Rock And Blues International - November 2020 by Rock and Blues International

NOVEMBER 2020

Rock And Blues International

LOVE AND WAR Great New Rock From Texas!

FIONA BOYES Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1st Lady Of The Blues!

SHEMEKIA COPELAND ALSO IN THIS ISSUE GRETA VAN FLEET BLACK STONE CHERRY HEAD HONCHOS JEFF FETTERMAN BARRETT ANDERSON BAND

Rock And Blues International November 2020 Welcome to the November Issue of Rock And Blues International. I hope November treated you right. Before I tell you what to expect in this issue, I need to mention a few of our fallen musicians. October was indeed a rough month for the world music community. Last month, besides dealing with the Covid-19 Pandemic, we lost several musicians. Musicians that have passed away last month include Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen, former Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Outfield vocalist Tony Lewis, Johnny Nash, Billie Joe Shaver, Johnny Bush, and Jerry Jeff Walker. It’s sad to see these great musicians pass away. They have contributed a lot to the music business worldwide and they will be missed. Our prayers go out to these musicians and their families. We will miss all of them. Now, on to the new issue. We have a lot of great stories in here for you to read this month, so I’d like to let you know about them now. This issue features Blues singer Shemekia Copeland on the cover. She has a new album out called Uncivil War. Blues fans are going to want to know about this album. It’s truly fantastic. Other great artists in this month’s issue include Love And War, Rockers Black Stone Cherry, Blues guitarist Jeff Fetterman, Greta Van Fleet, Fiona Boyes - The First Lady Of Australian Blues, The Barrett Anderson Band, Blues artists Head Honchos, Elvis Costello, James Blake, K-Pop band Tomorrow X Together, and Ray Cushman, just to name a few. We are also happy to present a “first” for this magazine. Italy’s famed Edoardo Fassio is back again with something different. In this issue we present his story on Trulletto Records in both English and Italian. This way his Italian fans can read his story in their native language. We’d also like to welcome to our staff, Australian DJ, Barry Maxwell of “Blues On The Hill”. Barry interviewed Fiona Boyes for Rock And Blue International. I’d also like to invite you to check out the Americana column by “Blues @” DJ, Charles Christian. Also be sure to check out his radio show at “Blues @”. Just look at page 2 to get the address to tune into. ‘Blues @’ has a lot of great shows, so be sure to tune into them. I sincerely hope that everybody reading this new publication finds something here that they like and I would like to encourage you to let your friends and colleagues know about us. Just look for us every month at http://www.rockandbluesinternational.com. I would also like to encourage you to email us for a free subscription to Rock And Blues International as well. Just email us at rockandbluesinternational@gmail.com and in the subject line simply put “Sign Me Up” and we’ll email you a copy each month when it is published.

Kevin Wildman Kevin Wildman Editor and Publisher

Rock And Blues International Kevin Wildman Editor and Publisher

Web Address Http://www.rockandbluesinternational.com Mailing Address Box 1162, League City, TX 77573 Phone 281-650-1953

For Advertising email us at rockandbluesinternational@gmail.com or call 281-650-1953 For A Free Subscription email us at rockandblues international@gmail.com and in the subject line put “Sign Me Up Now” November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Contents

VOL. 1 NO. 4

NOVEMBER 2020

ISSUE NO. 4

SHEMEKIA COPELAND Releases Her New Album Uncivil War

10 JEFF FETTERMAN

Releases New Album Southern Son

FIONA BOYES Australia’s First Lady Of The Blues

HEAD HONCHOS

Release Their New Album Blues Alliance

22 26 BARRETT ANDERSON BAND Releases Their New Album HypnoBoogie

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

Contents

VOL. 1 NO. 4

NOVEMBER 2020

60 Subscribe Now!

BLACK STONE CHERRY

LOVE AND WAR Release Their New Album Edge Of The World

Release Their New Album The Human Condition

72 76

ISSUE NO. 4

GRETA VAN FLEET Returns With A Joyous New Single And Video For “My Way, Soon”

In This Issue: 6 10 14 18 19 20 22 26 30 32 34 35 36 38 39

Shemekia Copeland Jeff Fetterman Fiona Boyes Truletto Records (Italian) Truletto Records (English) Tab Benoit & Samantha Fish Head Honchos Barrett Anderson Band Ray Cushman Charles Christian’s Americana Track45 Nothing Junglepussy Salt Ashes Speaker Face

40 42 44 45 46 47 48 50 52 54 55 56 58 60 61

James Blake London BMI Awards C. Tangana Musti James Nix Lee Dewyze For Those I Love Tomorrow X Together Laura Benanti Finneas Wolfheart Animal Weapon LP Giobbi Steve Aoki & Timmy Trumpet Black Violin

62 63 64 65 66 72 76 78 79 80 81 83 84 85 86

Jeremiah Fraites Stereotytans War Tapes Arlo Parks Love And War Black Stone Cherry Greta Van Fleet Isenmor PG.Lost Amenra Venom Prison Yautja Levara Hammerfall Elvis Costello

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Shemekia Copeland 6

Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;˘ November October 2020 2020

Shemekia Copeland Releases Her New Album Uncivil War By Kevin Wildman Award-winning Blues, Soul and American vocalist Shemekia Copeland has just released her new album, Uncivil War. Uncivil War was released just last month on Alligator Records. This is the ninth album released by the seven times Blues Music Awards winner. Three of her previous albums were also nominated for GRAMMYS®. For those of you not familiar with Shemekia, she is the daughter of the legendary guitarist and songwriter, Johnny Clyde Copeland. Her last release was 2018's America’s Child, which was also on the Alligator Records label. In fact, ever since Shemekia released her first album, Turn The Heat Up, she has been on the top Blues label, Alligator Records. Since the release of her first album, Turn Up The Heat, which she released when she was just 18, Shemekia has been touring the world and has became a star headliner at Blues Festivals and concert venues everywhere. Shemekia has been hailed as the “great new voice of the blues”, a title she received just after the release of Turn Up The Heat. Since the release of her first album, Shemekia has continued to grow as a musician. In fact, her style of music has

certainly evolved tremendously. She has managed to blend the Blues with such genres as R&B, Rock and Roll, and even Americana and Country to create a style all her own. In fact, you can hear her evolution as she moves from album to album. On her last four albums she started incorporating Americana and Country music into her Blues roots. It has been a very impressive move for her. Her new album, Uncivil War, was produced by guitar/producer Will Kimbrough, who also produced her previous album America’s Child, in Nashville. For this recording, Will Kimbrough assembled a who’s who of musicians to perform on this album. “Will came into play on it,” says Shemekia, “and will is just a genius. We fell in love with Will and we started working with him. He produced my last album America’s Child, and in Nashville when your recording National… Well, this is the whole melting pot of amazing musician down there and they all just love music. They don’t care about the genre. They just like playing good music. Will knows everyone, so he’ll say ‘Hey, you know, I’m making an album with Shemekia Copeland and I want you to come play on this song and they come because they love music and they love playing. It’s a beautiful thing.” Musicians assembled by Will Kimbrough to perform on this album include legendary Stax guitarist Steve Cropper, Jason Isbell, Duane Eddy, Jerry Douglas, Webb Wilder, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Sam Bush and more. The Orphan Brigade provided backup vocals.

Shemekia has gone to incorporating messages into hers songs. She doesn’t mean to be preachy or anything like that, she just wants to express her opinion on the different subjects that she tackles in her songs. When it comes to incorporating messages in her songs, Shemekia tells us, “I’ve been doing it as of late. I would say my last four records have all had messages of different kinds… not always political, but definitely message songs.” She goes on to explain that while some of the songs may sound a bit political, that’s not necessarily what she was aiming at. “Anything could be considered political depending on who’s listening to it,” explains Shemekia. “I really don’t necessarily think that it’s political necessarily. I actually think that these are just message songs. It’s just things that we can all agree on. Take “Uncivil War”, where everything is just uncivil right now. It doesn’t matter what side you’re talking about, it’s uncivil. We can not get along, and it’s really sad. I was just talking lately about how America came together after 911 and now here we are all these years later, and there’s just so much division and that’s scary to me. It’s sad and disheartening so that song, that’s kind of what that song is all about for me.” Uncivil War starts off “Clotilda’s On Fire,” which if you didn’t know, was the last slave ship to venture on to American soil. At the time of this ship’s arrival, slavery had been outlawed and the captain was well aware of it. He wound up burning his ship, The Clotilda, just off the coast of Alabama. Remains of the ship have been found now. “Everyone’s been talking about Cotilda for a while,” continues Shemekia. “They abolished slavery, but then they were still bringing slaves over illegally. So what happened with Clotilda was... a guy brought the ship over

From the opening moments of the album with “Clotilda’s On Fire” till the closing bars of “Love Song,” Uncivil War will have you totally emersed in this beautiful collection of stories continued on next page and messages. Lately, November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

be so great doing that.’ People always tell you how they think you should live and they look down upon you when you’re doing things your own way. And that’s not the world we should be living in. We should all be able to do whatever the hell we want to do.” Shemekia has always had those suggestions thrown at her, but she has continued to be her own woman. People have even said that if it wasn’t for her dad, she wouldn’t be here. Well that definitely isn’t the case. Shemekia has earned every bit of the accolades that have been bestowed on her. As she explains, “Oh, yeah, you always have the people that say, oh she only got to where she got to because who her father was and stuff like that. So you always have to deal with those types of things. You just go out there and you prove to people that you’re your own person. You’re your own artist. That’s how my father raised me… to be my own artist… original… do my own thing and I think he would be proud of what I’ve accomplished.”

Shemekia Copeland continued from previous page with slaves aboard and he knew he was doing it illegally, so to hide what he had done, he set it on fire and let the ship sink. They found it off the coast of Alabama and it’s just a great story that I feel like people should know. Well, for me the most important part of the song is ‘we’re still living with her ghost.’ You see what’s happening now in America, even long after slavery was supposed to be abolished. We’re still dealing with the same crap, and it’s never been dealt with in the way it should be and in that lies the problem and it’s really sad.” The second song on the album, “Walk Until I Ride” touches on how Shemekia feels about the systematic racism that is gripping the country. “Then there’s “Walk Until I Ride,” says Shemekia. I think we can all agree that systemic racism is happening in this country. Culturally we have all been able to make lemonade out of lemons every since the beginning of time and that’s what you got to do. You got to walk until you ride. That’s what we’ve always had to do.” One of the best songs on the album is “She Don’t Wear Pink.” This one will appeal to a lot of people, It’s about just being yourself, no matter what anybody thinks about you. “I just love that song. I love that so much. It’s about anyone who doesn’t want to march to the beat of the drum that everyone thinks that they should. It’s about me too. During my whole career people have told me what I should be doing. You know, ‘why don’t you just do a whole record of Bessie Smith covers… why don’t you do a record of Koko Taylor covers. Oh, you would

I just love the title of this next song, “Apple Pie and a 45.” Really, how American can you be with that. Everybody loves apple pie and a lot of people take their guns with them everywhere they go now. “That song applies to a lot of incidents, besides just being a story line for the song,” says Shemekia. “There was that church shooting and all the school shootings. Every one of them. It’s addressing every one of those. You can’t get more American than Apple Pie and Guns. It’s one of the most American things I can think of.” Beside all the message in the songs, one of them in particular is a nod to an old friend of Shemekia’s. The song is “Dirty Saint,” and it’s dedicated to her old friend, Dr. John. Dr. John produced her album, Talking To Strangers and he also took her on tour with him. They were great friends until he passed away in 2019. “That’s kind of a tribute to Dr. John. Well, I love Dr. John. I got a chance to tour with him and record with him. He produced my album Talking To Strangers and I just absolutely loved him. I miss him so much and when he when he died, I was devastated. I just wanted to do something in tribute to him.”

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

And as tributes go, Shemekia also wanted to record a tribute to her father, Johnny Clyde Copeland. For that tribute, she picked out “Love Story,” a touching song written by her father. “It’s tough for me to pick my dad, you know, pick songs of my dad for a record,” says Shemekia. “I do one on every record and it’s tough for me always to pick the right song. I just wanted to do something light. That’s all. And so that’s why I chose that one. I always loved it as a kid. I was there when he wrote it and I remember the joy of us being around the house listening to that song and it just made us smile. And so with all the other things going on the record, I just wanted to do something that was light and fun. And so that’s why I picked that one.” Another cover song that Shemekia included on the album was the Junior Parker song, “In The Dark.” Actually, when she recorded the song, she didn’t even know that Junior Parker had written the song. She liked the version by another artist. “I didn’t know that song from Junior Parker,” confessed Shemekia. “I knew if from Lonnie Brooks…. his version of it. I hadn’t heard the Junior Parker version of that song till later. They both did great versions of it. I love that song. It’s a great one!” Perhaps the most unexpected song on Uncivil War is Shemekia’s cover of The Rolling Stones song, “Under My Thumb.” With this song, Shemekia has turned the tables and sings about how the woman has the man under her thumb. “Yeah,” laughs Shemekia. “I thought it was a great way to turn the tables. I love taking men’s songs and turning the tables on them. That’s basically what I did. I like that concept. I got to tell you, I don’t like it as a man’s song. I like it as a woman’s song. As a man’s song, it just doesn’t seem right to me. As a woman’s song, it’s so much better.” One of Shemekia’s favorite songs off the album is “No Heart At All. “You know, we had that song for a really long time. It to me is just a Blues song and I just love that title. ‘You’re not cold hearted. You got no heart at all,’” explains Shemekia. Shemekia tell us that she wants all the listeners of this album to come away with all the positive messages that she offers up here, as she explains. “There’s so many positive messages on these songs, so I really just want people to take away the positive messages. I want them to just enjoy the good music here. That’s all. Be sure to take a listen to Shemekia Copeland’s new Blues masterpiece, Uncivil War. The album is well written and production by Will Kimbrough on it is impeccable. If you’re into the Blues, be sure to pick up a copy of this fine album today. Congratulations on this fine release goes out to Shemekia Copeland and all the musicians associated with this project, as well as Alligator Records for releasing it.

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Jeff Fetterman 10 10

Rock November 2020 Rock and and Blues Blues International International •• August October2020 2020

By Kevin Wildman Pennsylvania native Jeff Fetterman has just released his fourth album release, Southern Man. When you talk about the Blues, Jeff is the ultimate example of the Blues. He oozes Blues. Without a doubt, the Blues is in his soul. His new album, Southern Man, is the supreme example of that. It is filled with 11 original songs that come directly from Jeff’s heart along with a great cover of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.” Jeff tells us that from start to finish, this album has taken nearly two years to get it exactly the way he wanted. Fetterman is somewhat critical of his own work, and if it’s not just right, it’s not ready to go. And believe me, Southern Man is ready to go. The production is great, the songs are great, and the lyrics are inspirational. All in all, this is the type of album Blues aficionados are going to really want to hear. For the recording of this album, Jeff traveled to California to have this project recorded and produced by fellow musician and studio owner, Christoffer “Kid” Anderson of Greaseland Studios. Kid is also a guitarist in the band Rick Estrin and the Nightcats. When it comes to producing Blues acts, Kid is at the top of the game. He has produced and recorded a lot of great Blues acts. Another one of his most recent sessions was when he recorded and produced a few songs for Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite’s new album. Without a doubt, Jeff made a wise choice by going there. Besides producing and recording, Kid even performs on the album, performing occasional guitar, keyboards and percussion. When Kid and Greaseland Studios was suggested to Jeff as a possible place to record, he was really not familiar with Kid Anderson. Jeff explains that “I was talking to a friend from Pittsburgh and he mentioned to me that there was a guy out in California by the name of Kid Anderson who was a producer, and he had quite a few BMA’s, the Blues Music Awards, for production and he also was a guitar player. So he mentioned maybe I should go out and visit him, or at least check some stuff out from him, so I did. I had not heard of the guy, so I started investigating him and found out he had a great track record. He was working with a lot of the people that I’ve already played with that I’ve already known in the music business and they all had great albums produced by him, so I checked it out and read a lot about him. I contacted him and told him what I’d like to do and he’s like, ‘Yeah, man, let’s do it. Come on out.’ So we set up a date. The date I had was February and we actually went out there and spent like… I think we were there like two… two and a half weeks. We were out

Jeff Fetterman Releases His New Album Southern Son there recording in San Jose California with Kid Anderson at Greaseland Studios. He was a great guy to work with and he was also a great producer and player. He helped play on the album. He produced the album and helped me put it all together and it came out better than what I thought it would. He’s such a nice guy and one of the nicest guys I’ve ever worked with. I mean, here I am... I’m coming there from Pennsylvania to California, and as soon as I met him personally and after we shook hands… within a half an hour, I felt like I had known the guy for my whole life and he felt like just an old friend. We still have that friendship now, even you know, just after two and a half weeks of working with him. He’s just got that personality. He’s a great guy. He played on the whole album. Yeah. He played all the keyboards and B3. He did a lot of the percussion in the whole introduction of “All Along the Watchtower.’”

As I said before, this is Jeff’s fourth offering, and with each project his performances get better and better. Jeff says that his big influences in music are Kenny Wayne Shepherd, whom he’s opened for numerous times, as well as artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chris Duarte, Jimi Hendrix and BB King, to name a few. Jeff has also had quite an explosive career, as he has shared the stage with many great artists of our generation such as Ana Popovic, Steven Stills, The Rides, Jimmy Vaughan, Samantha Fish, Robert Randolf, and many others. As you can see, Jeff’s not new to all of this. He started out when he was a teenager in cover bands performing familiar standards and Top 40 songs like most new artists do and he continued to do so into his 20s and 30s. Finally there came a time when he realized what he continued on next page

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Jeff Fetterman contnued from previous page really wanted to do, and that was play the Blues and start writing originals. Now Jeff is into his 50s and has a good 15 years or so of performing the Blues under his belt. His songs get better with each album and he gets hungrier to do even more. “I’m heavily influenced by Kenny Wayne Shepherd,” says Jeff. “He’s been a very, very big influence on me, as well as people like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix. I’m also heavily influenced by Bruce Springsteen. I’m a big Bruce Springsteen fan. I think he’s a great, great showman, an incredible showman. He’s also an incredible songwriter and lyricist. I’m also influenced by the old Motown stuff. I love Aretha Franklin. I love people like James Brown, Sam Cooke and all those guys like that. I’m also into that style of music as well.” Now Jeff has released Southern Son, an album of great Blues songs that are bound to capture the hearts of many Blues fans out there. I had a chance to sit down with Jeff and get a little insight into the recording of the album as well as some of the songs and the stories behind them. Jeff and his band have certainly evolved dramatically from the time he issued his first album, which was primarily a demo, to now with the release of Southern Man. “I think that we have as a band become a lot tighter and a lot more focused on a certain style and genre, which is Blues-Rock with a little bit of funk thrown in. I feel that I’ve gotten stronger as a songwriter and as a player as well and I think that I’ve actually found the root of what I really need and want to be within Blues music. I want to stay in that Blues-Rock type style. Before I was just kind of putting out stuff that I would write and I thought was halfway decent, but I think now I’m more focused on putting out better quality music now. I’ve got more of a direction now of targeting the Blues-Rock and the Blues genre audience now.”

because I still had that melody in my head, I immediately went down and grabbed the guitar and started working that out so I wouldn’t lose it. So that’s how the song “I Don’t Want To” came about… that was actually a song in a dream.” A lot of songs that Jeff writes on this album stem from the Deep South. Whether it be about a woman or an occurrence. One of those songs deals with the legend of master Blues musician, Robert Johnson. One of the rockier songs on the album is “49/61” and it takes us down to the famous ‘crossroads’ where Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil for a chance at ‘Blues Stardom and the ability to play Blues Guitar better than any man alive. “‘46/61" is obviously a rocker about Robert Johnson and the legend of Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroads,” explains Jeff. “I’ve always been very fascinated with the legend of Robert Johnson and the imagery

Inspiration comes in many ways and for the first song on the album, “I Don’t Want To,” Jeff tells us that it came to him in a dream. “Actually,” says Jeff, “that song came to me in a dream. That’s how that actually happened. When I woke up, I immediately jumped up out of bed and 12 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

of the Mississippi Crossroads and the old Juke joints and stuff, so I actually tried to write a song and try to portray that in the song of “49/61'”. One of the poignant songs on the album is the slow bluesy “Blues For Charley”, which is a dedication to his father, with whom he sometimes had a tumultuous relationship with, but he still loved him deeply. It is a passionate instrumental tune that conjures up a lot of deep emotions for Jeff. “My father’s name was Charlie,” says Jeff. “He passed away five years ago this February and my dad was my hero, but he was also my biggest enemy. We could never really connect with each other and tell each other how we felt. He was one of those old-school hard-working kind of guys. He did three tours in Vietnam. Growing up, he had a lot of issues. He was a heavy drinker. He had a lot of anger. He had a lot of bitterness. I realize a lot of

those issues were from that war (Vietnam) and he had nobody to be able to talk to about it, because nobody really wanted to hear about it. So he was kind of like a prisoner in his own body. And me growing up, I wanted to be different. He wanted me to be like him. You know you grow up, you work hard and you go to your job every day and you don’t have time for these dreams… this and that. So we didn’t have a lot of respect for each other. As we got older he started mellowing out and I started realizing where he came from and the things that he went through, and we started to learn how to respect each other a little bit more. We started working together. Then we started doing a lot of hunting and stuff together and once he stopped drinking and stuff, he became a different man. Then we actually started to understand where each of us was coming from. I understood how he felt about things and then he started understanding about how I felt about things, and the dreams that I wanted to achieve. That’s when he got sick. I mean we were never very, very close. We somewhat were. We never really were close and comfortable enough to say ‘I love you’ to each other, but we both knew that we did love each other and we both know that we had each other’s respect. So, how can I show something for him, because there was of things that I couldn’t say to him because I didn’t feel comfortable while he was alive? So I made this is an instrumental because there was actually no words. I couldn’t really speak the words, so I made it instrumental called “Blues For Charlie”. That’s just kind of my way of speaking to him to let him know that ‘my music is speaking to you and this is how I feel’ kind of thing. It was a bit of a tribute to him. So that’s the story behind “Blues For Charlie”. It’s a homage to my father.” Not all the songs are as serious as “Blues For Charlie.” Take the song, “Memphis Sky.” This song talks about the woman he plans on meeting under the Memphis Sky. It’s not necessarily one of those dream songs, but more in the line of ‘what if’ or ‘will it happen.’ It’s not necessarily about a dream he had, but the song is more along the lines of a dream. “Memphis Sky” probably took me about a week or so to write,” explains Jeff. “I love going down in the South. I love being in Memphis. I love being in the Carolinas. I love the South and the thing about “Memphis Sky” is based on this album Southern Son. I wanted the songs to be about the South and obviously Memphis is in the South. It is basically written about a fictional girl that I see, and that I think about. I want to try to meet up with her and have her meet me under the stars of a Memphis Sky, if she’s interested in me as

well. I’m thinking about her, but I don’t know how she feels about me. So if she does feel the same way then she can meet me under the stars of the Memphis sky. Actually, in the last line is we end up getting together. We’re dancing under the stars of a Memphis sky and I hold her tight, and she turns and fades away into the night under the stars of the Memphis Sky. It was actually just a dream. I was dreaming all this so she just kind of ‘fades away Into the night’”

fighting for them to come out and I was just sitting around practicing one day and I came up with the riff of “Tell Me Baby” for the guitar part and then I just kind of wrote the words and it all just kind of fit together. So that’s how that one came about. It was a fairly easy song to put together.”

