Diamond Rugs is a collaboration between John McCauley, Robbie Crowell, Ian Saint Pe, Steve Berlin, Hardy Morris and Bryan Dufresne. Not too dissimilar from the beginnings of Middle Brother, McCauley decided he wanted to make another record during his downtime in his new home base of Nashville, with producers Adam Landry and Justin Collins. While attending a Los Lobos show, he made his way backstage and met Steve Berlin. McCauley convinced Berlin to come to Nashville to play on the record. Over the course of the next month, he also managed to convince Saint Pe, Morris and his good friend from his hometown of Providence,RI Dufresne. McCauley also recruited Deer Tick keys/sax player Robbie Crowell to play bass on the album. What happened next was entirely unexpected; the musicians McCauley had recruited to play on his record ended up contributing their own songs to the album and a fully-formed band emerged, rather than a group of musicians playing on another artists record.