Nathaniel Rateliff’s Breakout Album Was An ‘Overnight Success’ Decades In The Making

Nathaniel Rateliff performs in concert during the 40th Farm Aid at Huntington Bank Stadium on September 20, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Last month, Nathaniel Rateliff stepped on the Ryman Auditorium stage to do something he’d never done before – accept an award.

He won Album of the Year at the 2025 Americana Music Honors & Awards, a trophy received for South of Here, a reflective and restless LP that stands among the finest by Rateliff and his soulful rock band, The Night Sweats.

He admitted he came to the show unprepared for a speech, but nonetheless took his time behind the microphone to speak on the importance of authenticity and vulnerability in album-making.

The next morning, sitting at a corner table in his Nashville his hotel room a few blocks away from the Ryman, he told Forbes, “I didn’t even have the band with me last night because that’s how little I thought our chances were.”

He continued, “I do feel good because this softens my insecurities a little bit, you know what I mean? It does feel like a reward, and it feels nice to be recognized for the work we’ve done to get here.”

From road-worn weeks on the road to countless hours searching for songs in a recording studio, there’s been no shortage of work for Rateliff and company. Since The Night Sweats debuted in 2015 with a foot-stompin’ self-titled debut album, the band has grown its catalog to include a handful of chart-topping songs on Americana radio. He’s performed on Saturday Night Live, been named the leader of a stewardship program at Newport Folk Festival and headlined a sold-out Madison Square Garden.

This month, The Night Sweats look in the rearview to celebrate 10 years of Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, a benchmark album in Americana that planted the band’s flag as a can’t-miss act in rock ‘n’ roll and beyond. On Friday, the band released a 10-year anniversary edition of the self-titled album that includes never-before-heard demos of “Wasting Time,” “I Need Never Get Old” and other fan-favorite songs.

For Rateliff, digging into the archives “brings up a lot of positive memories in that era of my life,” he said.

“When those songs arrived, it felt like a surprise,” he said. “I didn’t know that was in me. It also felt like a part of me I hadn’t tapped into.”

A Missouri native who relocated in adulthood to Denver, Colorado, Rateliff cut his teeths in local bands before building a modest, dedicated following as a solo artist releasing folk-rock songs. By 2015, he had formed a new band – The Night Sweats – and after a chance meeting in London, connected with producer Richard Swift for studio sessions that birthed the self-titled debut.

In the days ahead of releasing the debut, Rateliff found a fan in late-night host Jimmy Fallon, who invited the group to perform on The Tonight Show. The performance proved life-changing, creating a palpable buzz around lead single “S.O.B.” that pushed the song up multiple radio charts and eventually earned a Platinum certification from the RIAA.

“It was crazy, that moment. There had been so much work to even get there and records that I had put out before that,” Rateliff said. “To have people be like, ‘overnight success!’ It was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

Rateliff and Fallon have kept in touch since that moment (for example, the host joined The Night Sweats onstage to sing “S.O.B.” at Madison Square Garden earlier this year). Rateliff said he recently penned a “thank you” letter to Fallon for giving his band a chance in 2015.

“I wanted to let him know how impactful that moment was to me and the band and our families. It really changed everything,” Rateliff said. “From there, the work really begins. It was 20-plus years of hard work and the road and songs and what felt like failure and struggle. All that is the work that it takes to get to the work, you know? From there, it was a journey and discovery of ‘What do I do now? And how do I continue to create music in a way that feels good to me?’”

This year, The Night Sweats continue to celebrate the anniversary reissue and 2024 award-winning album South of Here. Blending restless heartland rock, stripped-back storytelling and a familiar soul backbone, the album chronicles stories from a self-aware narrator.

Throughout the album, Rateliff wrestles with past mistakes and shares unvarnished truths.

“It’s hard to put that much of yourself on paper and in a recording and the whole time I’m hoping that my experience is similar to others’ enough that my vulnerability gives people an opportunity to examine their own,” he said. “And that my mistakes that I’m trying to talk about, that they relate to other people and it gives them clarity in their own lives.”

And after years of singing his truth, Rateliff said he’s finally comfortable being in the room – or on stage – during moments like last month’s Americana Awards.

“I never felt like a rock star. I never felt like I was skinny enough or cool enough,” Rateliff said. “There are people that have careers that don’t have all the looks and don’t have all those attributes. I’ve been trying to find what it is about me that people understand or love. Now, when I’m finding myself in those rooms, before I would’ve been like ‘what am I doing here?’ Now, I’m like, ‘I’m here because I guess I’m a nice enough guy to be here?’

He added, “and I’m blessed with curiosity. If you ask enough questions, you spark a conversation and find commonality between those other people in a room. You have to not be afraid to ask the questions.”