We’ve only touched on a few of the great songs included on this album, and there’s certainly a lot of great moments on Southern Son. Other songs of particular Not all of his songs were so intricate note on this album include “Goin’ Down To Nashville”, “Living With The Blues,” or as thought out. Some of them came quite easily. Some of them just started out and the ZZ Top sounding “Ain’t Got You.” The album also closes out with a with a simple riff that just exploded into a song. Take for instance the song “Tell Me couple of dynamite instrumentals, “Voodoo Funk,” and “Southern Blues.” Baby.” That was a song that just evolved Yes folks, if you’re into some great Blues from a simple riff. Jeff told me that that and Blues-Rock, then this is the album for one came quite easily to him. “Tell me baby” was kind of written doing just some you. You need to check it out now. Southern Son is available on Jeff’s guitar licks and riffs on my guitar, on my website at www.jefffetterman.com. Grab acoustic guitar. Sometimes songs come to yourself a copy today. me very easily and other times. I’m really November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 13

Fiona Boyes 14

Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;¢ November 2020

Fiona Boyes – Australia’s 1st Lady of the Blues By Barry Maxwell from Blues On The Hill “Timeless fingerpicking brilliance!” is the only way to describe the latest release from Fiona Boyes – the only Australian musician ever to be recognized in the American Blues Foundation ‘Blues Music Awards’, with eight nominations and the first nonAmerican to win the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Blues Legends regard Fiona with respect. Her friend and mentor, the late Hubert Sumlin said, “She’s got it! I’ve played with all of them - and she’s got it!” and Grammy-winning Delta pianist; Willie ‘Pinetop’ Perkins said, “I ain’t never seen a woman finger-pick a guitar like that since Memphis Minnie. She’s the best gal guitar player I heard in more than 35 years”. Fiona Boyes has built an international reputation as a Blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter and her versatility means she’s impossible to categorize. She swaps between acoustic and electric guitars, including a collection of unique cigar box guitars and a rare National ResoLectric Baritone. Her mostly original repertoire draws from the classic Blues sounds of Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans. Listen to her play and you’ll hear slide guitar, single chord grooves and intricate fingerpicking. Fiona released her first solo album ‘Blues In My Heart’ in 2000 and in September this year she released the remastered 20th Anniversary Edition. I took the opportunity to talk with Fiona about her career and this important milestone re-release. Beginnings Fiona first heard the Blues when she went to college. She says, “I joined the Folk and Blues Club. It was a great club, they had a lot of activities and the Club President played me some early stuff from the 1920s and 30s. And I thought, wow, where has this music been all my life?” Fiona came from a family that valued music and she played clarinet when growing up, but it wasn’t until her mid-twenties that she started to teach herself to play guitar.

Fiona says, “when I started playing I was influenced by country Blues fingerpicking. Although I loved all sorts of Blues, I felt that a lot of the masculine electric Chicago Blues was a little bit daunting for me to tackle. So melodic fingerpicking was my entry point and I started out playing acoustic country Blues in coffee shops”. Influences Probably the biggest influence on Fiona was Memphis Minnie. “There’s not many women guitarists in the Blues scene compared to the number of men and at some point, I thought, I love this music, but I’m mainly hearing men and I wondered where the women were? That’s when I discovered Memphis Minnie. She’s an influential guitarist and songwriter. She was very innovative. She started doing country Blues and pioneered resonator instruments. Then she went to Chicago and pioneered electric guitar and she actually influenced a lot of male players that went on to be more famous than her. But it wasn’t only her playing that influenced me. I remember when I bought my first Memphis Minnie album and I saw the front cover; she looked so feisty and the way she holds a guitar, with attitude, so yeah everything about her was inspiring for a girl with a guitar who wanted to play the Blues” said Fiona. International Blues Challenge In 2003, Fiona Boyes became the first woman and the first non-American to win the International Blues Challenge. It was an event that changed the course of her musical career. The significance of the win is not lost on Fiona who says “it was my first trip to America and it felt like Cinderella goes to the ball”. To get to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Fiona firstly had to win the local competition and the right to represent the Melbourne Blues

Appreciation Society in Memphis. She says “entering a competition was a strange thing for me to do and it took a lot of encouragement from my husband for me to enter the competition. I was thrilled when I won and had a chance to go to America. I didn’t imagine that I would win, I was just pleased to be there. The Blues Challenge is held in bars and venues along Beale Street, Memphis, which is an historic place for the Blues. So there I was getting ready for my first set and all I could think of was…This is amazing, here I am playing on Beale Street, where Memphis Minnie played back in her day. In my set was a song called ‘She Could Play That Thing’, which is a tribute song to Minnie. I didn’t know what American audiences might make of me because a lot of my original songs had stories attached to them and I wondered whether they would understand my accent and my sense of humor. So, I figured…I’m thrilled to be here and I’ll just be myself and play. When I won, it was fantastic and of course, winning the Challenge then gave me the opportunity to go back to the United States and play some key gigs”. Winning the Blues Challenge in 2003 was the start of a fruitful relationship with the United States. Fiona says “I was invited back to Memphis a few months later to play at the W.C. Handy Awards, as they were known before they continued on next page

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

was a priceless moment”. Pinetop Perkins Foundation Fiona has been living the Blues for more than twenty years and she feels it’s time for her to give something back. She is genuinely excited when she explains how she is helping to mentor the next generation. “Pinetop Perkins held down the piano spot in Muddy Waters Band for many years and then had a successful solo career. He was still playing and touring when he died just shy of his 98th birthday, which I think is a wonderful inspiration. His legacy lives on through his music and also through the Pinetop Perkins Foundation, which helps older musicians in their later years and also supports young players”.

Hubert Sumlin and Fiona

Fiona Boyes contined from previous page became the Blues Music Awards. And then I played at the Blues Hall of Fame induction dinner in front of Ruth Brown and Solomon Burke. Recognition After that the accolades flowed and things opened up for Fiona internationally. In 2007 her first US recording ‘Lucky 13’ was nominated in the Blues Music Awards under the category ‘Contemporary Blues Album of the Year’ and it didn’t stop there. Fiona is the only Australian musician to have been recognized in the American Blues Foundation ‘Blues Music Awards’, with no less than eight nominations. “The awards have been an interesting journey,” says Fiona. “I’ve now settled into the traditional female category, but over the years, I’ve gone from contemporary blues to acoustic blues to traditional female artist. I think that’s interesting, because, you know, quite often you’ll see people who get nominations in just one category. So it’s kind of cool that I’ve been keeping everybody guessing”. Fiona has been nominated twice in 2016 and 2019 for the prestigious “Koko Taylor Award” for the Traditional Female Blues Artist of the Year. A list of other nominations and 16

awards can be found at the end of this article. Key to the City of Clarksdale One of the more distinguished accolades given to Fiona was when she was presented with the ‘Key to the City’ in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Fiona says, “it was during the Clarksdale Juke Joint Festival. There was a ceremony to welcome everyone and suddenly, the Mayor Henry Espy announced my name and called me to the podium. I was amazed because I had no idea it was about to happen. So it was a great thrill and, of course, the Key to the City holds pride of place in my musical lair at home”. Chatting with the Bluesmen Fiona suddenly had a faraway tone in her voice as she fondly remembered the time she was in Clarksdale for the unveiling of a Blues Trail Marker at the Hopson Plantation Commissary in honor of Willie ‘Pinetop’ Perkins. Fiona says, “After the ceremony everybody had gone except Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins, Bob Stroger and Willie Big Eyes Smith. My husband and I went over and sat with them. It was amazing to chat with them and listen to their stories, you know, Pinetop grew up picking cotton at Hopsons, and all these guys were friends for so many years. For me to listen to the rhythm of their speech and their stories

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“The Foundation does master classes every year at the Hopson Plantation. I’ve been lucky enough to be the guitar instructor for three years. The program is fantastic. The classes go all day and there’s jamming at night. The students encourage one another and the program culminates when we put bands together to present a showcase at the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale. I’m honored to be able to be part of it because I’m somewhat in the minority being female and non-American”. Blues In My Heart Re-release So that brings us full circle, back to the 20th Anniversary re-release of her debut solo album ‘Blues In My Heart’. I asked Fiona why she had done this. “When I first went to America I met Suzanne Holmes who became my road manager” says Fiona. “She’s a dear friend and has been incredibly strong and supportive over the years. She lives in Florida now and I went there to do a benefit show after Hurricane Michael. I was having dinner with Suzanne and ‘Blues In My Heart’ was playing on the stereo and it’s funny, after all the years, I thought there’s some interesting songs there. So it got me thinking…it may be interesting to remaster and re-release a 20th Anniversary Edition in 2020. I thought there was a nice synchronicity in that.” Fiona also intended that it would tie in with her planned 2020 American Tour because the original album was released before she had any international profile. “Although the album may be familiar to Australian audiences, I thought it’d be interesting for my American and European audience” said Fiona. “When I was remastering it, I realized there was a lot of history that led to the year 2000 when I recorded it. I was learning my craft, and this album was pivotal. It was a marker between

what happened before and where my career and my musical life went next. It was good to revisit that music, because in recent years, I’ve been concentrating on cigar box guitars and a lot of Mississippi hill grooves, which is a long way from where I started as an acoustic country Blues fingerpicker. So I’ve been getting out my acoustic guitar and warming up my fingerpicking and Ragtime licks which I hadn’t played for a while. It’s quite demanding and it’s been fun”. With a tone of nostalgia in her voice, Fiona said “Part of the reason for releasing the 20th Anniversary Edition was to reflect on the context. I spent a lot of time going through boxes and finding some interesting photos, writing the liner notes and reflecting on what some of these songs mean to me. So, hopefully people will have a better understanding of the album itself and why I re-released it”. Most Memorable Experience I had been talking to Fiona for almost 30 minutes and there was one more question I wanted to ask. It is the question I ask all my guests at “Blues On The Hill”. What is your most memorable experience? “Oh my goodness” says Fiona, “as you asked me, it was like a montage of my life flicked passed in front of me. There are so many wonderful experiences, but there’s one very precious memory for me, and that is visiting Hubert Sumlin in his home in 2006. I was touring in the USA with Suzanne Holmes. Hubert was often on the road himself, but he had a little house in Milwaukee and he was home for the weekend, so he called me and invited us to come and visit him. So we dropped everything and that weekend, it was just such a hoot. When we first arrived, we sat down and exchanged pleasantries, and then the phone suddenly rang. Hubert picks up the phone and says Oh, hey, Cotton how you doing? I’m sitting there thinking, I’m here in Hubert Sumlin’s home and that’s James Cotton who has just called to say hello. We talked, we jammed and just spent time together, and you know, he had a big old Cadillac in the garage that he hadn’t driven for a long time, so we cranked it up and drove around the neighborhood. That’s very cool. I love the Blues but I never thought I would have the privilege to share the life of a Bluesman”.

Other Nominations and Awards 2007: ‘Lucky 13’ was nominated in the Blues Music Awards under the category ‘Contemporary Blues Album of the Year’. 2008: ‘Live From Bluesville’ was the winner of the ‘Blues Critic Awards’ Best Live Album and Nominated in the Blues Music Awards under the category ‘Contemporary Female Blues Artist of the Year’. 2009 ‘Live From Bluesville” was nominated in the Blues Music Awards under the category ‘Acoustic Blues Album of the Year’. 2010: Nominated in the Blues Music Awards under the category ‘Traditional Female Blues Artist of the Year’. She was also a Blues Blast Music Awards Nominee for ‘Best Female Blues Artist’ and nominated for ‘Best Traditional Blues CD’ for her album ‘Blues Woman’. 2015: Winner of ‘Best Blues Album’ of The Age Music Victoria Awards for her album ‘Box & Dice’. 2016: Blues Blast Music Awards Nominee for “Female Blues Artist of the Year’. 2017: Blues Music Awards Nominees for ‘Acoustic Artist of the Year’ and ‘Acoustic Album of the Year’ (for ‘Professin’ the Blues’). 2017: ‘Professin’ the Blues’ was the winner of the ‘Best Acoustic Album’ at the Blues Blast Music Awards. 2019: Nominee for Blues Blast Music Awards ‘Female Blues Artist of the Year’.

Fiona Boyes latest release, the 20th Anniversary Edition of ‘Blues In My Heart’ is available in Australia from her website ‘www.fionaboyes.com’ or USA/ Worldwide from Reference Recordings ‘www.referencerecordings.com’

References The Blues Foundation (www.blues.org) Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society (www.mbas.org.au) Reference Recordings (https://

referencerecordings.com Pinetop Perkins Foundation (www.pinetopperkinsfoundation.org) Hopson Plantation Commissary (www.hopsonplantation.com) Ground Zero Blues Club (www.groundzerobluesclub.com) Clarksdale Juke Joint Festival (www.jukejointfestival.com) About Barry Maxwell Barry (Baz) Maxwell lives in Melbourne, Australia where he is – •1 Presenter of Blues On The Hill radio show (https://www.facebook.com/ bluesonthehill) and http:// www.sunburyradio.com.au) •2 President of Hume Blues Club (http://www.humebluesclub.com) •3 President Blues Music Victoria (http://www.bluesmusicvictoria.com.au) Acknowledgement I would like to acknowledge the contribution made by Glenn Owens to this article.

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

TRULLETTO RECORDS La Musica Ha Trovato Casa Nella Tradizione by Edoardo Fassio A luglio 2019 il distributore locale del Monopoly ha lanciato una versione speciale del più famoso gioco da tavolo del mondo appositamente dedicata all’omonima località italiana; si tratta di “Monopoly edizione Monopoli”, un pezzo da collezione in cui figurano reali vie e toponimi della cittadina in provincia di Bari. Non è l’unico evento di quell’anno a testimoniare la vivacità del centro pugliese nell’ambito della cultura popolare. Nel mese di settembre, nell’area rurale tra Monopoli e Castellana Grotte, su iniziativa del chitarrista e produttore monopolitano Sebastiano Lillo, si è insediata la Trulletto Records, una nuova e ambiziosa etichetta discografica. Il nome omaggia i trulli, le antiche costruzioni a cupola in pietra a secco tipiche della zona, una delle quali, opportunamente ristrutturata, ospita uffici e studio di registrazione. “Ci siamo messi a produrre materiale roots e blues, roba scarna e senza fronzoli”, racconta Lillo, non nuovo a raggiungere il successo partendo da raso terra: è stato degno partner della cantante di “raw soul” Angela Esmeralda, con la quale ha pubblicato due acclamati CD tra deep blues e dialetto pugliese e partecipato nel 2015 all’International Blues Challenge di Memphis. Ha fatto pure parte del quartetto The Drive che nel 2019, dopo trionfato alle selezioni nazionali, ha rappresentato l’Italia all’European Blues Challenge di Ponta Delgada, alle Isole Azzorre. “In un panorama artistico sempre più orientato all’elettronica”, insiste Lillo, “il nostro obiettivo è quello di dare valore al sound elettro-acustico e alle idee di ogni musicista, senza artifici”. La prima uscita per la Trulletto è “Sitting Singin’ Old Songs” di Stefano Barigazzi, ventiquattrenne cantante e chitarrista emiliano. Il disco, registrato in casa durante la quarantena accompagnato da una chitarra d’epoca acquistata a New Orleans, rivisita canzoni vecchie e vecchissime, da Bukka White a Harry Belafonte a Bob Dylan. Lo hanno seguito “Songs From The Garret”, debutto solista di HaT in the Garret, al secolo Giuseppe “JimiRay” Piazzolla, e le opere di giovani personalità come Cedro, alias Pierpaolo Mingolla, cantautore e fisarmonicista, o la sensazionale chitarrista fingerstyle Palma Cosa. Ultimo rampollo, per ora, dell’etichetta che abita nel trullo è “Cianfrusaglie”, un progetto musicale in forma di duo che coinvolge direttamente Sebastiano Lillo insieme al contrabbassista Carletto Petrosillo. https://trullettorecords.bandcamp.com/ https://www.trullettorecords.com/ 18

Rock and Blues International • August November 2020 2020

TRULLETTO RECORDS Music Has Found A Home In The Tradition by Edoardo Fassio In July 2019, the Italian distributor of Monopoly launched a special version of the most famous board game in the world, specifically dedicated to the Apulian town of (almost) the same name; it is “Monopoli’s Monopoly edition”, a collector’s item celebrating the coastal town that lies 45 kilometers south-east of Bari, right where Italy’s heel starts. This was not the only event of note, last year, to testify to the liveliness of the local scene when it comes to popular culture. In September, in the rural area between Monopoli and Castellana Grotte, homeboy guitarist and producer Sebastiano Lillo founded Trulletto Records, an ambitious record label. The name pays homage to the trulli, the ancient domed dry-stone buildings typical to the area, one of which, appropriately renovated, houses the company’s offices and a recording studio. “We started producing roots and blues music, concentrating on basic, no-frills stuff”, says Lillo, not new to achieving success starting from scratch. He was the musical partner of the raw soul singer Angela Esmeralda, with whom he released two acclaimed CDs that blended deep blues and Apulian vernacular, and participated in 2015 to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. He was also part of The Drive, the quartet that represented Italy at the 2019 European Blues Challenge, held at Ponta Delgada, in the Azores Islands. “In an artistic landscape that is increasingly dominated by electronics”, Lillo insists, “our goal is to reassess the importance of the electro-acoustic sound, and pay respect to the musicians’ ideas, with no tricks at all”. The first release for Trulletto is “Sitting Singin’ Old Songs” by Stefano Barigazzi, a twenty-four-year-old singer and guitarist from Reggio Emilia. Throughout the album, recorded at home during the lockdown, he accompanies himself with a vintage guitar purchased in New Orleans, and revisits old (and also very old) songs, from Bukka White to Harry Belafonte to Bob Dylan. It was followed by “Songs From The Garret”, the solo debut of HaT in the Garret, aka Giuseppe “JimiRay” Piazzolla, and the works of young personalities such as Cedro (Pierpaolo Mingolla), a singer-songwriter and accordionist, or the impressive fingerstyle guitarist Palma Cosa . As of November 2020, the latest baby of the label that lives in the trullo is “Cianfrusaglie” (Junk), by a duo that directly involves Sebastiano Lillo, along with double bass ace Carletto Petrosillo. https://trullettorecords.bandcamp.com/ https://www.trullettorecords.com/

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Tab Benoit Rocks the Ryman Live in Concert! Along with Very Special Guest, Samantha Fish Show will also be Live-streamed - Friday, November 6, 8pm Tickets: $89.-$129. (Live-stream: $12.) Tab Benoit’s Musical ever heard Fish’s previous albums knows that reminiscent of the late great Otis Redding. she has earned a place in the top rank of The final song of Benoit’s 75-minute set was blues guitarists and that her “Medicine” the title barn burning song from Ties To Music City contemporary voice can wring the soul out of a ballad and the 2011 album. The band was so tight by this belt out a rocker with roof-shaking force. time that it was seamless in the way that the Run Deep And, rest reassured, those virtues are fully in trio inter-played with each other. The night Benoit received a Grammy nomination in 2006 for his musical tribute to Blues and Country music on the album, Brother to the Blues. The title track was a George Jones cover. The legendary country singer is one of Tab’s favorites. The Houma, Louisiana-based Benoit also paid homage to Music City with 2011’s Night Train To Nashville, which also featured Louisiana’s Leroux. Joining Benoit at the Ryman: Very Special Guest, Samantha Fish. “That was my mission on this album: To really set these songs up so that they have a life of their own,” says guitarist Samantha Fish about Kill or Be Kind, her sixth solo album and Rounder Records debut. “Strong messages from the heart – that’s what I really set out for.” Indeed, what comes across immediately on hearing the album is the extraordinary level of song-craft on its eleven tracks, the way these songs are so smartly put together to deliver a potent emotional impact. Anyone who has

evidence on Kill or Be Kind. Each of the songs tell captivating stories, set up by verses that deftly set the scene, choruses that lift with real feeling, and hooks that later rise up in your thoughts. Those qualities make Kill or Be Kind a genuine artistic breakthrough for Fish. Benoit was selected a “30 Best Blues Guitarist In The World Today” by Guitar World and co-authored the recently-released book, Blues Therapy, about the blues and mental illness. Reviewing a live Tab Benoit show this past Spring, Blues Rock Review writes, “Song number two was “Little Girl Blues” a hard rocking bayou blues song from 2005’s Fever From the Bayou giving Tab the opportunity to demonstrate his prowess on the six string by attacking it like a man possessed. “Nothing Takes the Place of You” by Toussaint McCall was a beautiful soaring blues tune that Benoit sang with a passion

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

ended as a satisfied audience expressed their appreciation for a great show.” Benoit, who’s always been known for his environmental activism, performed two nights in his hometown of Houma last Spring at the 16th Annual Voice of the Wetlands Festival. He also appears prominently in the IMax motion picture Hurricane on the Bayou, a documentary of Hurricane Katrina’s effects and a call to protect and restore the Wetlands, and produced a CD to help restore that state’s Coastal Wetlands. Benoit was recently inducted into the Louisiana Folklife Center Hall of Master Folk Artists in the Spring of 2020. Benoit has launched his own imprint, Whiskey Bayou Records, with partner and manager, Rueben Williams. The label has thus far released albums by such established artists as Eric McFadden, Alastair Greene, Damon Fowler, Eric Johanson, Jeff McCarty, and Dash Rip Rock.

