update on an established legacy — these are the best songs Roky has ever written, unreleased due to decades plagued by the kind of personal tragedies that would destroy someone less resilient.

"This record has been the most challenging and rewarding thing I've ever worked on, and we in Okkervil River were deeply honored to show up decades later and help Roky carry these wonderful songs over the finish line."

No track listing for True Love Cast Out All Evil has been released yet.

Erickson founded the psychedelic rock band 13th Floor Elevators in 1965. The band had a major hit with "You're Gonna Miss Me" from their 1966 The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators debut album. They released their Easter Everywhere sophomore album the next year.

In 1968, Erickson was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to a psychiatric hospital for involuntary shock therapy. The next year, Erickson was arrested for marijuana possession, sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and ended up in Rusk State where he was forced into more shock therapy and given antipsychotic drug Thorazine.

After Erickson was released from hospital in 1974, he formed hard rock band Bleib Alien, which was later renamed to Roky Erickson And The Aliens. After a series of inactive years in the '90s, Erickson began releasing music again with his 1995 All That May Do My Rhyme solo album. A documentary called You're Gonna Miss Me was also made about his life. Erickson made a return to the stage in 2007 and later appeared on Mogwai's Batcat EP.