Kerosene Hat

Kerosene Hat is the second studio album by American rock band Cracker, released on August 24, 1993. It reached number 1 on Billboards Top Heatseekers chart, and number 59 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The singles from the album, "Low" and "Get Off This", helped Cracker gain widespread notice. According to frontman David Lowery, the album title comes from the band's early days in Richmond, Virginia. Lowery lived with Cracker guitarist Johnny Hickman in an old dilapidated house whose only source of heat came from two kerosene heaters. To buy more kerosene meant a cold walk to a nearby gas station, so before leaving the house, Lowery would bundle up and put on an old wool hunting cap – his "kerosene hat." "To this day," says Lowery, "the smell of kerosene reminds me of the poverty and the wistful hope we had for our music." Background and recording notes Following the release of their debut album Cracker entered the studio in 1992 intending to record their next album completely live to tape. This idea was eventually scrapped, but four live-in-the-studio tracks were released later that same year as the Tucson EP.