November November 2020 2020 •• Rock Rock and and Blues Blues International International

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Head Honchos Release Their New Album on Grooveyard Records Blues Alliance 22

Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;˘ November 2020

By Kevin Wildman The Indiana based Blues band, Head Honchos has just released their new album, Blues Alliance. This is the band’s second release for Grooveyard Records. Blues Alliance was recorded by Will Wyatt at GreenRoom Studios. Will also happens to be the drummer in Head Honchos, so he knew just what the band was trying to achieve on this album, and did a fine job in accomplishing that. Blues Alliance was mixed by Mike Regan in California and mastered by Stavros Papadopoulos at MojoTone studios in Greece. Robert Calipari Sr., guitarist for Head Honchos, produced the album along with Will Wyatt and Joe Romagnola. Head Honchos features a great lineup of seasoned musicians consisting of Rocco Calipari Sr. on guitar and lead vocals, Rocco Calipari Jr. on guitar, Mike Boyle on bass, Will Wyatt on drums, percussion, and harmonica, as well as backing vocals. Blues Alliance also features guest keyboardist Mark Landes on the song “She Got That Feeling.” It’s safe to say that Rocco Calipari Sr. is pretty much the leader of this fine outfit. Rocco previously performed with Howard and The White Boys, but he has an impressive track record having performed also with great performers such as Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Carl Weathersby, and many others. Growing up in the Detroit music scene, Rocco learned from the best. During his time with those acts, Rocco has also performed at many venues across the world, including major blues festivals that have stretched from Hawaii to Canada’s Tremblant International Blues Festival and into Western Europe. As you can see, this guy is a hardcore veteran to the Blues scene and the glue that holds this outfit together. Accompanying Rocco in the band is his son, guitarist Rocco Calipari Jr. Rocco Jr. is an alumni of L.A.’s Guitar Institute where he studied under Carl Verheyen from Supertramp and guitar virtuoso Scott Henderson, along with blues instructor/writer Keith Wyatt. So now you know why the guitars on Blues Alliance sound so damn good. In addition to that, the rhythm section of Will Wyatt and Mike Boyle are definitely first class all the way. Blues Alliance features 11 of the finest Blues-Rock songs you’ve ever heard. From the moment the album starts to the final bars of the last song on the album, “I’m A Ram,” you’re in for a helluva high-powered Blues ride. One of the reasons for the album sounding so cohesive took place in the recording process. For the most part, everything was done live in the studio where the band could interact with each other through the recording process. There were a few overdubs of course, but these mainly consisted of vocals and guitar leads. Although I call the band Blues-Rock, Rocco has his own take on how he’d like to

describe the band. “The reason we call it Blues Alliance is because that’s the common thread in the whole CD. You’ll hear elements of Blues throughout every song, but you know we’re also a rock band. We also like Rock, Blues, Funk and Soul. We try to mix all those elements into the music, but we’re not a solid blues band, although we could do that. We also play straight up Blues gigs, but, we we’re a little more eclectic.” The album is primarily all original, but they did happen to pick two of their favorite covers to add to the album. Those songs were “Evil” by Willie Dixon” and the album’s closing song, “I’m A Ram” by Al Green. The principal songwriter on this project was Rocco Calipari Sr., but there were some other contributors on the album as well. Rocco Jr. wrote the opening song to the album, “Stuck Between The Middle,” and bassist Mike Boyle penned the song, “Midnight Ride.” When it comes to the two cover songs, “Evil” and “I’m A Ram,” Rocco Sr. tells us that, “We’ve been playing those songs in our live show for a while. We really liked the songs a lot and the Al Green song “I’m A Man”. We took a different approach to what he did, like a back porch kind of Blues feel to it with resonator guitars and all that. We put the electric stuff down for that one and recorded it live and it came out really good. “Evil” just goes over well at our live shows. We like both The Howlin’ Wolf version and the Cactus version, so we kind of combine those two versions and made our own version.” The first song on the album is “Stuck Between The Middle” and Rocco Jr. wrote it about his father and the choices made in work situations, such as his day job and his musical career. “I primarily wrote it about my dad working a job, but being a musician and wanting to be musician full-time,” explains Rocco Jr. “You know, it’s stuck between the middle. It’s about being between the middle of working a job that you necessarily don’t enjoy, to put bread on the table, but wanting to follow your passion instead. You’re stuck between staying at your job to provide, versus following your dreams.”

that Mike was simply talking about getting out for a ride and clearing your head… opening your mind up. “Mike was just thinking that sometimes you just want to get away. You hop on your bike or get in your car and just take off down the road, take your mind off things and leave your past behind. You know, just start a new and take a midnight ride. Clear your head, right!” Rocco Sr. wrote the majority of the songs on the album, although he does like to give credit to the band for their suggestions and contributions to each of the songs. After all, it does take a union of all the musicians in the band to make a song gel properly. Rocco explains his writing process as “When I write a song usually write the music first, the groove, and then I write the lyrics that fit the style of that groove. If it’s a real aggressive groove, I’ll try to make the lyrics like that. I just want the lyrics to correspond with the feel of the music? I’m not trying to get any big messages across. Sometimes I write about family, love, life, politics, whatever it is, but I’m not like trying to push no big message. I just want the music to be good and people to enjoy it.” As I always like to point out, inspiration comes in many forms, sometimes from the most obvious of places, sometimes just to soothe a person, and sometimes to illustrate a feeling about something. On the funk filled song, “Mr. Bad,” Rocco Sr. tells us that it came from a disagreement with a fellow colleague one day. In this song, Rocco likens himself to the title “Mr. Bad.” “That song was written about a colleague of mine that I was having some little bit of a beef with. We’ve since squashed that, so it came out in a song. I

Bassist for the band, Mike Boyle wrote continued on next page the song “Midnight Ride.” Rocco Sr. tells us November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

from a musical family and grew up listening to the great bands from the Motown era there like The Temptations and The Funk Brothers. It made quite an impression on him. “Detroit was a great place going up for music,” says Rocco Sr., “and my family and my father were really into 50s rock and roll. I cut my teeth on Chuck Berry and Jerry Lewis, Little Richard and people like that. And so it’s just an homage to growing up back then. Detroit used to be the hotbed of music entertainment for a long time. In the 50s and 60s, that was the place to be. It sure was was great, and that’s why most bands wanted to play there. If you could make it in Detroit, you knew that you were doing something special. Live music was great in Detroit when I was growing up and before then. I haven’t been back in quite a few years, so I don’t know what’s like today.”

Head Honchos continued from previous page guess we were bucking heads and not crossing the right path together on some topics. I had a little bit more experience and time into the endeavor and that’s how it came out. It was a fun song to write and it was just about that experience. I had to work through that and it ended up working out in my favor, so it’s just a song about how people should just be careful about who you mess with sometimes. It was just that the song came out of the situation. We’re friends. You write songs about past loves or current ones or something like that, but it was just about a prior event that happened and a good song came out of it, but there are no hard feelings about it to this day.” For the song “Number One,” Rocco Sr. combined the issues of country and family alike. “That song is just about family, you know. It’s about loving your country and loving your family and putting that stuff first. No matter what goes on in life, you still always have your family to fall back on and always make sure that you know that they’re number one in your life.” On the funk-filled song, “She Got That Thing,” Rocco tells us that it is all about his wife. It’s about my wife. It’s all good about my wife Jackie. In my eyes she’s got that thing for me, you know, and it’s a kind of homage to her, and our relationship and everything. She’s very supportive of everything that I do. We’re very close and so I just thought it was easy to write a song about her. So I just wrote a kind of a tonguein-cheek fun kind of bluesy dance song with her in mind because she loves to dance.” Not all the songs come from occur-

rences in Rocco’s Sr. life. Some are just musical ideas that manifest themselves in the music such as the case with “Find Me A Woman.” “Find Me A Woman” is not about anybody in particular,” says Rocco Sr. It was just a song idea. Some songs are just about relationships and things. That one was just about anybody. Many people have been in relationships that weren’t the greatest or they’re not feeling appreciated and things like that. This is just about a guy, I guess, who wasn’t getting what he felt he deserved, and was going to find him a woman that would treat him right.” On “Can’t Be Satisfied,” Rocco Sr. sings a bit about our political climate and how no one seems to be satisfied. “That song’s a little more on the political edge. There’s a lot of conflict in politics these days, although we choose to stay out of it, you know. We don’t get political or anything that personally with anybody, but it’s kind of just about that. You know how some things are handled with governments.” The same sentiment enters in the next song as well, “We Will Win”. Rocco Sr. tells us, “That’s another one. That’s kind of on the political side, I guess. Sometimes they just feed us a lot of stuff on TV that just isn’t true. So I try to try to keep the TV off because of that and it’s just about that all the misinformation that’s being tossed around all over the place today.” The last song to talk about on the album is the extremely rockin’ tune, “Rock And Roll.” This song is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a song about Rocco’s time growing up in Detroit in his early days. Rocco came

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Rocco Sr. tells us that the recording of the album was quite easy and the band had a great time recording at Will Wyatt’s studio. It was an incredible experience for them. “Nothing was really hard,” says Rocco Sr. “I mean, we do rehearse a lot. We do write original songs and we have to work some things out, but nothing was particularly hard for the band. We have a great chemistry together and it’s funny. It’s almost like we can read each other’s minds and we think the same and it’s always fun with us. It never was labored, you know what I mean. We love what we’re doing and we have a great time doing it. We try to play as much as we can, so it was all very enjoyable for us. We will bounce ideas off of each other, for instance the song “Midnight Ride”. When it was presented to us, it was in a different key and that was a little difficult for me to sing. So we switched the keys and we had added a bridge to it. Yeah, that does happen along the way. You might write a song, but then somebody else might hear something that might fit in there a little better and if it works, well, we will keep it.” All in all, this was a great recording for the Head Honchos. The fun they had recording the album definitely shows on the finished piece. It really is an incredible ride of rock and blues, funk and soul, all mixed up in one great bundle of 11 songs. If you’re into the Blues, but looking for something a little on the heavier side, on the more rock side, then this is the album for you. It really shows the versatility a great outfit has and just what can be handled with the right group of musicians. Pick up a copy of the Head Honchos Blues Alliance today and just start rockin’. Once you put the album on, you’ll be playin’ it through till the last song… and then maybe put it on one more time. I just don’t get tired listening to this great amalgamation of rock, funk, blues and soul. You won’t either.

Bert Wills

Legendary Texas Singer/Songwriter Bert Wills Delivers The Goods

Down in southeastern Texas lives a man that was born in rural Kentucky but moved to Texas years ago. He came here playing the blues harp with a slow, winding country bent to it, part of his Kentucky roots, and the recording industry was quick to pick up on his unique sound. Abilities is used in the plural here and that’s because the man not only wails a mean harp but his guitar work is aces as well. His name is Bert Wills and if you are a studio musician you know that name well as the man is sought after by many producers. One of those producers is Andy Bradley, known world wide for his talents at the console, his past co-ownership in of SugarHill Studios, and his successful book titled, “House Of Hits”. Bert and Andy go back a ways, 35 years to be exact, both know each other’s talents well so it would be of no big surprise that they could team on a compilation of Bert’s songs for a new album. It would not be their first collaboration as Andy has recorded nearly every album Bert has presented to the world. A new album has come to life recently simply titled “Bert Wills”. It’s just being shipped to radio stations right now and let me tell you whether you are a blues fan or an Americana fan or both this album is packed with stirring and riveting selections. Both men have similar personalities, friendly but direct. Both will tell you where to go in a New York second if you are a poser and both will be the first to tell you how welcomed you are if you are the real deal. Bert is known throughout the industry internationally and has worked with a ton of well known stars over the years. He’s also an accomplished songwriter and when he puts his Kentucky roots into a song well Katy bar the door because it’s going to be good. His last gig was with Nashville artist Rob McNurlin who is part of the Marty Stuart clan. Then he returned to Texas to work on his new blues Americana album. The end result was a fourteen track collection of 13 original songs and one cover, not a klunker among them. On the collection you can hear the raw strains of good back woods country music in Bert’s voice and on the same collection you will hear some of the best blues you have heard in years. To learn more access www.bertwillsmusic.com

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Submitted for Grammy® Nomination

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Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;˘ November 2020

The Barrett Anderson Band Is Ready to HypnoBoogie You on New Live CD By Kevin Wildman Barrett Anderson and The Barrett Anderson Band have just released their new album, HypnoBoogie, on Whitaker Blues Records. The new album was recorded live in concert at The Fallout Shelter in Norwood, Massachusetts. HypnoBoogie features the whole set that they performed there that night, 11 power-packed songs featuring 7 original pieces along with 4 classic rock and blues songs that the band really loves to play. This great recording shows just how much energy is packed into a Barrett Anderson Band performance. From the moment the set starts with “Mona” to the last notes of “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party”, you’ll find yourself in for a great time. There’s no low spots here, just high-energy Blues-Rock with that in-your-face punch to it. The Barrett Anderson Band is Barrett Anderson – vocals and guitar; Charlie Mallet – guitar and vocals; Doug MacLeod – drums; and Jamie “Black Cat Bone” Hatch – bass and vocals. The cover songs that Barrett and the band handpicked to be on this release are rockers that they almost always include in their nightly performances. These included songs from Bo Diddley (“Mona”), Magic Sam (“Lookin’ Good”), Son House (Grinnin’ In Your Face”), and The J. Geils Band “((Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party”. The seven original songs by the band are “Good Man,” “Not Your Baby,” “Emma Lee,” “Blind Faith,” “The Long Fall,” “Broken Down,” and “Gone.” “We brought it,” Barrett Anderson says of that special night’s recording. “The Barrett Anderson Band delivered. We managed to capture the entire album in front of an audience that night - one take of each song and we played hard. We boogied. We moved. We grooved. We let it all out, and once it’s out, it can’t go back in.” “We simply did exactly what we had hoped to,” Charlie Mallet chimes in. “We tuned in, closed our eyes, and played our music the only way we know how – with everything we have.” “This is a live band,” Doug MacLeod adds. “We improvise every night, striving for a feel or a spirit while letting the music guide us there. We couldn’t have captured this in a studio. This soul, this energy, this vibe is something we all tune in to when we walk on stage.” “HypnoBoogie is a mix of influences,” Jamie Hatch summarizes. “It’s not blues, although there are blues influences. It’s not rock, although we’ve taken plenty of cues from The Rolling Stones.”

When you listen to this album, you are going to be truly amazed. The playing is right on and from the very first notes of “Mona”, the band is all in the same groove together. And why not, this is the same music they perform all the time, the way they always perform it… high energy all the way. We asked Barrett about what made them pick these cover songs in particular and he told us, “We knew going into this that we had basically two hours to capture everything that we wanted to record, so we had to really had to pick and choose our favorite songs. “Mona has been a part of our set list for a number of years now. I think the first version that I heard was that Quicksilver version. My dad was a big John Cipolina fan and so I grew up with a lot of their debut album on in the background during car rides. Now with “Mona” in particular, we started introducing it at the end of our shows as the closer for the first set, and I just figured, ‘what could you possibly follow that one up with’. Before our gig, Jamie, the bass player said to me, ‘what would happen if we reversed the set list with the last song first and the first song last?’ I said, let’s find out and so we did, we turned the setlist upside down and man, I really started liking leading with “Mona.” I feel like it sets a great pace for the for the rest of the night.”

Son House song, “Grinning In My Face.” This is a song that Barrett started playing solo with an acoustic guitar and it gradually evolved into the version that the band performs now. “Son House is one of my absolute heroes. For the last 20 years when people have asked me whom my favorite musicians are, that I answer can very quickly. Son House is always in my top 3. It was the shear force with which he gave everything he did. I felt like Son in the 60s when he was barely coherent and playing kind of out of tune, and was playing really slow that none of that matters. It’s just so powerful. He makes music that makes you feel something and so I’ve always tried to include a couple of Son House songs in every in every show that we play. “Grinning In Your Face” has evolved quite a bit from being a song that I played solo on an acoustic guitar to playing it as a full band. It’s always been a part of the set list and there was no question that we had to include that.”

When picking out cover songs for his gigs, Barrett really has to do some soul searching to pick just the right ones. He still wants to play the blues, but he needs to be true to himself as well. “You know, I have to be careful playing Blues. I’m from a small town in Central Massachusetts and have been predominantly in New England for most of my career. As much as I love James Cotton singing cotton picking Blues songs about being out in the field, that is not honest to me. I feel like at the heart of what we try to do with music, is play music that is honest for us to play and that we can connect with from a very deep place. If we can establish that connection from inside of us, hopefully we can also extend that outward and make music that matters to the other people too. You don’t want it to sound fake. You don’t want to sound, like you’re singing words that couldn’t be yours.”

Another song on the album is “Looking Good” by Magic Sam. Barrett has included that song in his set for over 20 years now. It’s definitely another one of his favorites. “I just loved the Westside Blues and Magic Sam. I like to hear people innovating on the form when I listen to the music. When you listen to early Muddy Waters, it seems like he’s not stuck in the genre. He’s playing the music that is natural to him. He’s not setting out to play Blues with a capital B. He’s setting out to play his music for people to have a good time and get down to. It’s so exciting to hear in the 60s that kind of second generation picking up the ball from Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy, and then working in some James Brown, working some Junior Parker. And again, just trying to play music that has a real good groove and a good feel to it. I can’t sing like Sam, so we couldn’t do “I Feel So Good,” or any of his kind of ‘boogie tunes’

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The Barrett Anderson Band continued from previous page with vocals, but I’ve been working on “Looking Good” for 20-some years now. Back when I was playing with Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, that was the song that Ronnie and I would often have the band drop out and Ronnie and I were just going to trade licks back and forth and groove on. Then after my time with Ronnie, I joined the Monster Mike Welch Band and with Mike I got one featured song every night and my featured song was generally “Looking Good. So I’ve been living with that one for a long time.” Closing out the set for HypnoBoogie is the J. Geils Band’s “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party.” This song pretty much sums up the night after a Barrett Anderson Band show. It’s been nothing but a full-blown party. The J. Geils version of “House Party” begins with that Peter Wolf thing, ‘we are going to blow your face out’. What a what a way to begin a song… I grew up in Massachusetts and The J. Geils Band is one of those acts to be very proud of. Especially, it felt like a real revelation when a friend of mine put on the live album Full House, and I discovered that they were more than “Centerfold” and “Love Stinks.” I guess it was that full body rock and roll, giving yourself entirely over to the music. I mean, there’s no holding back when you’re performing this on stage with that energy and that full commitment and everything that you’re doing, it is very attractive to me. I just always loved “(Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party” and that was another one that we started doing. It’s a set closer and it’s still generally the last song that we play at night.”

covers. And these are songs that that we could fully inhabit.” Besides the cover songs in this set, the band has some great originals here. Over the years Barrett’s songs have evolved and changed with the years. After performing those for a number of years, the songs seem to grow on their own. They make the transition from studio albums to live songs and they exude a new feeling about them. “I think one of the beautiful things about making a live album is it gave us an opportunity to revisit some of the original songs that I had recorded 13 years ago and capture where they are now, which I think is much more fully realized than before. I think that music is not a static thing in these songs. When you go into a studio and you get something on tape, that’s how you played it that one time and hopefully you captured something that you can live with for the rest of your life without cringing too much, but that’s any music. It does evolve. I recorded my first album in 2007 down in North Mississippi at Jimbo Mathus’ studio, called Delta Recording Service. He was a joy to work with. He pulled together a band for me and we recorded for two days and mixed for one. Then I drove 1,100 miles back up to Massachusetts, but definitely, you know what, we captured it in those recordings. There were songs like “Gone” and “Broken Down,” two of my originals that we recorded back in 2007 that are on this album. Everything in those songs really have their own kind of traction in a way. It was a pleasure to be able to capture them live. You know I mentioned that I’ve been playing “Looking Good” as a big part of the shows for 20 years.”

“Yeah,” continues Barrett, “those songs Another song off the live album is one were all covers that I felt like we could really of the longest on the live set. He performed fully inhabit and kind of own. If you’re that long ago with a couple of the members of playing a Muddy Waters song exactly like this band from the live album, as he explains. Muddy Waters, chances are people are going “Also, “The Long Fall” is a song about to go and put on the original instead of putting halfway through the album. It’s an original on what you’re doing. I really wanted to and it’s 13 and a half minutes long. We tried make sure that we have our unique stamp on to keep it a bit economical time wise. That everything, whether it’s our original songs or was one of the very first songs that I wrote 28 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

and actually played in a band with almost the same lineup. I wrote it back in the late 90s with my first band that involved Jamie who plays bass with me now and Doug who plays drums with me now. They were both involved back then and I remember coming to them and saying ‘I have this idea, let’s work it through’ and kind of playing it with them back then and it never quite felt right in other scenarios. As this lineup came together, this has been the sturdy lineup for the last seven years now. We were able to reintroduce this song but it is, you know, funny to go in to record a song that you have a long history with. I think in many ways it’s easier to take something new, that you don’t have 20 years of playing it. You know, it’s like ‘I kind of remember that I did it really well… I thought that was a really special night there when this happened or that happened.’ You don’t have that kind of context when we’re recording something that that we had been playing and living with for so long. In some ways it’s like. ‘all right, we have to do this right now. We have to do it the best that we have ever done, because this is going to be the definitive version from here on out.’ We managed to not fake ourselves out and I think we really did the song some justice. I think a big thing with going in and doing this album was that I felt like we had one shot and we had to capture what we could. You don’t want it to get stuck in your head at those times. You don’t want to fake yourself out. I think we just managed to close our eyes and do what we normally do and capture the band as we normally sound.” For Barrett Anderson and his band, the recording of this album happened in just the nick of time. They recorded this gig on February 1, just before the Covid-19 Pandemic came on strong. Everything just seemed to come into play for the band at the right time. Talk about lucky, this band had it coming in spades. It was also a godsend for Barrett. He wanted so much to do a live album, and now it was done. Only the mixing needed to be taken care of. “It was thrilling,” says Barrett. “I felt like I’ve been wanting to make a live album since my last album came out in 2012 and all of the little pieces came together in such a beautiful way for this and I just was beside myself. It worked. There was no pretending that it was just a normal gig. The venue that we recorded at is it’s a spot called The Fallout Shelter. Bill Hurley, who used to work for Atlantic Records, runs it. Duane Allman at one point said, ‘you know when you’re on stage, you got to give it a hundred and fifty percent and even that’s not enough and so let’s go up there. Let’s give it a hundred and fifty percent’. When I walked off the stage, I just felt like we had fully delivered on that end”. Be sure to check out the new live album, HypnoBoogie by The Barrett Anderson Band. It is truly his best album yet and it fully captures all those great moments that you’d experience at one of their concerts, not to mention putting a new spin on his old classics. It’s a great album full of fine songs and some of the most energetic guitar playing you’ve ever heard.

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Houston National Forest. Being home is where he collects his thoughts, grabs on to some more of that regional way of life and just like an unspoken muse siting next to him on his front porch the art takes shape. A prime example is one of Ray’s songs “Lafayette” which captures the down home atmosphere that resides within the community. His vivid descriptions make it easy to envision the lifestyle as he presents the lyrics in an upbeat tempo with the proper emphasis in place. Moving beyond Lafayette, Southeastern Texas and Southwestern Louisiana still to this day have blues jukes. There’s nothing like them anywhere else in the world. Folks still have barbecues, smoke meat, make a batch of gumbo and have a ball. Great folks, great food, great music and Ray captures the essence of the gulf coast in his songs. Ray Cashman tours England, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary and in the USA he performs starting in the gulf coast region all the way to and including Canada. Take a listen and hear the music of Ray Cashman. To learn more about Ray and his music visit: www.raycashman.net

The Real Deal - Ray Cushman Some folks play the blues while some write about it and present it as their own because it is. A blues man from Montgomery, Texas named Ray Cashman is the later. This guy is the real deal. His songs are on the radio around the world, and his European show date list alone would be the envy of anybody looking to expand internationally. Yet the man who had moved away to Austin and then on to Nashville returned to his roots in Southeastern Texas. The music down his way is referred to as Gulf Coast Gumbo, as it is made up of multiple regional influences both current and from the past. As a young man Ray felt these influences and sought out down home mentors. His youthful odyssey led him to the heart of the Gulf Coast sound and as they say the man is a natural and they accepted him and taught him well. What’s cool about Ray is that his music does not pull any punches. He writes and presents his message on topics such as a woman that stays stoned all day long “Reefer Headed Woman”, while his subdued “Moon Over Orleans” was made into a moving story telling video produced by Relaxing Blues. Ray’s new album just came out and it’s beginning to hit the airwaves right now, Palmetto and Pine. It’s jam packed with eleven tracks

and the man’s regional influences are all over this baby. By the way this is not Ray’s first rodeo, he has seven complete albums to his credit. Another of Ray’s releases is an album titled Houston Electric and Houston Electric stayed on the charts for weeks and was aired by over 200 radio stations worldwide. His sound, his lyrics, the presentation of everything the man turns out is this real deal Southeastern Texas music that is unique to the region. It was interesting to learn that Ray felt the call to move on years ago and like a moth to a flame he made the rounds into quite a number of blues clubs out of town and out of state. It was exciting, it was educational, and Ray learned from that exposure that others far away from his roots love this sound too. Then Ray came to realize that he needed to be home for his soul to be at rest and he returned to just outside of Montgomery, Texas to live in the Sam

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October 2020 â&#x20AC;¢ Rock and Blues International

Charles Christian’s Americana Make Mine A Double, On The Rocks The year 2020 is an unusual one in songwriting terms because we have the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests and (in the United States) a Presidential Election. As a consequence we are seeing a lot of new ‘issue’ or protest songs being released. Some hit the nail on the head but far too many others are overtly partisan or else lack the subtlety to deliver the message effectively. Music is ultimately a form of relaxation and entertainment – and people don’t like being preached at, no matter how well intentioned the songwriter or performer may be. So let’s put the protest songs to the side and focus on the lyrics of more mainstream music… Although they share common roots, one of the biggest differences between Country Music and Americana Music is while Country has a lot of songs in its canon about God, Love (happy love, broken hearted love) and Alcohol (not always in the same song*), with Americana it tends to be more about Love and Alcohol (frequently in the same song) – with whiskey and bourbon emerging as the most popular tipples. Though I suspect this may have more to do with the fact whiskey and bourbon both have two syllables which can help with rhyming lyrics. (And good job this

isn’t a British songwriting genre otherwise we’d be trying to find rhymes for ‘tea’ and ‘pints of bitter’.) Nashville-based Robynn Shayne sums up the whole situation, how just a couple of innocent drinks can result in big problems, with her track from a couple of years back: Whiskey and Bad Decisions. There again Cody Jinks is insistent the problem is not the lust and that it Must Be the Whiskey, a sentiment echoed by Robert Jon & The Wreck who want to Blame It on the Whiskey. However it’s not just the drink that gets you into trouble, it’s also the drink that can make you feel better when you are in trouble or broken hearted – and there are a legion of drinking songs around this theme. Miranda Lambert knows her boyfriend doesn’t love her like Tequila Does, while Kelsea Ballerini is drinking so much Cabernet “of course she doesn’t miss him, in fact he’s completely slipped her mind” but she is concerned there’s a Hole in the Bottle which is why she appears to be drinking so much wine. The latest contribution to this genre is the unlikely celebrity coupling of Keith Urban and Pink (apparently it should be written P!nk – who knew) with their new single One Too Many about a couple who are spending their time in separate bars but would rather be with each other. The video suggests they also spent their time in separate studios though that may just be coronavirus restrictions.

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Why are there so many drinking songs out there? The answer is neatly summed up by the Swedish Americana duo Thyra (which is probably more meaningful is Swedish) who

recount that while gigging in Nashville last year they got into conversation with a local songwriter who asked them to play their favourite drinking song. They replied that they didn’t have a drinking song, to which the songwriter said “Honey, everyone has to have a drinking song.” They took his advice and have just released the single Drinking You Off My Mind. And then there are those songs about small town bars and how everyone has a good time there – except when they

Ray Wylie Hubbard don’t. In the first category is Livin’ My Best Life by A Thousand Horses and, probably, Ray Wylie Hubbard, with Paula Nelson, singing Drink Till I See Double (then take both of the girls home). In the second category there’s the classic Copperhead Road by Steve Earle (spoiler alert: Daddy dies when his consignment on bootleg moonshine explodes) and the Red Dirt classic The Road Goes On Forever – I like the Joe Ely version. As for my favourite of the current crop of drinking songs, it has to be a tie between Little Big Town with Wine Beer Whiskey which mentions just about every alcoholic drink you can think of – well at least main stream ones. (Yes I too have a fondness for a Captain whose name is Morgan – and bonus to Little Big Town for their duet with Miranda Lambert Smokin’ and Drinkin’.) And the other track: Tired of Drinking Alone by Robert

* One honourable exception to this rule is the new single Jesus & Alcohol by Chapel Hart first mentioned in last months Rock & Blues International. Here are video links for some of the tracks mentioned in this column this month: Steve Earle – Copperhead Road https://youtu.be/ xvaEJzoaYZk

Steve Earle

Ray Wylie Hubbard – Drink Till I See Double https://youtu.be/ AZUOzCTUTz8

A Thousand Horses Jon & The Wreck. When it was recorded, for their current album Last Light on the Highway, it was just another ‘I’m lonely without you, let’s get back together’ song but since coronavirus – and the band’s Zoom-style conference video beautifully echoes this sentiment – it’s an anthem to how we all miss getting together with our friends in our favourite bar, pub or diner. Maybe one day soon – though I’m not holding my breath!

Robert Jon & The Wreck – Tired of Drinking Alone https://youtu.be/ Ddk9fRDyY24 Chapel Hart – Jesus & Alcohol https://youtu.be/czVm7Mbb1Z8 A Thousand Horses – Livin’ My Best Life https://youtu.be/ ZAGk7kYp7k4 Little Big Town – Wine, Beer, Whiskey https://youtu.be/ NdWjChQT1JU

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all the things that add to life whether it’s a dog or boyfriend, it’s about those that make life better. Their final song in this collection is “Met Me Now,” which mines regret and the desire to reset time. Co-written with JHart and Jonny Price, Track45 calls this their “Back to the Future” song. Track45 announced their signing with BBR Music Group/Stoney Creek Records in August by collaboratPhoto Credit: Joseph Llanes ing with the new AR (augmented reality) app Jadu (watch HERE). This allowed Track45 to memorialize their milestone virtually with anyone, anywhere. The cuttingedge technology family-based small-town values and stories allowed the band to appear in the same and made them relevant in a modern world. space via holograph to celebrate with their They have taken their experience as a new label family and the industry as well family and love for one another and as fans and family. Shortly after the combined their own individual successes to announcement, the trio started their first create their musical style. Each earned their media tour performing LIVE at Ron Fair’s own success by signing individual (Christina Aguilera, Black Eyed Peas, publishing deals and compiling impressive Gwen Stefani, Pussycat Dolls, and more) outside cuts including Justin Timberlake, Faircraft Studio. With back to back live Charlie Puth, Lee Brice, HARDY, Lauren performances for media in the studio, Alaina, and more. Ben just earned his first Track45 displays their versatility adapting #1 as a songwriter with Lee Brice’s threeto modern times while holding country week chart-topping hit “One Of Them roots and values. Girls.” Sibling trio Track45 – Jenna, Ben, Comprised of three tracks serving as and KK Johnson from Meridian, MS – their introduction into the country music have taken family-based, small-town scene, Small Town EP is collection that values and made them relevant in a modern captures a multi-layered, crisp, soulful world. The trio’s crystalline harmonies and sound that draws effortlessly from their track-charged musicianship sound current assorted country, rock, R&B, and pop yet sweetly nostalgic on their debut EP, playlists. Small Town, on Stoney Creek Records/ BBR Music Group. The three-song The upbeat “Come On In,” with an collection captures a crisp, soulful vibe that inviting hook and an a cappella intro that draws effortlessly from their assorted tells exactly who they are and where they country, rock, R&B, and pop playlists. The come from is about taking someone back to trio have songwriting credits on every track their hometown and introducing them to and produced several cuts, but they also the people and places that were forming to enlisted an elite group of creative collabotheir lives. This song is close to Track45’s rators including Grammy-winning hearts because they played almost every producer Byron Gallimore. Each is a gifted instrument, and they produced it themsongwriter and musician with individual selves (along with Johnny Reno). “Me + publishing deals and impressive writing You,” an instrumental groove laced with credits – including Justin Timberlake, steel guitar, was co-written with Hunter Charlie Puth, Lee Brice, HARDY, and Phelps and Charlie Handsome. Drawing Lauren Alaina. Their combined hopes and production inspiration from Brooks & passion for music can be heard in every Dunn’s “Neon Moon,” this song is about note of their dream big sound.

TRACK45 RELEASES THEIR DEBUT EP SMALL TOWN Sibling trio Track45 today releases their first ever EP, Small Town via Stoney Creek Records/BBR Music Group. The trio have songwriting credits on every track of the EP and produced several cuts, but they also enlisted an elite list of creative collaborators including Grammy-winning producer Byron Gallimore. In addition to the EP release, they will be performing live tomorrow for C2C’s (Country to Country) Country Music Week as part of BBR Music Group & BMG Showcase at 2pm CST/ 8pm BST. Sharing the bill with The Shires, Granger Smith, LOCASH, and Elvie Shane, this performance can be streamed live here. This showcase will be moderated by BMG Nashville President Jon Loba and BMG/ Broken Bow Records recording artist Lainey Wilson. Small Town EP marks their first EP release as Track45. Ben explains, “We’re from a small town in Mississippi called Meridian and we actually lived there our entire lives until we moved up to Nashville to chase our dream when KK was 15.” Jenna continues, “We co-produced the songs on our EP Small Town with Grammy award-winning producer Byron Gallimore. And the songs show a little bit about where we’re from and who we are.” KK finishes by saying, “It’s really like the first chapter in the story of our lives.” Hailing from Meridian, Mississippi, siblings Jenna, Ben, and KK have taken

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

Nothing Releases Fourth Full-Length Album The Great Dismal NOTHING releases their fourth fulllength The Great Dismal via Relapse Records. Recorded throughout quarantine with producer Will Yip at Pennsylvania’s Studio Four, The Great Dismal explores existentialist themes of isolation, extinction, and human behavior in the face of 2020’s vast wasteland. “The Great Dismal refers to a swamp, a brilliant natural trap where survival is custom fit to its inhabitants,” Domenic Palermo states. “The nature of its beautiful, but taxing environment and harsh conditions can’t ever really be shaken or forgotten too easily.” Coinciding with the album release, NOTHING are also sharing the latest visual installment from the project. Directed by Jordan Hemingway (Yves Tumor, Travis Scott, Gucci, YSL), “Famine Asylum” journeys through the psyche of a murderous man as he spirals into insanity.

The video is the third from the album following visuals for “Say Less” and “Bernie Sanders.” The album also arrives just prior to the band’s ten year anniversary and follows their live-streamed record release show last night, The Great Dismal: An Auditory And Ocular Trauma Featuring Nothing and Full Of Hell, which was purposefully formulated as a way to support live music workers worldwide with a proper paid gig while venues and their staff are out of work due to the pandemic. Closing in on the band’s ten-year mark, NOTHING frontman Domenic Palermo finds himself stringing together songs of misanthropic tales of Philadelphia with a refined and refreshed take on the band’s classic sound. The ever progressive NOTHING keeps true to their chaotic outlook on life,

keeping a keen eye as to avoid repetition. With a radical cast of talented contributors such as harpist Mary Lattimore, classical musician Shelley Weiss, and singer/ songwriter/producer Alex G., The Great Dismal showcases yet another essential side of the band’s trademark American Post-Shoegaze sound. NOTHING The Great Dismal Relapse Records 1. A Fabricated Life 2. Say Less 3. April Ha Ha 4. Catch a Fade 5. Famine Asylum 6. Bernie Sanders 7. In Blueberry Memories 8. Blue Mecca 9. Just a Story 10. Ask The Rust

Novmber 2020 • Rock and Blues International

returned with the sonically and thematically expanded Jp3, a softer, introspective, at times playful expression of a journey to self-love and healing. Due October 23rd, Jp4 is Junglepussy’s stellar next phase. With contributions from vocalist Ian Isiah, rapper Gangsta Boo, and producers Dave Sitek and Nick Hook, Jp4 is Junglepussy ascended. After almost a decade of experimenting, Junglepussy feels she’s finally living up to her name. “From the genesis of Junglepussy, I struggled with my sound, because what I was doing at the time, I knew it wasn’t really, really, really what I wanted to do,” she says. “But I just didn’t know how to get there. Jp4 really sounds like and feels like I got there.” On album opener “Bad News”, she sings from a welcome new place, introducing a soulful, haunting voice that mirrors the song’s title. The noisy, interstellar melodies that guide “Telepathy” and “What You Want” are the album’s trippy, experimental gifts.

Junglepussy Releases New Album Jp4 Out Now Via Friends Of / Jagjaguwar? Shortly after announcing the album New York City’s Junglepussy returns to release Jp4. Out via Friends Of / Jagjaguwar, the new project is an elevation on every level of the larger-than-life Junglepussy persona that she has cultivated. Featuring some of the strongest production Jp has ever rapped over courtesy of Dave Sitek and Nick Hook, Jp4 sees Junglepussy lay full claim to the unique and fiercely independent lane she has carved out for herself. Jp4 is the follow up to Junglepussy’s 2018 record Jp3, which Pitchfork noted “reestablishes [Junglepussy] as one of the most entertaining one-line spitters working today” and includes features from Ian Isiah and Gangsta Boo. The album also includes the previously-released single “Main Attraction,” which arrived alongside a psychedelically futuristic visual. Jp4 physicals will also release on March 5th. With a name as bold as Junglepussy and an artistry to match, Shayna McHayle is New York’s premier rap rule-breaker. Honest, funny, and freaky, her rhymes span from the explicitly audacious to the tenderly relatable. Her unfailingly confident flow accentuates her roots in Brooklyn (her parents are from Trinidad and Jamaica), and her bars land with cool impact. In the universe that is Junglepussy, relationships are complicated, vegetables are magic, and an excellently delivered flex on an ex is one punchline

away. Junglepussy’s fourth album Jp4 follows 2018’s Jp3, and is for her an exercise in grounding. “The number three is very powerful for manifestation,” she explains, referencing her acclaimed third album and what it’s meant to her. “Number four though is really securing the foundation.” Her debut album, 2014’s Satisfaction Guaranteed, was an act of resistance—against broke and disloyal men, basic bitches, and texting. Its signature track, “Bling Bling” (Bling bling bitch do my own thing bitch / Fuck a wedding ring that ding a ling was just a fling bitch) propelled her into the pop culture zeitgeist appearing on HBO’s Insecure, and crystalized the grit and wit she first revealed on 2012’s daring single “Cream Team”—a track that found an early fan in Erykah Badu. Junglepussy’s momentum continued in 2013 as she opened a tour for Lil’ Kim. Her second project, 2015’s Pregnant With Success, maintained the quick-witted, tongue-in-cheek lyricism her cult following adored, and cemented her as a formidable force in New York rap. Three years later, Junglepussy

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

The numerology of four, in its foundational symbolism, is an apt frame for Jp4. Over an eight year career, Junglepussy’s music has led her to lecture at Yale and Columbia, create her own Junglepussy Juice, star in 2018 feature film Support The Girls, and embark on sold-out domestic and international tours. For Junglepussy, Jp4 is a culminating moment—one that holds the essence of closure while hinting at an exciting and expansive future. As comedic and provocative as she can be, she’s an artist who’s held onto a strong sense of purpose. “The only thing that will deter you from doing something you’ve never done before is feeling it’s impossible,” Junglepussy says. “I’ve always really genuinely, delusionally maybe, believed in Junglepussy and saw this vision for it that I couldn’t even explain or describe. It just had to pan out for itself. I do this so nobody sleeps on the awkward black girl never ever again.”

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September 2020 â&#x20AC;˘ Rock and Blues International

Rock And Blues International

New Music From The U.K.

Photo Credit: Rio Carciero

UK Alt-Pop/Electronic Artist Salt Ashes Releases Song/Video For “Cut You With A Kiss” Hotly tipped London-based altpop/electronic artist SALT ASHES has released the highly-anticipated “Cut You With A Kiss”; the latest product of her mission to bring a refreshing and dark edge to the world of dance music. “‘Cut You With A Kiss’ is about questioning the integrity of someone’s new girlfriend and believing that she isn’t good for them,” says Salt Ashes about the new track. “It’s a dark place where honesty gets confused for jealousy so maybe these things shouldn’t be said out loud. [UK Artist] Maddox Jones and I wrote the chorus for this in my bedroom and I fell in love with the catchiness of it straight away. I wrote the rest of the song.”

renowned for her signature dark songs and melodies with a zeitgeist club sound, many of which were inspired by Giorgio Moroder’s blend of disco and epic dark atmospheres. She has since released a string of successful singles, including “Girls,” “Go All Out,” and “Totally Faking”. She kicked off last year with a live performance and Q&A at Apple’s flagship store in London, where she also debuted the music video for her single “Don’t”. Earlier this year, she released her debut EP counting crosses; her most dynamic collection of songs yet.

Salt Ashes burst into the dance music scene with her first full self-titled Now she’s back and in debut album in 2016, produced by the the middle of writing a new late Daniel Fridholm (AKA Cruelty), EP and excited to be performwhich quickly gained popularity with ing some online livestreams music fans worldwide. She became in the near future. 38 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

Cut You With A Kiss” Watch/Embed: https://youtu.be/ EIcv68CPLhg

that I can no longer separate the song from the dance. In my mind they grew simultaneously.”

New Music From Canada

As for the band’s single “Work Friends,” Freeman comments, “‘Work Friends’ speaks to the masks we wear in the workplace. Forced relationships playing out in environments unnaturally curated to make us our most productive. This track is a covert dance party for the freak hiding behind a tightly buttoned shirt and uncomfortable shoes. The tension built through the verse gives way to warmth and understanding in the chorus as layers of voice and violin sweep our thoughts to our deepest friendships.”

Photo credit: Jen Squires

“The violin is a very unique element in this genre of music,” Freeman says. “I approach it primarily as a groove instrument. I love the pulse and foundation it can create.”

Speaker Face Melds Violins, Cellos, Electronics For A Groovy Folktronic Sound That Defines Genre’s Future; Trio’s Groundbreaking “Crescent” By Troy Wilson Canadian award winning indie electronic band, Speaker Face has just released their new groundbreaking album, Crescent. Speaker Face’s new album marries their electronic sounds along with violins and cellos to create an all-new sound for them. The band had already released a sneak preview to the album in the form of their first single, “Phosphorescence,” which has received quite a lot of attention.

“‘Phosphorescence’ is a complicated love song for the West Coast of British Columbia,” says Trent Freeman of Speaker Face. “While we feel so welcomed by the land and connected to the nature where I grew up, many people were displaced to allow our presence. ‘Phosphorescence’ is a thank you letter to those who were here long before us, specifically the Malchosen and the K’omoks first nations, and the early 1900s Japanese settlers, who were interned during WWII. We hope to see this beautiful place through their eyes.” Freeman continues, “‘Phosphorescence’ was recorded at our home studio in Toronto. We love all the tactile hammer sounds of the Rhodes and the fingers plucking the violin, we wanted to have them present and tickling the ears. Capturing the violin part as a cascade of drips helped paint the West Coast landscape. Ruby’s voice was recorded three different times in unison and mixed all around your head, so it feels like you’re swimming in the ocean of her voice. Working on this video with choreographer Jade Whitney was a dream. She connected so well with the song and moves in such a descriptive way

Speaker Face is the band formed by Trent Freeman and Eric Wright of the JUNO award-winning band, The Fretless. Joining them in Speaker Face is vocalist Ruby Randall. Together the three of them create an atmosphere production layered with the lush sounds of piano, electronic beats, violin, and strings, which comes as no surprise since Freeman and Wright were members of the traditional Irish folk band, The Fretless. Wright is a cellist in The Fretless and also provides the bass for Speaker Face. In addition to that Wright also helps to put together the songs with a Hip-Hop inspiration to them. “My inspirations are mostly derived from a hip-hop sensibility,” Eric Wright says of the hypnotic beats he contributes to the album. “I’ve been making beats since I was 13-years-old. 2PAC, Dr. Dre, and Wu-Tang Clan were on repeat. For this album, I sampled crate vinyl for kick sounds and merged those with my own samples. The sampled vinyl with the liveliness of the natural samples creates the soundscape.” Rounding off the sound of Speaker Face is vocalist Ruby Randall with her sultry voice and engaging delivery. Trent Freeman tells us that in most cases, they recorded her voice three times and they were “mixed all around your head so it feels like you’re swimming in the ocean of her vocals.” “I’m so excited to share these Speaker Face tunes with the world,” Randall adds. “Trent has poured himself into these songs and it has been an honor to be able to bring my voice to them.” Speaker Face’s new album Crescent is out now, so give it a listen soon. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the new sound that they are producing. Could this be a new form of ethereal hip-hop… only time will tell.

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

New Music From England

JAMES BLAKE 40

Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;¢ November 2020

By Sheena Johnson James Blake is in the news again. Last month we told you about how the GRAMMY® Award-winning UK singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer had released his own version of the Frank Ocean song, “Godspeed,” and now he is back again. This time with the release of his new EP, Before. James tells us that the new EP is homage to his old London club days. With this new EP, Blake returns to his old dance floor tracks. James took time out last month to preview the title track, of his new EP, “Before”, with Annie Mac on Radio 1 for the “Hottest Record in the World”. His new EP is now available through Republic Records. The songs on this EP are released with visualizers, directed by Ryder Ripps. Each video is tailored to reflect the mood of each song and is a statement of “a yearning for dance floor elations.” James tells us that this is a statement of “finally having confidence to put my own voice on dance floor rhythms,” and signifies that he has always been a DJ and has always been in tune with his underground club culture roots.

JAMES BLAKE RELEASES NEW EP BEFORE

To celebrate the release of this new EP, Blake returned to the set of the Boiler Room last month to perform. This has been his first set at the Boiler Room since 2013. The set was broadcast live on boilerrom.tv, YouTube and jamesblakemusic.com on October 16th and it featured music from his new EP as well as other material.

In another first for James, he had a special promotion with the automobile brand Cadillac for his new EP as well. Besides introducing his new EP, it also introduced the all new 2021Cadillac Escalade. In another first, several of his fans were given rides in the new Escalade to listen to his new EP for the first time on the vehicle’s 36-speaker AKG Studio Reference audio system. These fans were driven to an undisclosed

location where James Blake treated them to an intimate surprise performance in what was his first performance in months. The video provided to me shows four Escalades entering an airplane hanger and facing a stage at 4 different points. When the lights come on, the vehicles are all facing a small stage where James was seated at a piano. It was quite an experience.

are truly phenomenal as well. If you get a chance, please check these out. BEFORE TRACKLISTING 1. I Keep Calling 2. Before 3. Do You Ever? 4. Summer Of Now WATCH BEFORE VISUALIZERS

The new songs on “Before” are truly dynamic and will no doubt be a delight to his fans. Without a doubt, they do show his return to the dance floor and dance music. His videos for the songs

1. I Keep Calling 2. Before (Official Quarantine Video) 3. Do You Ever? 4. Summer Of Now

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

BMI Celebrates Its 2020 London Awards Winners “Dancing With A Stranger” By Sam Smith And Normani Named “Song Of The Year” Bernie Marsden, Caroline Ailin, Ellie Goulding, Ed Sheeran, EY, Gary Kemp, Kamille and Niall Horan Among the Honourees Million-Air, Top Pop and Film, TV & Visual Media Awards Also Announced BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) paid tribute to the top UK and European songwriters, composers and music publishers of the most-performed songs of the previous year at the 2020 BMI London Awards. Honourees for Song of the Year, Million-Air Awards, Top 30 Pop Songs and Film, TV & Visual Media were celebrated across BMI’s digital and social channels. To recognise their remarkable achievements, BMI created a special page on its website where fans can watch video messages, listen to award-winning songs and take a look back at the best award show moments throughout the years. For a complete list of winners, go to https://www.bmi.com/ london2020.

enhanced the lives of many over the past year,” said Shirin Foroutan, Vice President, Creative, Europe. “From BMI’s first-time award winners to our legendary songwriters and composers, we thank you for your enduring musical contributions, and we look forward to celebrating with you all in person at next year’s ceremony.” “Dancing with a Stranger” by Sam Smith and Normani received the coveted Song of the Year, which is awarded to the most performed song in the United States of the previous year by a UK or European writer. On recording the single, Normani told Billboard that the duo came together for the track when she happened to be at the same studio during the recording and Smith asked, “Do you want to jump on it?” From there, the sultry track went on a steady climb before reaching #1 on Billboard’s Radio

“We’re thrilled to pay tribute to BMI’s top UK and European music creators and celebrate the numerous ways their artistry and creativity have 42 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

Songs and Adult Top 40 charts, and according to Billboard, ranked #4 on the list of the most played song on U.S. radio in 2019, after receiving over three billion audience impressions. Smith was also recognised for “How Do You Sleep?” bringing the multiple GRAMMY-winning singer/songwriter to ten BMI London Awards and six BMI U.S. Pop Awards. This marks the second BMI London Award for Normani, who already has three BMI U.S. Pop Awards among her honours. BMI also announced the top 30 most-performed pop songs written by UK or European songwriters, with Ed Sheeran (PRS) taking home six more BMI London Awards for his work on “Beautiful People,” “Cross Me,” “I Don’t Care,” “Tip of My Tongue,” “What Am I” and “2002.” His massive collection of BMI awards features 25

London and 17 U.S. Pop, including 2015, 2016 and 2017 London Song of the Year, and 2016 Dance Song of the Year. Sheeran was also one of BMI’s U.S. Pop Songwriters of the Year in 2014 and received U.S. Pop Song of the Year with “Shape of You” in 2017. Adding to her many accolades, Ellie Goulding received recognition for her hits “Hate Me” and “Close to Me,” bringing her BMI total to nine London Awards and seven U.S. Pop Awards. Additional highlights include Niall Horan receiving his seventh BMI London Award for co-writing “Nice To Meet Ya,” while Caroline Ailin was honoured for co-writing “Don’t Start Now” and Kamille was recognised for her break-up anthem “Don’t Call Me Up.” This is the second BMI London Award for both Ailin and Kamille. This year BMI welcomed 34 first-time London Pop Award winners to the elite list of honourees. Some of the new inductees include Eyobed “EY” Getachew and Ella Mai (“24/7,” cowritten with Nija Charles), Sam Roman (“Someone You Loved,” co-written with Tom Barnes), Chance the Rapper (“Cross Me,” with Ed Sheeran), Chase Dalton Rose and Ski Mask the Slump God (“Faucet Failure,” co-written with Kevin and Tim Gomringer) and Charlie Handsome (“Right Back,” co-written with Mike “Scribz” Riley, Khalid and Brenda Russell). BMI Million-Air Awards were also distributed to recognise the iconic songs that have reached a million or more broadcast performances by UK and European songwriters and publishers. Among the legendary songwriters who have reached this milestone are Van Morrison for 13 million performances of “Brown Eyed Girl,” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for 10 million performances of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfac-

tion,” Sting for nine million performances of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” Bernie Marsden for six million performances of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again,” Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet for five million performances of “True” and Peter Gabriel for four million performances of “Sledgehammer,” to name a few. Sheeran was also recognised for five million performances of “Shape of You” and four million performances of “Perfect” and “Thinking Out Loud.”

Home), as well as Carim Clasmann and Galia Durant (Grey’s Anatomy). BMI Film Music honours went to David Buckley (Angel Has Fallen) Hildur Gu∂nadóttir (Joker), Alexandre Desplat (Little Women, The Secret Life of Pets) and Anna Drubich (Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark) for their outstanding compositions in film. For a complete list of all the winners go to https://www.bmi.com/ london2020, and use #BMILondonAwards to follow the conversation on social media.

Celebrating over 80 years of service to songwriters, composers, music publishers and businesses, Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI®) is a global leader in music rights management, serving as an advocate for the value of music. BMI represents the public performance rights in over 17 million musical works created and owned by more than 1.1 million songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The Company negotiates music license agreements and distributes the fees it generates as royalties to its affiliated writers and In addition, the BMI London publishers when their songs are perAwards celebrate the UK and European formed in public. In 1939, BMI created a composers behind the top-grossing films, groundbreaking open-door policy top network television series and becoming the only performing rights highest-ranking cable network and organization to welcome and represent streamed media programs in the United the creators of blues, jazz, country, and States. Icelandic composer Atli American roots music. Today, the Örvarsson received the most awards in musical compositions in BMI’s reperthis category with five BMI Network toire, from chart toppers to perennial Television Music Awards for his work on favorites, span all genres of music and the popular network dramas Chicago are consistently among the mostP.D., Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, FBI performed hits of the year. For additional and FBI: Most Wanted. Other top information and the latest BMI news, composers in streaming, cable and visit bmi.com, follow us on Twitter and network TV included BMI London’s Instagram @BMI or stay connected 2018 Icon, Harry Gregson-Williams through Broadcast Music, Inc.’s (Catch-22), David Arnold (Good Facebook page. Sign up for BMI’s The Omens), Dominik Scherrer (The Weekly™ and receive our e-newsletter Widow), Andy Love (America’s Got every week to stay up to date on all Talent, with Jos Jorgensen, and Raven’s things music. November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 43

Sam Smith and Normani

2018 with his song “Un Veneno.”

New Music From Spain

“Demasiadas Mujeres” pulls inspiration from all the memorable times he experienced along the way as well as all the sometimes gloomy moments mixed in between. The track is an ode to all the women who have crossed his path and left their mark on him. In the video, we get to see his strength as a visual artist and musician as he weaves his Spanish heritage with modern-day musical influences. The video is written, directed, and produced by the creative boutique Little Spain, and is an extension of the authentic, raw, and unique direction that C. Tangana is taking with his music and career. The video seeks to provide a visual symbolic representation of the emotions that the Spanish-born musician is feeling. The lyrical story that C. Tangana constructs reads like a heartfelt confession and is ignited by his singular and unique blend of rap with the Spanish folklore of “La Campanera” in the background. The cornets and drums of the band Rosario de Cádiz are entwined with a techno rhythm, giving rise to a one-of-a-kind piece of music produced alongside his frequent collaborator, the Barcelona-based platinum-producer and artist Alizzz (Rosalía, Becky G, Doja Cat) to lay the foundations of this new musical direction.

C. Tangana by Javier Ruiz

C. Tangana Releases New Single and Video “Demasiadas Mujeres” One of the most versatile and recognized musicians and artists to come out of Spain, C. Tangana, releases his new single “Demasiadas Mujeres,” adding another layer to the new stage of his artistic career. “Demasiadas Mujeres” follows the success of his last track “Nunca Estoy.” The song is available to stream on all digital platforms.

he is taking the Latin music audience on. “Demasiadas Mujeres” gives fans and tastemakers a first look at what they can expect from the madrileño. In the track, he effortlessly moves beyond urban music and converges his avant-garde vision of latin sounds with the traditional sounds of pop music. His career and forthcoming album have been building up to this moment, a moment that began in

This single cements the meticulous creativity and effort that C. Tangana pours into his music and the new journey 44 November 2020 26 Rock and Blues International • August 2020

“Demasiadas Mujeres” is following in the footsteps of C. Tangana’s early tracks “Nunca Estoy,” “Guille Asesino,” and his EP Bien :(. “Nunca Estoy,” which garnered over 38 million total digital streams and over 16 million Youtube views, took the #1 spot on Spotify Spain’s Top 50 and Apple Music Spain’s Top 100. In September, the musician, composer, and artist landed the cover of Forbes España and was recognized as one of the “100 Most Creative Spanish in the Business World.”

Without even a single to her name, eighteen-year-old artist Ugbad Musti was still one of the most talked about acts at last year’s Øya Festival in her hometown of Oslo, Norway. Despite her set competing for attention with headliners such as Christine & The Queens and Robyn, Billboard.com took note of the newcomer. “Musti performed with confidence and had a stage presence of a seasoned artist” wrote Billboard, describing her natural artistic flair. October 30, 2020 will now see the physical release of Musti’s powerful debut album Qoyskayga (My Family) in North America via Radikal Records. With her imminent release, Musti may well become the manifestation of the next generation of Norwegian rappers and the first to break outside her home territory. The ones that dare assert their ambitions, ignore conventional categorization and stereotypes relating to rap style, provenance or gender. “I was an angry kid” Musti explains. As luck would have it an observant teacher showed her an alternative way of articulating this anger, by expressing her emotions in words. What started as a diary of sorts soon became poetry, evolving with patterns and rhymes - not unlike rappers such as Skepta and Stormzy. Musti had a realization. “Music is poetry. My emotions become poems, poems that naturally transform to fit to music.” Additionally, the fact that Musti

New Music From Norway

Photo credit: Michael Ray Vera Cruz Angeles

Rising Somali-Norwegian Artist Musti Releases Debut Album QOYSKAYGA has first and foremost been exposed to UK rap, not US or Scandinavian, separates her from previous generations. Born in Somalia and living in London before settling with her family in Norway, Musti is an Afropop artist that can express herself effortlessly in three languages. Her musical sensibilities are closer to grime than classic hip hop, permeating through her unfiltered lyrics

and unique and unpredictable flow. Drawing on her cultural heritage a helping of African rhythms are mixed in the production. You don’t have to understand Norwegian or Somalian to realize and feel the undeniable talent that makes Musti one of the most exciting voices to come out of the Norwegian music scene in a long time. Despite changing and challenging conditions Musti has kept busy in 2020, first by living up to expectations as Norwegian music festival by:Larm’s biggest hype. She also released the short film “Riyo” and recently shared a stage with Aurora and Hkeem when they performed at Amnesty Norway’s antiracism live stream benefit after the demonstrations triggered by the murder of George Floyd in the USA.

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 45

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Photo Credit Kurt Ozan

Jason Nix Releases Debut EP Money On You Nashville singer-songwriter Jason Nix has releasesd his debut EP Money On You. Money On You is the culmination of Nix’s duepaying past, strengthened by his years as a hard-touring road warrior with artists like Canaan Smith and Chase Rice, and as an in-demand songwriter earning a publishing deal and landing cuts with artists like Eli Young Band, Lainey Wilson, and the Shires. Billboard called the first single and title track “irrepressibly retro and catchy” while Cowboys & Indians said, “[Nix] just wanted to write something that would make him want to drive. This is the keeper that came out.” Listen to “Money On You” HERE The Boot featured the “upbeat, blues-influenced track” “Made For Me” which Nix drew inspiration for from his mawmaw and pawpaw, Audra and Homer. “I have [Pawpaw’s] hair. To this day, every time I see [Mawmaw], she’ll pat me on the head and say, ‘Lord, your hair is just like Homer’s,’ and go off on a 15-minute tangent about how she used to make all the girls jealous when they were together or how he could just ‘play the fire out of a guitar,’” Nix shares. “There’s always a story about how Homer loved to dance, and I learn something new every time I see her.” Nix also performed the song last month on Today In Nashville. Years before Nix hit the highway playing nightly shows, he grew up working on cars with his father. Music and automobiles ran in the family. One minute, a young Jason would find himself accompanying his dad to band practice, where the older Nix would play bluegrass songs. The next minute, the two Nix men would have their heads buried in an engine, diagnosing some mechanical issue while a nearby radio blasted country songs. “It’s my time machine,” Nix says of his 1971 Chevelle which he restored himself. “There’s no radio and no AC, and it’s my gauge whenever I’m writing songs. If my car had a radio, what would I want to hear when I’m driving it? That’s the feeling I want to chase. The freedom that car makes me feel is the sound I want to make.”

Rock And Blues International

Born in Nashville, Nix moved to Mississippi as a 5 year old. His upbringing was filled with the down-home sounds of bluegrass and country. George Strait, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, Nickel Creek, and Travis Tritt were childhood favorites, and as Nix grew older, he added rock-influenced artists like the Allman Brothers, the Eagles, and Charlie Daniels Band to the mix. That broad range of influences helped shape Nix’s own music, which he began playing as a member of a regionally-touring band in high school. Unable to shake his lifelong connection to Nashville, he moved back to Tennessee one day after his graduation.

LEE DEWYZE SHARES “WEEDS” VIDEO Singer-songwriter Lee Dewyze shares “Weeds”. MMusic premiered the track and video, praising “DeWyze’s simple and precise production delivers an emotionally powerful “Weeds.”” The prolific songwriter, who has had over 60+ syncs in film, TV, and commercials, returns to the scene with a powerful solo release that flaunts a profoundlyrefreshing approach to music making. “Weeds” explores the nature of love and relationships and how that parallels the cycle of life. How some things can be found when you don’t even know you’re looking for them. It’s about growing and learning to be vulnerable. How a time, place, and moment can play such a crucial part in where we end up and how we got there. “Weeds” is about finding beauty in the most unsuspecting places. With an earnest ability to create a delicate balance of harmony, melody, deep emotion and subtlety, Lee

DeWyze’s depth as a songwriter call to mind some of his earliest influences like Simon and Garfunkel, Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens) and Johnny Cash. His last 2 releases Victims Of The Night (April 2020), and the EP Castles (Oct 2019), have garnered over 1M streams. There are no false notes in these four exquisite songs, each one a unique light in the constellation of his imagination. He sings quietly, as if whispering secrets. His lyrics and melodies mesmerize, cycling like nursery rhymes, somehow soothing while also sharpening our alertness that something unusual is going on here. Over the last 10 years, Lee has released five albums, including his critically lauded Frames (Vanguard Records, 2013), which included the top 40 Billboard Hot AC hit “Fight.” In 2014, his song “Blackbird Song” (15M

streams) was placed in the show “The Walking Dead.” After signing with Shanachie Records in 2016, Lee released the album Oil and Water, which hit Number One on the iTunes folk and singer/songwriter chart, followed by Paranoia (2018), which hit Number One on the Alternative chart. As the winner of American Idol Season 9 in 2010, he made his major label debut with Live It Up (RCA). Lee’s songs have appeared in over 70 movies, TV shows, and commercials. His latest synch was for his song Castles, which highlighted the season finale of Station 19 (#1 show on ABC). His video for Castles won 11 awards world-wide (Los Angeles, NY, and London) for best animated video with TIFF (The International Film Festival).

Lee’s newest single, Weeds, due out Oct 23rd, will be showcased at The Hotel Café on Oct 24th with a live stream show. November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 47

At its core, the forthcoming album pays tribute to Dave’s best friend and former bandmate, Paul Curran, who passed away in 2018. Following Paul’s tragic death, Dave locked himself away in his home studio for months, ultimately recording over 76 songs that would eventually be condensed down to form the basis of his debut album. The result is an incredibly beautiful, raw and uncompromising 9-track project addressing grief and catharsis, an important record that could only emerge from an entirely honest place.

New Music From Ireland

Those I Love by Faolán Carey

FOR THOSE I LOVE SHARES NEW SONG AND VIDEO “For Those I Love fights for the underdog… raw and uncompromising electronic music that taps into both deeply personal trauma and wider societal ills for influence” - The FADER “Reminiscent of The Streets’ night bus poetry” - The Guardian Irish singer-songwriter, multiinstrumentalist, and visual artist For Those I Love, born David Balfe, shares a new song and video. Self-directed by Balfe, “Top Scheme” is a powerful and poignant visual essay that uninhibitedly tackles various social issues in Ireland, such as sexism, classism, and the prison industrial complex. The song follows For Those I Love’s debut single “I Have A Love,” which also arrived alongside a moving, self-directed video.

spit in the face of the state, the banks, and those that continue to socially cripple the less fortunate without ever looking at the world we have been forced to live and grow within. It sits within a wider group of songs that look at the social alienation of the working class and how that continues to haunt us as we grow older.” Dave first began work on the project as a chance to write frankly about the struggles he and his friends faced while growing up in north Dublin. Anecdotally and otherwise, For Those I Love documents the harsh realities of a daily life up against it, and holds a mirror up to the clear disparity between a working class upbringing and the lack of opportunity that remains to this day.

Of the song, For Those I Love says: “I wrote ‘Top Scheme’ to directly 48 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

The first single from that album, “I Have A Love,” followed closely after the release of mix, Into A World That Doesn’t Understand It, Unless You’re From It, which showcased unreleased tracks, For ideas and demos that didn’t fit onto the album and sold out of its limited tape run in only hours.

The self-titled debut album from For Those I Love will arrive early next year on September Recordings. Listen to and watch “Top Scheme” above and stay tuned for more from For Those I Love coming soon.

New Music From Copenhagen

Himmelrum New LP DØD & ENSOMHED Album Out Now Via The Big Oil Recording Company/Joyful Noise Recording “the Danish experimental dream pop band Himmelrum create a narrative of exquisite isolation, punctuated by the enveloping forces of the natural environment” - Louder Than War

Copenhagen-based shoegaze quartet Himmelrum are premiering their album Vand, Død & Ensomhed via Louder Than War. In an exclusive with the band, Louder Than War describes how the album was mostly written on the small island of Sejerø, enveloped by the sea, “the songs that arise out of their oceanside isolation are strikingly unnerving works that sound like the image of a salted night sky, interrupted by streaks of indigo light.” Such elemental and synesthetic motifs come through on the album, creating a striking ethereal sound, the title of the album translating to Water, Death, and Solitude. Vand, Død & Ensomhed sees the band using vocals for the first time in recordings, using the voice as an improvisational instrument. Vand, Død & Ensomhed is out October 23rd on The Big Oil Recording Company and Joyful Noise.

from Copenhagen, Denmark, who play colorful, ecstatic and glitchy rock music. They let their songs develop and envelop, and take the time they need to unfold their songs. At the same time they put melody front and center; everything stands in sharp relief and the core of their songs is always clear. Stylistically they can be described as a pictorial kind of music painted using postrock, shoegaze and krautrock as their palette. Their forthcoming album, Vand, død & ensomhed, sees the band using vocal melodies for the first time. With roots in the Danish DIY-scene and improvisation, and over the course of two self-released albums (in 2017 and 2018) and numerous concerts around Europe, they’ve made a name for themselves in the Danish musical landscape, in particular in the creative environment around the off-kilter festival Honeyland and the independent label The Big Oil Recording Company (Tettix Hexer, Excelsior, Atusji). They have recently signed to Joyful Noise Recordings (Deerhoof, No Joy, Tropical Fuck Storm) for their first ever US release.

Himmelrum are a young quartet November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

New Music South Korea

Photo Credit: Big Hit Entertainment

TOMORROW X TOGETHER RELEASE NEW EP MINISODE1: BLUE HOUR REVEALS MESMERIZING “BLUE HOUR” MUSIC VIDEO TOMORROW X TOGETHER (SOOBIN, YEONJUN, BEOMGYU, TAEHYUN and HUENINGKAI) released their new EP, minisode1 : Blue Hour, and the music video of its lead single “Blue Hour” on October 26. minisode1 : Blue Hour is TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s five-track narrative

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as they close off their Dream Chapter series to move on to the next. Consisting of tracks “Blue Hour,” “Ghosting,” “We Lost The Summer,” “Wishlist,” and “Way Home,” the EP tells the story of teenagers who navigate through unfamiliarity within their daily lives as their friendships and the world have undergone great change due to the COVID19 pandemic. The lyrics of “Ghosting” have

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been written in part by SOOBIN and TAEHYUN, while the lyrics of “Wishlist” have been worked on by YEONJUN, TAEHYUN, and HUENINGKAI, making this EP’s teenage perspective even more personal. “Blue Hour” is TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s mellow, energetic, and

oto Credit Luca Pierro Pho

refreshing Disco; Big Hit Entertainment’s Slow Rabbit and Producer Bang Si-Hyuk, a.k.a. “hitman”bang, have taken part in the production of the track. The music video for “Blue Hour” begins with a dreamy guitar riff and vocal hums, depicting the five members of TOMORROW X TOGETHER frozen in time within a spectacular and imaginative fantasy. But the wondrous and lively scene is shortlived, as the splendidly lit merry-go-round soon dims into darkness. Also notable in the music video is the group’s energetic choreography which utilizes coats and hats to amplify the refreshing charm of TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s unique Disco. Since their debut in 2019, TOMORROW X TOGETHER has shown rapid and

consistent growth into global teen favorites, reaching a new high with over four-hundred thousand album pre-orders. Following the release of minisode1 : Blue Hour and the music video for its lead single, the group will perform “Blue Hour” live for the first time on “TOMORROW X TOGETHER Comeback Show : Blue Hour” at 7 PM KST/6 AM EDT on October 26.

debut album, The Dream Chapter: STAR. Emerging as one of K-pop’s most highly acclaimed acts, the global super rookies have already cultivated Best New Artist accolades on various award shows, and received nomination in 2019 & 2020 MTV Video Music Awards’ Best K-Pop category. Founded in February 2005 in South Korea by CEO and Producer Bang Si-Hyuk, Big Hit Entertainment’s core business focuses on music production, artist management, and publishing. Big Hit’s business ventures incorporate and develop a range of content produced from top-notch artists’ IP, including global superstars BTS and its newest addition TOMORROW X TOGETHER. With its mission of ‘Music & Artist for Healing’, Big Hit strives to impart a positive influence through content while providing comfort and inspiration to music fans worldwide.

TOMORROW X TOGETHER, read as “Tomorrow by Together,” has come together under one dream in hopes of building a new tomorrow. Composed of five members, SOOBIN, YEONJUN, BEOMGYU, TAEHYUN, and HUENINGKAI, the band is full of bright and playful energy, where each member is different from one another, shining in their own way to create synergy. In just two months of their debut, TOMORROW X TOGETHER successfully had their first US showcase tour sold out in 6 cities with their November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

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Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;˘ November 2020

Laura Benanti Releases Self-Titled Debut Album - Available Now From Sony Masterworks Tony® Award-winning actress, singer, author and activist LAURA BENANTI today releases her self-titled debut album Laura Benanti. Available everywhere now from Sony Music Masterworks, the 11-track album features the versatile artist performing a mix of covers both classic and contemporary, breathing new spirit into everything from modern pop songs to jazzinfluenced ballads. “I hope the album becomes a part of someone’s own canon,” says LAURA BENANTI of her major label debut album. “You could put it on at a dinner party or listen to it in the bath. It could speak to so many different possible moments. Across the board, the record really fulfills my desire for musical outreach. I tried to showcase some really great playing—and hopefully singing.” With her self-titled full-length debut, Laura Benanti constructs a diverse and dynamic solo statement, working alongside award-winning producer Matt Pierson (Brad Mehldau, Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny, Jane Monheit), arranger Gil Goldstein and a bevy of seasoned musicians on the album. Through and through, the process highlighted every side of Laura’s voice. “We definitely talked about the songs as characters,” she explains. “As an actor, I’m used to becoming and embodying other people. So, it was important for me to play the role each song required. I drew on different shades

of my voice and personality to tell different stories.” The first story comes to life on the album’s lead single, a cover of the Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker” released earlier this year. Above swinging piano, electric guitar, and finger-snaps, she transports Jonas Brothers’ comeback smash to a smoky thirties jazz haunt with sultry and sizzling soul. Laura paired the release of the track with an accompanying music video featuring workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis as part of a moving tribute celebrating family and essential workers – watch here. Proceeds from the track benefit FoodCorps—an organization which ensures kids who rely on school food get fed during the pandemic. Meanwhile, Laura transforms Selena Gomez’s “Lose You To Love Me” into a bold ballad backed by resounding strings and a powerhouse vocal performance. “When I heard Gil’s arrangement, I was so moved by it,” she recalls. “I was able to personalize the story for myself. I can hear the evocative nature of that memory in my voice, and I hope other people feel the same way.” She drew inspiration from Rosemary’s Clooney version of “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” to track her own tender take and carefully chose “The Party’s Over” from the 1956 musical Bells Are Ringing as a gorgeous denouement to the album. Elsewhere, accordion pipes through her reimagining of Rufus Wainwright’s “Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk,” which she relates to as devilishly conjuring “my twenties when I got in some trouble.” She also delivers a “fun interpretation of the anti-love song” by flipping Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” on its head. Maintaining a lifelong commitment to the arts, the singer also recently created an empowering campaign titled #SunshineSongs, which invited students whose school musical productions were canceled this year due to the pandemic to share videos of the performances they

were not able to give, on social platforms. As chronicled by Good Morning America, she generated 4 million impressions and received over 10,000 submissions, attracting celebrities like Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jennifer Garner to join the campaign. Additionally, she invited students to contribute songs to her free “Sunshine Concerts” for senior living communities and children’s hospitals. The campaign’s success further grabbed the attention of HBO Max who recently partnered with Benanti to release an unscripted special, called Homeschool Musical: Class Of 2020 this December. In the midst of an illustrious career spanning Broadway, film, and television, Tony® Award-winning actress, singer, author, and activist Laura Benanti now brings a longstanding dream to life as she gears up to release new solo music with Sony Music Masterworks. With Broadway credits ranging from the My Fair Lady revival and Steve Martin’s Meteor Shower to She Loves Me, Laura garnered a Tony® Award in the category of “Best Featured Actress in a Musical” for the 2008 production of Gypsy— among five career nominations to date. Meanwhile, her performance in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown would be honored with the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for “Best Featured Actress in a Musical.” Simultaneously, she enchanted audiences on the small screen, appearing on Younger, Supergirl, Nashville, The Good Wife, Nurse Jackie, and more in addition to films including WORTH and the upcoming Here Today. Laura recently released a book for moms entitled “M is for MAMA (and also Merlot): A Modern Mom’s ABCs” available now on Amazon.

LAURA BENANTI – LAURA BENANTI ALBUM TRACKLIST 1. Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk 2. Someone You Loved 3. What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life? 4. Sucker 5. The Boy From… 6. Go Slow 7. Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me 8. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover 9. Lose You to Love Me 10. Wives and Lovers 11. The Party’s Over

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

members going through the same thing. Fighting this horrific virus. Some will overcome and wake up again, while others, tragically may not. This song is dedicated to all who have had to endure this year. I hope this song can offer some sort of comfort to those who may need it.” To commemorate the new song, FINNEAS has unveiled a new collection of official merchandise, inspired by the artwork and concept of “Can’t Wait To Be Dead.” For more information and to purchase, please visit www.finneasofficial.com. Earlier this month, FINNEAS joined his sister on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, celebrating James Bond Day with a special performance (also directed by Constellation Jones) and interview. This year, FINNEAS released a DELUXE version of his critically acclaimed debut EP, Blood Harmony. Written and produced entirely by the 23-year-old artist, the eight-track collection exemplifies his skills as a songwriter, producer and storyteller. The new expanded version of the EP features all seven of the original EP tracks, plus fan favorite, “Break My Heart Again” and a brand new version of “Let’s Fall In Love For The Night” (1964). To date, FINNEAS has racked up an impressive 575 million combined streams across his entire catalog. FINNEAS also performed “Let’s Fall In Love For The Night” on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the song peaked in the Top 15 at Alternative Radio and scanned GOLD in North America. The song’s video was directed by Sam Bennett, and shot in FINNEAS’ hometown of Los Angeles entirely in one-take.

Finneas Releases New Song, “Can’t Wait To Be Dead” Six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning musician, songwriter and producer FINNEAS returns with a bold and fiery new song, “Can’t Wait To Be Dead,” a testament to the times we’re living in. Speaking about the track, FINNEAS reveals, “I’m happy for this song to mean anything to anyone who listens to it but to me, it’s a song about my relationship with the Internet,” he explains. “Especially in an election year. Especially during a pandemic. Sometimes, the internet makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cry, sometimes it makes me hopeful. But sometimes, it really makes me wanna be dead.”

The new track follows the release of “What They’ll Say About Us,” FINNEAS’ rousing observation, written in lockdown. An ode to human strength and connection when faced with life’s tribulations, “What They’ll Say About Us” is buoyed by hope while bearing the weight of it all. FINNEAS reveals “I wrote this song in June after spending the day at a protest in Downtown LA, filled with hope with the prospect that millions of people were coming together from all over the world to fight against institutionalized racism and inequality. During that time, I’d also been following Amanda Kloots as she documented her husband Nick Cordero’s time in the ICU On Thursday, October 22 the official while in a coma after being admitted for music video for “Can’t Wait To Be Dead” COVID-19. Imagining her sitting by his side, was released. It was directed by Constellawaiting, hopeful for him to wake up, it got me tion Jones, the alter ego of longtime music thinking about all the millions of people, all video producer and director Clark Jackson, over the world, who also have loved ones, whose past work includes Lana Del Rey, parents, children and extended family Lady Gaga, and Miguel. 54 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

In January, FINNEAS received an impressive 6 GRAMMY Awards® including the prestigious Producer of the Year, NonClassical and Best Engineered Album, Non Classical as well as Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year with his sister Billie Eilish for her groundbreaking No. 1 debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? and hit single ‘bad guy.’ Further to his growing list of accolades, FINNEAS co-produced (with Stephen Lipson) and co-wrote the official theme song and title track for the upcoming James Bond film, No Time To Die, alongside his sister Billie Eilish. The track features orchestral arrangements by Hans Zimmer and Matt Dunkley, and guitar from Johnny Marr. The song made its live debut alongside Zimmer and Marr on stage at this year’s BRIT Awards in London. FINNEAS’ trademark production can also be heard on recent songs from Justin Bieber, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, JP Saxe and Julia Michaels, Camila Cabello, Tove Lo, Trevor Daniel, Ben Platt, Bruno Major, Celeste, as well as Billie’s new single, “my future,” which he co-wrote with his sister.

Karelia, via Napalm Records. Today, the band has emerged from the darkness once again with a vibrant lyric video for their blisteringly heavy track “Horizon On Fire”, cut from the new album. WOLFHEART frontman Tuomas Saukkonen says about the track and video: “Of the entire album, ‘Horizon on Fire’ is the song that best underlines how outnumbered the Finnish army was with only 32 tanks against over 2500 Russian tanks, 114 aircrafts against Russian 3800 aircrafts and manpower almost three times the enemy during one of the coldest winters of those times. I was born in the Karelian region and my father’s family farm is only 7km from the border that was drawn after the war, so I also have a very strong personal connection to those historical events. So, lines like below were written purely to honor the sacrifice of the generation that fought the war. Just as wildlife itself maintains harmony with a violent clash of beauty and unpredictability, Wolves Of Karelia explores the band’s previously coined genre of “winter metal” – smoothly bridging a traditional approach of extreme genres while maintaining atmospheric and acoustic elements.

[Photo Credit: Valtteri Hirvonen]

WOLFHEART Reveals New Video for Blistering Track “Horizon On Fire” New Album, Wolves Of Karelia, Out Now via Napalm Records At the beginning of April 2020 just as the world as we knew it began to change, Finnish heavy melodic death metal band WOLFHEART released their newest full-length crusher, Wolves Of

The album’s lyrical and musical content is inspired by the Winter War waged between Russia and the band’s native country, Finland, which took place during the winter of November 1939-March 1940. Finland ultimately managed to stop the Russian troops from invading their country. WOLFHEART mastermind and frontman Tuomas Saukkonen was inspired by the personal stories of local veterans, conveying the tales of what they experienced and survived from their perspectives. Somber, frostbitten and heroic, Wolves Of Karelia portrays these tales with stunning musical precision. WOLFHEART is: Tuomas Saukkonen: Guitar, Vocals Joonas Kauppinen: Drums Lauri Silvonen: Bass, Backing Vocals Vagelis Karzis: Session Guitar

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Animalweapon Releases Preview Single To Next Year’s EP “SUMMER’S OVER” By T.J. thing that relates to them in the music. Animalweapon, aka Patrick Cortes, “It’s very much a song for this moment,” is giving us a sneak preview of his said Patrick Cortes, aka Animalweapon. upcoming EP in the form of a new video “And I feel like I need to put it out. for the first song off the EP, which was Cortes says, “It’s reflective and it’s released last month on October 9th. The melancholy. I would hope that you think song is called “Summer’s Over,” and it about the state of the world right now reflects Cortes’ feelings about the when you hear it, and also your loved horrible situation and the losses everyone ones. There’s a sort of longing I hope it has suffered during this pandemic, as conveys.” well as his feelings for a very sick friend, and dealing with the end of what has Inspiration for this song took many been a terrible summer. Actually, a lot of paths. Besides being affected by the the lyrics in this song have double pandemic, the illness of his friend in meanings, so no doubt, anybody out Texas weighed heavily on his mind. He there listening to “Summer’s Gone” will went to Texas to be with his friend and be able to reflect on it and feel somenot only did it fuel his emotions for the 56 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

song, but it also provided some of the sounds that were vital to its production. “I was visiting a close friend in Texas a year ago who was undergoing chemo for breast cancer and I was sitting outside late at night after everyone had gone to bed,” recalls Patrick Cortes. “There were a lot of interesting sounds going on - cicadas and clicky little bugs that almost felt percussive in a way. I recorded a bunch of nighttime ambience with a handheld stereo Zoom recorder, sometimes shorter, more intentional clips, and then at one point I just kind of let it run to capture the atmosphere. I always travel with my MacBook and a small MIDI keyboard so I was able to go

inside and start working on a piano melody right away to put alongside it.” Besides the interesting paths that Cortes used to find the emotion and basis for this song, the way he brought it to life was also incredible. He created the music for this release in a most unusual way at times. Besides using a keyboard, there was also the ballpoint pen, sunglasses, and also the clicky little bugs

that were mentioned in the paragraph before this one. “I decided pretty early on I wanted this to sound very lo-fi, almost an intentionally lower production value than what I normally go for, so there was a lot of manipulation of the piano and drums and then even more sampling – for instance, the hi-hats are actually the click of a pen that was on my desk, there’s some other slightly offrhythm stuff I recorded with my Zoom that was just kind of foley - me picking up and putting down stuff that was lying around my apartment, like a quarter on my desk, or a pair of sunglasses on the counter. And then a pandemic comes along and I let it be for a little while. But I always had the idea that I wanted this to be a song about the end of summer. Maybe it’s because we spend twelve years of our childhood with summer being the only long break we get from life while we’re in school, or maybe it’s the days getting shorter and I’m prone to seasonal depression,

but there’s something that feels sad about the end of summer and this song was always going to be a reflection of that. Once ‘all of this’ started happening especially once it got into summer and you compound an unmanaged pandemic with an important racial reckoning, wildfires, everything else - I had a new take on it while also realizing it really wasn’t much of a shift at all.” Cortes tells us that the new EP should be released in Spring of 2021 on Polychromatic Records. Animalweapon has been working on the new EP throughout the pandemic. During that time he also composed the theme song for the new podcast called The Hidden Djinn for iHeartMedia that started last September 1st. Previously Animalweapon released his 2015 EP Flares and Signal Fires, along with his 2019 LP Tyrannosaurus on the Polychromatic Records label also. Be sure to check out the video for “Summer’s Over” on YouTube or your favorite streaming service.

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

LP GIOBBI Press Accolades: “this beat never slows down.” — Refinery 29 … an all-around synth master…” —MTV News “With a stratospheric production and rhythm LP Giobbi is delivering a menacing new sound back to the dance scene.” —Earmilk “creative multi-hyphenate” — Billboard “Glossy Production” — Paper Mag

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

By Pinky Black Giobbi, aka Leah Chisholm is happy to announce the release of her newest EP, Playing My Role. The new release features two tracks, “Take Me Higher” and “Scuff Your Soul.” Both songs are powered by house rattling bass beats dominated by her piano and superb stylistic vocals, a pattern that is quickly becoming her trademark sound. The new songs also feature lyricist Hermixalot. Between the two of them, they definitely have a couple of smash EDM hits on their hands. While “Take Me Higher” features a more accessible sound with a dominating piano rhythm, “Scuff Your Soul” is features more of an energetic and dominating EDM beat. Regardless, both songs really dominate the medium. Playing My Role follows her previous hit, the playful summer smash club rocker, “Meet Again ft. Little Boots.” “Meet Again ft. Little Boots” already has over 1.5 million plays across every streaming platform imaginable. “Meet Again ft. Little Boots” was also featured on Today’s Dance Anthem on BBC 1 Radio by Mistajam and premiered by Pete Tong on his Essential Selection Radio Playlist. Diplo’s Revolution channel on SirirusXM proclaimed it to be one of the 3 most played songs in September. No doubt the songs on her new EP will be proceeding similarly. “I feel like I’m really growing into who I am both as an individual and an artist,” says LP Giobbi. “The timing of everything, especially with what’s going on in the world right now, has allowed me to find confidence in the music I want to make - something slightly more beautiful and melodic, and that’s what “Take Me Higher” reflects.” One of the contributing factors to this being the hit we predict it to be is LP Giobbi’s association with lyricist Hermixalot. Without a doubt, the Hermixalot penned vocals will have you addicted to this catch dance anthem quickly “When I was little, I remember my

Piano House Queen LP GIOBBI Releases New EP PLAYING MY ROLE mom listening to ‘’Gonna Make You Sweat” by C + C Music Factory,” said Hermixalot. “She had the cassette single and the tape deck in the car on auto repeat, so we’d listen to it over and over. Martha Wash’s vocal is what was in my head when I recorded this. Something big and strong, but melodic too.” During this quarantine pandemic LP Giobbi has been busy delighting her fans with her inspiring sets transmitted across the internet stages. You can catch her streams weekly on Insomniac TV and Twitch. LP Giobbi’s Femme House sets have been heavily watched on mediums such as Desert Hearts, and Diplo’s Revolution.

year LP Giobbi released the dance single, “Angel”. That was followed up in early 2020 with “Gas Me Up,” another collaboration with Hermixalot. LP just doesn’t give up… it’s just one more EDM hit after another. Watching the Oregon-born, Los Angeles based LP Giobbi perform is another art form in itself as she bounces from piano to synth bass to drum machine and back and forth to create an incredible visual experience. Her sets are highly in demand and she’s been featured in concert at various events such as Coachella, Burning Man, HARD Summer, MTV’s SnowGlobe, Moogfest, North Coast Music Festival, Art Basel and 4xFAR.

Without a doubt, LP Giobbi has become one of the fastest-rising artists in Since LP Giobbi burst EDM. Besides that, she is a co-owner of onto the scene in 2018 with her debut single, “Amber Rose,” she Animal Talk, a hybrid publishing company (a joint venture with Third Side Music), event has become very High Profile. brand, traveling party and artist collective she Songs like “Déjala Pasar”, co-founded with GRAMMY-nominated “Slither In”, and “Ready To Go” electronic duo SOFI TUKKER. LP founded have made her a household FEMME HOUSE, an educational platform name on the EDM scene. In created to address the lack of representation 2019 LP Giobbi teamed up with and equity in electronic music by empowerThrive Music to release “Jungle ing women to learn the language of the Queen,” which was the first in a studio. She is a true Renaissance woman series of singles for her to with many facets to her persona. release on their dance label. Later on towards the end of the November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 59

prevent Team 6OKI from prevailing. Highspeed animation and cake flinging ensue, with Aoki and Trumpet in a race against the clock to be the last ravers standing. Counting nearly 3 billion music streams to his name, Steve Aoki is a true visionary. Billboard described the 2xGRAMMY-Nominated artist/DJ/producer and Dim Mak Records founder as “one of the most in-demand entertainers in the world.” As a solo artist, Aoki boasts a lauded crossgenre discography that includes 7 studio albums and collaborations with Lil Uzi Vert, Maluma, BTS, Linkin Park and Louis Tomlinson amongst others. In 1996, he established Dim Mak out of his college dorm room, a trendsetting record label, events/lifestyle company and apparel brand. It has served as a launch pad for global acts like The Chainsmokers, Bloc Party, The Bloody Beetroots, and The Kills, in addition to being the home of early releases from acts such as ZEDD and Diplo. As a nightlife impresario, Aoki’s legendary Hollywood club night Dim Mak Tuesdays hosted early performances from future superstars such as Kid Cudi, Daft Punk, Lady Gaga, and Travis Scott.

Steve Aoki & Timmy Trumpet Battle It Out on “Tarantino” First Single from Aoki’s 6OKI - Rave Royale EP On “Tarantino,” Steve Aoki & Timmy Trumpet modernize the classic surf guitar riff made famous via Pulp Fiction. Aoki’s mesmerizing electro beats combined with Trumpet’s eccentric horn licks and STARX’s hard psy stylings set off a vigorous revamp where Aoki’s ‘Rave Royale’ concept comes into full view. “Tarantino” is the first single to be revealed from Aoki’s forthcoming 6OKI Rave Royale EP, which promises six collaborative songs alongside accompanying music videos, due out on Dim Mak this fall.

wanted to capture the craziness of life on the road in one track so people can party wherever they are in the world right now.” Directed by Roland de Keizer from PitchParrot Studios, the official “Tarantino” video is the gateway into the 6OKI - Rave Royale universe. Set upon the Isle of Raves, Aoki and his collaborators compete in a battle royale, seeking out victory by any means necessary.

“Tarantino” propels into action as a blimp drops Team 6OKI (Steve Aoki, Timmy Trumpet & STARX) into one of the 6 maps on the Isle of Rave: the Highlands battlezone. Their mission is to race through the alpine terrain and reach the island’s Rave Arena before the doors close, lest their fate be forever sealed into eternal FOMO. Along the way, the protagonists face off against Team Timmy Trumpet adds, “Working and Mean led by Raver Randy, an overly-extra, touring with Steve is always WILD but overbearing raver who will do anything to making this track was something else! We 60 Rock and Blues International • November 2020 Steve Aoki says, “It started with 3OKI, 4OKI, 5OKI, & now 6OKI. The series is about my club & festival roots - songs that go off live & serve ravers in the front row! Covid-19 halted live shows, but I’m still making tunes with that live energy.”

A true renaissance man, Steve Aoki is also a fashion designer, author and entrepreneur. In 2012, he founded THE AOKI FOUNDATION, which primarily supports organizations in the field of brain science research with a specific focus on regenerative medicine and brain preservation. In addition, Aoki has pushed his clothing line Dim Mak Collection to new heights, both with original designs and collaborations with everyone from A Bathing Ape to the Bruce Lee estate. Aoki’s multi-faceted journey is chronicled through the Grammy-nominated Netflix documentary I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2016) and his memoir BLUE: The Color of Noise (2019). In the summer of 2020, Aoki unveiled his Latin music imprint, Dim Mak En Fuego, continuing to break down musical and cultural boundaries ‘by any means necessary.’ Timmy Trumpet is undoubtedly one of the most prolific performers and hottest producers on the planet right now. His recent releases ‘911’ with R3HAB, and his solo record ‘Diamonds’ both streamed well into the millions within their first week. In April this year, Timmy livestreamed from his home in Sydney, raking in more than 7 Million views. His debut mainstage performance at Tomorrowland in 2017 is the highest streamed set of all time on the official YouTube channel. To add to his impressive list of achievements, last year Timmy became the first instrumentalist to DJ in Zero Gravity, thanks to a partnership between BigCityBeats and the European Space Agency. When asked if he pinches himself looking back on a career that originated from the humble beginnings of Band Camp and after school Jazz practice, you only get one response – “We’re just getting started!”.

Black Violin Releases Music Video For “Impossible Is Possible” New Album Take The Stairs Out Now!

Photo Credit: Mark Clennon Black Violin, the classical-meetship-hop duo of Kev Marcus and Wil Baptiste, released a new video for “Impossible Is Possible.” The song is taken from Black Violin’s new album Take The Stairs, which debuted last year in the top ten across multiple genre charts: #1 in Current Classical, #1 in Classical Crossover, #7 in Heatseekers, and #9 in Current R&B/Hip-Hop. Take The Stairs was praised by The Root, Loudwire, and Billboard, who said the album “celebrates Black Violin’s genreless approach to music, from the futuristic anthem ‘One Step’ to the elaborate ‘Serenade.’” In the last year, Black Violin has performed at the Oscars Governors Ball, on The Today Show, and on Access Daily. “This video captures the innocence and raw potential that lives inside of our youth,” Black Violin says. “If molded with love and understanding, that young soul can foster hope and achieve the impossible. The little black boy is everyone of us. Running towards an uncertain future, inspired by those who love him most. He ultimately wins the race that no one thought was possible.” For 17 years, Black Violin has been

merging string arrangements with modern beats and vocals. Members Kev and Wil first met in orchestra class at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, becoming classically trained on the violin and viola through their high school and college careers. Post-college, they reconvened to produce beats for South Florida rappers, and began building an audience in local clubs. They later went on to win Showtime at the Apollo in 2005, and eventually sold out headline performances at venues across the country, including a sold out two-night headline run at The Kennedy Center in 2018. Their unique brand of merging the genre they were listening to (hip hop) with the world they were studying (classical) was celebrated with collaborations with Alicia Keys, Wu Tang Clan, 2 Chainz and others. NPR took note and declared “their music will keep classical music alive for the next generation.” UPROXX also featured Black Violin in a mini-documentary as part of their “Uncharted” series. Pre-pandemic, Black Violin was playing over 200 shows a year (many of these are performances for young lowincome students in urban communities in the last year alone, the group played

for over 100,000 students) with the goal of challenging stereotypes and preconceived notions of what a “classical musician” looks and sounds like. “The stereotypes are always there, embedded so deep in our culture,” says Wil. “Just by nature of our existence we challenge those ideas. It’s a unique thing that brings people together who aren’t usually in the same room, and in the current climate, it’s good to bring people together.” Last year, the group launched the Black Violin Foundation Inc., a non profit organization dedicated to empowering youth by providing access to quality music programs in their community. BVF believes that music and access to music programs should not be determined by race, gender, or socio-economic status. Black Violin Foundation’s inaugural program the Musical Innovation Grant for Continuing Education will provide scholarships to young music students to attend a program of their liking that fosters musical creativity and innovation. Programs can range from private lessons, to summer music camps, to college courses. Scholarships will be awarded bi-annually to up to 20 applicants per scholarship cycle.

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

The Lumineers Co-Founder and Multi-Instrumentalist Jeremiah Fraites Announces Solo Debut Album of Piano-Centric Instrumental Songs By T.J. Jeremiah Fraites, co-founder of The Lumineers has announced the release of Piano Piano, his upcoming solo album that is due for a January 22nd, 2021 release. Piano Piano is slated to be released through Dualtone Records (an Entertainment One Company) in the U.S. and Canada and Mercury KX for the rest of the world. Jeremiah tells us that he has been working on these songs for almost a decade. Piano Piano is a piano-dominated instrumental album that features reflective moments in Jeremiah’s life. Already Jeremiah has released two singles from the album, “Tokyo”, which is a string heavy reflection on the city of Tokyo, and “Maggie,” a song about his wife’s dog that passed away during recording of the new album. Both songs are accompanied by videos that show the same caricature walking through water in “Maggie,” to walking through a purplish background of what might be Japanese letter or drawings. “‘Tokyo’ is one of the older songs on the record,” stated Jeremiah. “I believe I wrote it about seven years ago. I went back and forth on whether to record this song on a grand piano or my custom felted piano nicknamed ‘Firewood’ - I ultimately landed on using the softer, more distinct Firewood

The album’s title has basically three meanings to it. First of all, it describes the main instrument used throughout the process. In addition to that it, the doubling of the word Piano in the title, Piano Piano means “soft piano”, and to cap things off, in Italian that phrase loosely translated means step by step, which also describe Jonathan’s journey in recording this album. The Italian meaning has a duel meaning to Fraites as well. Besides the meaning of ‘step by step’ it is also a nod to Fraites relocation to Turin, Italy, his wife’s hometown. Since childhood, Jonathan has always been fond of classical music, so these soft piano laden songs mean a lot to him. Perhaps you remember the songs “Patience,” and “April” which he wrote for The Lumineers albums. This classical style is also reflective of the music that he composed for “The Hunger Games” movies. Now Jonathan is happy to release this great collection of musical feelings that he has been working on throughout the years during moments on the road or even backstage while he was on the road with The Lumineers. Jonathan states that he wanted to share the intimacy of the album and make it as much of a moving experience for the listener as it was to him when he recorded the songs. “I wanted listeners to feel almost as if they’re sitting on the piano bench next to me,” stated Jeremiah. “I love the idea of communicating with people through music alone, which can sometimes say more than words ever could.” Track List: 01) Departure 02) Chilly 03) Tokyo 04) Maggie 05) Nearsighted 06) Dreams 07) Possessed 08) An Air That Kills 09) Simplest of Matters 10) Pyromaniac 11) Arrival 12) Lullaby (Bonus Track - Vinyl

because I felt that captured the soul of the tune better. This was a song I was guilty of over-thinking and confessing to my wife that I ‘just don’t think it was ready’ for the album. I suppose finding that fine balance between overthinking and not thinking at all is the key when in the studio. Currently this is my absolute favorite song on the album.” He continued, “I am most proud of ‘Maggie’ because of how difficult it was to record and to get ‘right’ - I probably said out loud on five separate occasions that I was not going to use it and delete it from the record as it continually seemed to fight me. It was also titled something completely different, but while finishing the mix at my home in Denver, my wife’s beloved dog Maggie passed away far in Italy and the name just fell into my lap. Adding the drums at the 11th hour of recording (per my wife’s insistence) was the lynchpin for finishing this song. Not only could I no longer imagine the song without drums, but no longer imagine the album without this song.”

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

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By Deshaun Phillips

The Philadelphia-based “comic book rock” band The Stereotytans have just released their latest video and song, “Breathe4You”. This time they are battling systemic racism. Their new song and video is available for download and stream right now. All proceeds from this song and video will be going to benefit Black Lives Matter and WE: The Caucus of Working Educators. In the past, the Stereotytans have been known for being more of a lighthearted band, but now the hard rock band is bringing their special blend of soul, funk, and metal to a more compelling cause. They have felt that it’s time for them to speak out against racism and oppression and the tragic events that have unfolded in the last several months. “Like many people in America, we were and still are outraged and deeply affected by the George Floyd murder,” says frontman Damon, aka St. Prometheus. “We also felt the weight of an ongoing level of oppression and unnecessary violence by the hands of some racist members of law enforcement. Everything that recently occurred got us thinking and searching for answers and solutions.” Vocalist Damon tells us that after watching the video of Officer Chauvin leaning on George Floyd’s neck he felt that he needed to take a stand on this and all forms of subtle and blatant racism. After watching that unfold in front of him, he immediately set to work on the lyrics to “Breathe4You.” “We are artists and musicians,” says DJ Ken. “It’s our most natural instinct to put thoughts and emotions into music. So we did.” In the song you can hear Damon sing, “No I’m not your slave / I’ve marched through hell just to tell the stories of our yesterdays.” The song ends with a plea for community in “Will you breathe for my brother / I will breathe for you.” Yes, this is quite a departure for the band, but nevertheless they have their own feeling for this kind of systemic racism and it’s something that they just can’t abide for. Billboard-charting producer and engineer Ron DiSilvestro handled production on this song. Ron is also a former bandmate of the group and longtime friend. “Ron is right at home with our style and sound,” Damon tells us. “When we approached him with this song, he didn’t think twice to offer his

Comic Book Rock Band, The Stereotytans Battle Their Latest Villain - Racism on New Single,“Breathe4You” services and the amazing facilities at Forge Recording to record the song free of charge.” With the release of this song, The Stereotytans tell us that they plan to write more songs like this for various causes as they arise. They plan on making more protest songs in the future in the hopes to affecting change bridging all genres of music to help create a form of unity. . “Today, we study the music of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s as a way to understand the mood of people and how it was a means to galvanize,” says bassist Chris, aka Kronos. “Music brought both spirit and message to the Civil Rights Movement as it did in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. We really wanted our song to continue that tradition in which we not only spoke truth to power, but provided a feeling of hope, positivity, and provocation.” As we said before, the proceeds from this song will go to help the Philadelphia chapter of Black Lives Matter and WE: The Caucus of Working Educators, an organization of Philadelphia Federation of Teachers members who believe educators, parents, students

and allies have the power to improve public schools. WE’s goal is to bring more socially just education policies and practices to school districts. “We wanted to use our platform to help support a local teacher coalition that is passionate about and effectively pushing for change in schools - the space that has the most potential to transform our society,” drummer Marc, aka Okeanus explains. The Stereotytans would like to encourage everybody to get involved in causes that they believe in and they take inspiration from previous social conscious bands like Rage Against The Machine, Living Colour and Public Enemy. Keep your eyes open for The Stereotytans. They truly have a unique style all their own which they characterize as “if Living Color, Fishbone and Radiohead had a threeway while Public Enemy watched and then birthed sweet, sweet musical babies with hints of soul, funk and metal mixed in for good measure.” Check out their new song and video for “Breathe4You” on all streaming services

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Becca Popkin. Becca is a classically trained pianist and a guitarist. In fact, she had never even touched a bass guitar until she joined War Tapes. Billy Mohler was proficient in jazz bass and guitar, but switched to drums after joining War Pipes. Rounding out the band is Hawaii native, Matt Bennet who plays guitar.

War Tapes Release Their New EP Only Time Will Tell Via MAKE Records By Greg Fontaine The Los Angles based band, War Tapes have just released their new EP, Only Time Will Tell. Only Time Will Tell was released just last month on October 16 on the MAKE Records label. Their new 5-song EP, Only Time Will Tell is the first release they have done for the Make Records label. Singer/ guitarist Neil Popkin says, “these songs pull from our post-punk roots, but also dive deeper into our love for bands like the Clash and Talking Heads. I think that we sound like that nostalgic feeling of something you just lost but can’t remember what it was, and yet you miss having it.” Only Time Will Tell is the band’s first new music since 2010. The band tells us that they have taken a new direction for their music. In the past they were known for their dramatic rock songs that were full of anger and anxiety, but yet attention grabbing. Now they say their style is leaning more for a “direct, streamlined sound.” With the new EP, the band has definitely achieved that goal and is producing the most accessible sound they have ever had.

War Tapes has quite a history behind it already. The band was quickly making a name for themselves in California, and it wasn’t long before they found themselves on tour in America and the U.K. with bands like Smashing Pumpkins, The Bravery, Tiger Army, VNV Nation, She Wants Revenge, Chameleons U.K., Shiny Toy Guns, Moving Units and Longwave. They were even getting recognition here in the states on television. Their songs “Dreaming Of You” and “The Night Unfolds” were featured on Last Call with Carson Daly. “Dreaming of You” was played when the Ball dropped 2009 on NBC’s New Year’s Eve. The song “Mind Is Ugly” was featured on a Season Five episode of the MTV series The Hills. The band also performed on the Season Two finale of the ABC Family show Greek.

Other songs were recorded in Billy Mohler’s home studio. Some of them were created by mistake, or by hearing one loop and the next thing you know it’s six hours later and there’s a completed song. We didn’t push things too hard, they just happened.”

“These songs pull from our post-punk roots, but also dive deeper into our love for bands like the Clash and Talking Heads,” Neil says of the EP. “We started making various bedroom demos, sending them back and forth, and slowly but surely developed a new sound that we all were vibing with. We then got into Billy’s home studio and recorded these songs. We believe we’ve all gotten better at our instruments since we first started War Tapes, and so the recording process was very fluid and natural.”

Although the band is still relatively young, Neil Popkin began his writing career at an extremely young age. “I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t have a musical outlet,” he says, adding, “Me and my sister Becca grew up playing music together; we would form bands and do shows at family parties in our basement. Billy and Becca started dating shortly after they graduated college after meeting randomly in D.C. After a couple years of a long-distance relationship, they moved to L.A. together. I then moved into Billy’s old apartment in L.A. to escape one particularly cold dreary winter in Boston, and I ended up staying out here.”

Now the band is recording for the MAKE Records label, which is owned by drummer Billy Mohler and his longtime lifelong friend Aaron Smart. Aaron Smart tells us that, “MAKE Records was born of Billy and I being involved in music together in a lot of different situations, and never really getting to have the control and the direction we wanted to give the different projects that we were involved with. The idea of the label is Autonomy, Creativity and Unrestricted Freedom, and to be able to MAKE Records the way we want them made, and the way we want them to be put out and heard.

“When I moved here, I didn’t know anyone in L.A. except Becca and Billy, so we naturally started writing music together,” he continues. “Matt Bennett came along shortly after. I remember seeing him play guitar in his old punk band at this crappy venue in L.A. that was in the back of a sushi restaurant. I went up to him after the show and asked if he wanted to join my band, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”

“War Tapes and MAKE Records is a perfect fit,” Aaron adds. “I have known the band for over ten years and I think of them as family. War Tapes is the next act waiting in the wings for MAKE Records and the world will soon know them well.”

“This EP was the result of us not getting to do what we love for five-plus years,” Popkin asserts. “It just slid out of us, like a birth. Some of the songs came from demos that were made on my crappy laptop, and we ended up keeping a lot of those The band’s bassist is Neil’s sister, scratch tracks and building around them. 64 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

Neil Popkin adds, “We believe these new songs represent the journey that we’ve all taken while on hiatus, but they also tell the story of where we came from and where we are going.”

Arlo Parks released her brand new single “Green Eyes,” alongside news of her highly-anticipated debut album Collapsed In Sunbeams, set to release January 29th 2021 via Transgressive Records. “Green Eyes,” featuring backing vocals and guitar from Clairo, is an end of summer tune; an intimate listen that showcases Arlo’s trademark breathy vocals atop soft melodies and woozy keyboards. She says, “This is a song about self-discovery, self-acceptance and adolescence. It is supposed to uplift and comfort those going through hard times.” The single is accompanied by a Louis Bhose directed video. Speaking about her debut LP, Arlo says “My album is a series of vignettes and intimate portraits surrounding my adolescence and the people that shaped it. It is rooted in storytelling and nostalgia - I want it to feel both universal and hyper specific.” Collapsed In Sunbeams will be released on 29th January 2021 on Transgressive Records. The album is available to pre-order on limited edition vinyl, CD and cassette here. The cover art and full tracklisting are available below. The news follows the release of Arlo’s recent singles “Hurt” and “Black Dog”, both of which were playlisted simultaneously on BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6 Music A-lists and have amassed millions of streams worldwide. Arlo also lends her vocal to the current Glass Animals single “Tangerine”, which was released last week, and Fraser T. Smith’s new track “Strangers In The Night” - the two recently performing the song on Later.. with Jools Holland. 2020 continues to see Arlo ascend, recent press features have seen her grace the cover of Evening Standard Magazine, NME and Dork Magazine as well as being included on the 2020 Dazed 100 List. And all whilst performing stand-out shows for the revered

Arlo Parks Announces Debut Album Collapsed In Sunbeams Out January 29th COLORS and NPR’s Tiny Desk series - plus being one of only three artists to perform at Glastonbury this year. She was recently asked by Phoebe Bridgers to accompany her for a Radio 1 Piano Session, where the pair performed a cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” - watch it back here. Arlo has also been named an ambassador for the British mental health charity, CALM. Whilst her songwriting has seen her gain new fans in; Billie Eilish, Florence Welch, Michelle Obama, Angel Olsen and Wyclef Jean, among others. On a personal level, Parks struggled with her identity growing up; a selfconfessed tom-boy who was super sensitive and “uncool,” she says it was like “I’m a black kid who can’t dance for shit, listens to emo music and currently has a crush on some girl in my Spanish class.” By the time she reached 17, she shaved her head, figured out she was bisexual and produced/wrote an album’s worth of material. Growing up in South West London, half Nigerian, a quarter Chadian and a quarter French, Arlo Parks learned to speak French

before English. A quiet child, she’d write short stories and create fantasy worlds, later journaling and then obsessing over spoken word poetry, reading American poets such as Ginsberg and Jim Morrison and watching old Chet Baker performances on YouTube. These days she references Nayyirah Waheed, Hanif Abdurraqib and Iain S. Thomas as her favorite modern poets, and it is clear that their works are as influential on her songwriting as any musician. Books too, such as The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Parks says, “the way Murakami writes in that book is how I aspire to write my songs; gritty and sensitive and human.” Fela Kuti’s Water and Otis Redding’s Sittin On The Dock Of The Bay sound tracked Arlo Parks’ childhood, but it was aged around 13 that she discovered King Krule; an artist who would heavily influence the music she writes today. Later listening to more hip-hop (from Kendrick Lamar, MF Doom and Earl Sweatshirt to the more confessional sounds of Loyle Carner) and rock (Jimi Hendrix, Shilpa Ray and David Bowie), as well as the subdued, pained sounds of Keaton Henson, Sufjan Stevens and Julien Baker, Parks explains, “I would write stories so detailed you could taste them, while maintaining the energy and life of the hip-hop I loved.” There’s a visual, almost cinematic quality to her writing too, which is born from her love of horror films, streetwear and abstract art.

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Love And War 66

Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;¢ November 2020

By Kevin Wildman Love And War have just released their sophomore album Edge Of The World. Love And War is a Melodic Hard Rock band based in Houston, Texas. Edge Of The World was recorded at Endeavor Studios in Arcadia Valley, Missouri by Greg Gill and the album was self-produced by the band along with the help of Greg Gill. This incarnation of Love And War has been together since 2010. Guitarist John Adams and vocalist Jeff VandenBerghe, who had been performing together in other bands since 1982, formed the band in 2000. “Jeff and I have always clicked when writing together, so immediately we knew that the time was right to form a band and play again,” says guitarist John Adams. Drummer Donnie Bragg, another veteran of the Houston rock scene, joined the band in 2004. They felt that his huge “John Bonham style” drumming would really enhance the band and give them that hard-edged groove that they needed. Long-time friend, Ray Soliz joined up with them in 2010. The addition of Ray and his thunderous style of playing solidified the outfit. Since then, the band has never looked back and has just gotten tighter and tighter over the years. Since their formation, the band has made quite a name for themselves, and has opened for many national acts, such as Ratt, UFO, MSG, Y&T, Ace Frehley, Krokus, Night Ranger, and more. In 2012 the band released their first album, Up The Annie, which proved to be very successful for them, and helped them to gather a huge fan base regionally and nationally. By the time 2017 rolled around, Love And War decided it was time to record another album, and writing on the new album Edge Of The World started into motion. It didn’t take long for the band to get basic ideas together and start working on the songs that would become the nucleus of Edge Of The World. When recording came into play, the band opted to journey to Endeavor Studios in Arcadia Valley, Missouri. This wasn’t some arbitrary decision. They felt the only person that could help them was producer/engineer Greg Gill. Greg had recorded the first Love And War album, Up The Annie at his studio in Houston, but had since relocated to Arcadia Valley, Missouri. Greg was also a guitarist and a long-time friend of the band, and another member of the Houston Rock scene as well. If anyone could perform the job they wanted, Greg could. He had done an excellent job of recording and engineering their first album. Over the next two to two and a half years, the band would travel back and forth to Greg’s Endeavor Studios to work on Edge Of The World. Normally an album like this wouldn’t take so long, but with Greg’s schedule the way it is, not to mention the band being located in Houston, the 11 and a half hour drive or two hour flight there slowed the process. Because of the band’s individual schedules, recording was done whenever they could schedule it in. One day there might be all of them there, on another it might just be two of them, and sometimes guitarist John Adams found

Love And War Release Their Second Album Edge Of The World himself in the studio alone working on a myriad of guitar parts. All in all, the session went quite well and the end result is fantastic. When you listen to Edge Of The World, you’ll find it very melodic and appealing filled with some of the most intense guitar parts and vocals that you’ve ever heard. Add to that the amazing rhythm section of Ray and Donnie, and you’ve got one of the finest Melodic Hard Rock albums you’ve ever heard filled with 9 fantastic songs that will leave you screaming for more. Believe me, when I heard the album, I couldn’t help but want to hear more of this great outfit. Let’s hope that it doesn’t take that long for them to start on another project. I want more!

endeavor for them to record the project at Endeavor Studios. But, like I said, the result was fantastic… 9 great rock songs with inspiring lyrics and dynamite melodies that will just melt your speakers. I had a chance to sit down and talk with guitarist John Adams and vocalist Jeff VandenBerghe to get a little insight into the album and the songs which made for a great interview as I’ve known these guys for many years. KW: Tell me a little about the first song off the album, “We All Fall Down.” I understand that you may want to do a video of this song at some time.

On the recording process, the band went in and laid down their rhythm tracks John Adams: “We All Fall Down” is first live, along with scratch vocals and guitar the opening track. It’s a song that I wrote. parts. This way they could take their time For me it conveys kind of how we all have and perfect the guitars and vocals along the hard times in our lives. And you know for way. When we talk about multi-tracking, we me, I always thought it would be really cool really mean multi-tracking with some of these if we did a video on that. There would be songs. Some of them might have up to 80 homeless people or there would be like tracks filled with vocal overdubs, guitar something like a guy on top of the world that overdubs, and even tracks for various sound gets knocked down. A guy like a preacher, or effects that were needed on the album. continued on next page Believe me, it was (pardon the pun) quite an November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 67

Jeff VandenBerghe e: It’s kind of about addiction, you know. (singing) “start believing before it starts all over again” and you know it’s in my head. It was sort of that, you know, just struggling with drugs and addiction and back in the days, when we were doing all that crap and how you needed to believe in yourself. John Adams: I co-wrote it with a David McElmurrey and then Jeff came up with the lyrics and the vocal melody. KW: On “Mercenary Man,” I understand that you wrote it with a hired gun in mind, a mercenary. John Adams: Mercenary Man is a song that I wrote again. The weird thing about that is, I kind of had that mercenary man kind of lyric going on in my head and I didn’t know what to do with it. I thought it would always be cool about a hired gun, the kind of guy that if you’re pissed off at somebody or you wanted to get somebody assassinated you’d hire a merc. I had this riff and I was fooling around with the riff and I just kind of went, ‘I know that kind of fits,’ so then I just kind of built the song around that. Jeff VandenBerghe: It was kind of an old school song.

Love And War continued from previous page somebody that was on top of the world that got busted. It’s something to that about how we all have struggles in life. We all fall down, you know, so that was that was what I conveyed when I was writing it. And then basically Jeff just grabbed it and put his emotion into it.

Believin,” I understand that it’s an older song that you and Jeff started writing with a former bassist that’s no longer with the band. John Adams: . Well, that was a song that actually me, Jeff, and a different bass player, David McElmurrey had wrote together.

KW: What came first, the lyrics or the music. John Adams: Typically for me it’s always the music. I’ll get a riff or something, and then once I get a good feel about it, I’ll get into like a mood or a state of mind and it just kind of comes out. For that it was the chorus first. A lot of times it’s the chorus first. Jeff VandenBerghe: The other one will get to hear the hook and you go. Okay. Now I got to think of something to go with it. that’s creates a story around the hook. John Adams: That’s exactly right. So you find a chorus. You’ve got your hook. You’ve got your title, and now let’s write it. Let’s write some lyrics around it and that’s pretty much how that one came about

Jeff VandenBerghe: I sat down Indian style on that one and worked on the lyrics. Sometimes John would call me all excited and say, ‘Hey, I just had this idea’ and he’ll play me this recording he’s got on his phone. Of course, I can barely hear it. Then we will get together and he’ll have an idea for the music and we’ll go to the rehearsal room and I’ll just say, ‘keep playing it over and over’. I’ll sit Indian style and it’ll start coming to me. I’ll just start rattling off lyrics. I’ll come up with a melody. I’ll just kind of scat a melody and the words won’t make sense. I’ll just be humming a melody in my head and then the words will start coming and I just kind of create a story that way.

John Adams: So the music was written first and then we played it. He was listening and he would just scat down the lyrics. and KW: On the next song, “Start then he said, ‘I think I got it.’ Rock and Blues International • November 2020

John Adams: For me that song would be a song that I would have heard in high school. It has a total 70s vibe to me. For me when I was writing it, the groove reminded me of a UFO song. It doesn’t sound anything like a UFO song, but for me, because I’m such a big UFO fan, it reminded me of a Paul Chapman song like it was making moves off of The Wild, The Willing and the Innocent, which came out in 1981. What I wrote was completely different. Jeff VandenBerghe: And that was one of those ones where he had the riff and the chorus part of it and he said, ‘help me come up with some of the lyrics for it’ and we did the lyrics. The lyrics are co-written by both of us. Yeah. He had the hook and then I just kind of added my little two cents to it. KW: The title song off the album is “Edge Of The World” which I understand was one of the hardest songs on the album to record. How did that one evolve? John Adams: “Edge Of The World was another song that I had written the music for and I had the groove. I remember giving it to Jeff. I sent it to him one time. He listened to it and said he didn’t have anything. He’s like, ‘I don’t know what to do with it.’ And so I came up with the whole thought of Edge Of The World. Jeff wrote the verses and I just wrote the choruses. But for me, it was standing on the edge of the world. And for me, that chorus is like standing on the precipice and looking down on your life and everything that you’ve done in your life, the reflecting. And at this point you feel like you’ve got nowhere to go because you’re

standing on the edge of the world and it’s either like fall off or get your shit together. Jeff VandenBerghe: So that’s why it starts off being kind of negative. But it’s always a positive towards the end. I always write with a negative thing to it. I’ll try to turn it into a positive thing in the middle. By the end of the song, it’s something positive. John Adams: I wrote the music of the chorus and then Jeff wrote all the verses. KW: Up next is the song “Psycho Ride”. This was certainly an interesting song. Is that about anybody in particular. Jeff VandenBerghe: That was all me baby. That kind of referred to some of the women I’ve had in my life, (singing) ‘get off this Psycho Ride, you know you love me, you hate me, you want me, you don’t love me anymore.’ It’s like get me off this fucking Psycho Ride. you know, and I had an idea for a riff for it. John Adams: He was over at the house, and he hummed the riff to me.

off to Jeff Wong, the guy that did that series. Unfortunately he said he’ll never do another Final Destination. At this point since the CDs out, I still want to send him the song and say ‘hey if you ever want to, we have this song for the soundtrack that you can run during the credits. This will kick out there. Come on do another Final Destination… do the final finalist. John Adams: So what happened with that is, I had the music written. We came out here with the band and we worked out the music and Jeff did what he normally did. He sits over here Indian style, with his legs crossed with his tablet and he literally wrote everything in one practice. Jeff VandenBerghe: I’ll just say ‘keep playing it over and over again’. KW: So what’s the theme of “Final Destination”? John Adams: It’s about a fight. It’s about ‘don’t get in my face’. Yeah, if you do, it’s going to be your final destination.

Jeff VandenBerghe: And John took it from there.

Jeff VandenBerghe: Yeah, it’s like, you think you’re fucking tough, you know. Okay, but you know it’s step up or shut up,.

John Adams: Yeah, he goes Eagles, you know it and then I was like, ‘okay do that again.’ And so I came up with a guitar part. Then he would say, okay and he already had the whole thing written. He had all the verses, the chorus.. he had the whole thing.

John Adams: The first line is ‘I’ve had enough of your back talk, dude. If I was you, yeah, you want to step up because I’ve been looking for some trouble and the more I keep looking, it seems to be you. So basically it’s about standing tough.

KW: So the lyrics came before the music for this one?

KW: What are we talking about in “Strange Kind Of Medicine”?

John: Yeah, we sat down on the bed at my house and I had my guitar and he hummed and he goes, ‘I got these lyrics’. I said, let’s do it and I swear the whole thing took about 15 minutes.

John Adams: That’s another one I had all the music for. That was one that I had already written and I had that intro idea coming up. It was a song I was going to do with Dead Man’s Hand because it was real swampy and I thought it was more Southern rock.

KW: How about “Final Destination”. How did that one come about. I saw the movie… John Adams: Yeah, we got to get that

Jeff VandenBerghe: But then he played that for me and I went. ‘Oh hell no, we got to do that man.’ I’m all over that.

John Adams: Yeah, so we came in here and we rocked it out. This is a Love And War song, but it’s different for us because it’s more like a swampy thing. Jeff VandenBerghe: It’s Southern Rock, but it shows the versatility that we can do pretty much anything we put our minds to. John Adams: So I wrote the music and I pretty much had the whole thing written like typically when we come in here. I didn’t have any lyrics or any ideas to share with Jeff at all. I’ll have all the music written and so we went through the whole thing. And he sat over there again like he normally does and wrote the lyrics in one practice. KW: So what’s this song all about to you now? Jeff VandenBerghe: It’s about my dad and being the kind of things that my dad taught me when I was a kid. Once a job is first begun, you never leave it till it’s done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all. That’s the first opening lyrics. That’s the stuff my dad taught me when I was a kid, you know, just I guess, values, the conservative values. Love many, trust few. Learn to paddle your own canoe… shit like that. Those were things that he heard when he was a kid and he taught them to me and it just stuck. KW: That throws the title of the song off a bit. How did that happen? John Adams: I came up with that and for me, I just wanted to kind of write something around that. The reason that I came up with it was because the intro of the song was all swampy and I was thinking something about maybe some kind of moonshine thing, or something like that. That was that was kind of a strange kind of medicine, but Jeff turned it around and the strange kind of medicine is basically the things you are taught through life growing up. continued on next page

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John Adams: No, that’s another one I wrote. I wrote the music and Jeff wrote the lyrics. Jeff VandenBerghe: That’s another one where I sat down Indian style and wrote all the lyrics. It was about a pimp. John Adams: It’s about a pimp. He’s got his bitches and he rides around in a limousine and you know, nobody messes with Southside Johnny. He’s kind of like the king of the world kind of guy… the king of the neighborhood. Jeff VandenBerghe: Yeah, he sports a gold tooth. He’s got a .45.

Love And War continued from previous page Jeff VandenBerghe: Yeah, love God and you know and it’s a strange kind of medicine, you know, but if you stayed true to your morals and your convictions, it’s medicine for the soul. The medicine for the things that you’ve learned growing up. It’s medicine for the soul.

time. That was another one of those situations where we worked out the music and Jeff wrote the words for it.

John Adams: So that’s the strange kind of medicine, but it works if you know it. It is strange when you think about it, a lot of people don’t hold on to that kind of mentality or whatever. Things that we grew up with in our past. Kids don’t grow up that way now, but we have because we’re from a whole other generation. I mean kids right now don’t know what the hell’s going on. Their parents grew up in the 80s and 90s. It’s a different world today. These kids today are from a different generation. They protest in the streets and they don’t even know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it.

Jeff VandenBerghe: I actually wrote the words to that when I was working on a house. I was painting a house down in Galveston with a crew of guys and I’d go down there every weekend and it was just one of those songs. When I was painting it just kind of came to me and I just took off and said ‘I’ll be right back’ and I was writing down the words. I got the idea of the name of the song from a friend of mine, Craig Wasserman in El Paso. He said something about like, ‘I’m fucking flying like I’m on a sideward flight. I’m falling like I’m in a sideward flight, crashing and burning. I said, that’s a good name for a song and I was like, whoa, and it always stuck in my head and then I that’s what I was kind of thinking… of a plane. We’re gonna crash and burn.

KW: How about “Sideways Flight” now. What does that mean?

John Adams: It’s kind of a metaphor for your life.

Jeff VandenBerghe: Now that was the song that I wrote way back in the day and we used to do it with another band I had called Lestat.

Jeff VandenBerghe: Yeah, I gotta pull up now before it’s too late sort of. We were really kind of reckless back in those days. A lot of my lyrics are about that kind of shit. It came from that, you know? Yeah. It was great to be young then.

John Adams: Yeah that was a song we used to do back in the 90s with our band KW: The last song on the album is Lestat. I wrote the music to it. I always had called “Southside Johnny.” Are you singing that riff and it was reminded me of Dimebag about Southside Johnny and the Asbury Darrell. At the beginning there, I had that riff Jukes? What is this song about? and then we worked it out of practice one 70 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

John Adams: I kind of had that guitar riff going through my head for a long time. I wrote the music and I had everything down except there was a bridge on that song that I was having trouble with, and David Macklemore who was with us at the time goes, well try this way. Well, he wrote the bridge. (singing) ‘Well, if you’re looking for love and you need a honey, talk to Johnny, give him some money. He’ll do what he can to make you feel like a man. If the price is right, you can be in heaven’. Yeah, it’s about a pimp. For the guys in Love And War, this was definitely a labor of love. To this day they really don’t know how many hours they worked on this project. Laying down the rhythm parts came fairly easy, but when it came to the vocals and guitar parts, those were recorded and re-recorded, overdubbed, thought out again and in some case reworked to fit the new mood of the song. John Adams tells us that for this record, he wanted it to be their masterpiece. Well, I think he and the band accomplished that. Now how are they going to top this? This album really brought Love And War to the top of their game. When it came to the final mixing and mastering of this project, members of the band were literally in tears. They just couldn’t believe that they had made this incredible album. It came out even better than they expected. For some of them it was really an emotional moment. For John Adams especially. He had spent so much time on his guitar parts and they came out unbelievably fantastic. You could see the tears dripping down his cheeks. So now what’s left for the band. The Covid Pandemic slowed things down a bit for the band, so now it’s time to get the message out about Edge Of The World. It’s time to get this fine album out to the people. Being an independent project, the main slowdown is distribution. Because of the shutdown, CD Baby’s warehouse was somewhat in limbo, so it was becoming quite a chore to get the new product out. They’re still managing to do it though as the world starts opening up. When you get the chance, you really need to check out Love and War and their new album, Edge Of The World. Edge Of The World is available on all major streaming service, ReverbNation, FaceBook, and on Love-andwar.com.

October 2020 â&#x20AC;¢ Rock and Blues International

Black Stone Cherry Release Their Most Emotional Album Yet The Human Condition 72

Rock and Blues International â&#x20AC;¢ Novemer 2020 Photo by Arnie G

By Kevin Wildman Black Stone Cherry has just released their seventh full-length album, The Human Condition, on Mascot Records. In addition to that, they have also released their new lyric video for the song, “Ringin’ In My Head. The first single from the album that was released prior to “Ringin’ In My Head” was the song “Again.” The new album will be available on Red Transparent Vinyl, Limited Edition CD Boxset and Digitally. Fortunately for the band, The Human Condition was recorded and completed just a few days before the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. “There was a real urgency and fear of the unknown during those sessions - it was a scary time,” recalls drummer, John Fred Young. “Every song on this album tells a story of the experiences we all go through - our happiness, our struggles, and how we have to adapt.” It’s certainly been a bit different for the guys in Black Stone Cherry due to the Covid-19 shutdown. We talked with guitarist Chris Robertson of Black Stone Cherry about how the shutdown has affected him and the release of the new album and he tell us that it’s a bit different than what he’s been used to. “I will tell you I’m pretty excited over this one,” says Chris. It’s been a new experience for me, working on a record and then not getting on a plane and going to Europe to do a press trip, and not getting on a plane to go to New York and do a press trip, and then not getting on a bus and going on tour. It’s a real different situation, so now I spend my days on the front porch doing interviews.” The album was tracked in bassist Jon Lawhon’s recording studio, Monocle Studios. The band went in with four songs ready to record and then wrote the rest of the material while there, along with revisiting some old favorites that they had never recorded before. Also for this recording, the band tried something new that they hadn’t done before. Instead of performing live in the studio as they had previously done on all their albums, they multi-tracked everything, concentrating on doing the best possible job on their individual parts. “I feel like it made it our best work yet,” explains Chris. “The way we used to track them was when a guy’s focused on his own part. You know you may have to fix something here, there or whatever, but the way we tracked this time, every single guy got to be focused

on every single part of the song and that just took us to a whole new level of detail. Everybody’s paying attention to every single part, its kind of all eyes on and all hands on deck on everything. For me that was the best part about it.” On the album, the band pulled some previous written unrecorded songs and reworked them for the new album. The album starts off with one of those, “Ringin’ In My Head.” It’s strange how songs that were written years ago can mirror the activities of today, like the Covid pandemic, but that was one. It is also the basis for their new lyric video. Chris tells us that, “Well, we wrote the beginning of that song and the first verse along with the chorus in 2016-17, somewhere around there. That was all written three or four years ago, and we really wanted to record that song. That song was already on the final wheels before the Covid thing even happened. The rest of the song just kind of took shape after that. It’s a really unique song. I love that the album opened up with that.”

the way he deals with it. He didn’t want to tell his fans that they needed to do to take care of their problems, but rather took the approach that this is what he does and it helps him. It was more along the line of showing them by example. “That one is pretty personal to me. I am manic-depressive and I see a doctor about it and I’ve been this way for a long time. I’m going on two years now. There’s such a stigma about mental health. I am a guy who knows about the deepest and darkest points of my life and a good doctor and faith actually pulled me out of it. I’ve always been very outspoken about mental health because I The first song that the band released as a single from this project was know it’s not the tough-guy thing to do to talk about it. Well, I don’t care, the song “Again.” That song really because if it reaches one person and they primed the field for these guys and had get some kind of help for it from me their fans waiting with baited breath to being honest about my experiences, then hear what the rest of the album was that’s what it is. That’s what the song’s going to sound like. The fans loved this about man, you know for what it’s one. “We came up with all the riffs and the music and then the chorus for “Again worth. The title of that song is “Push first. We had this melody and just off the Down And Turn” and I do that every morning. I have seizure medications I top of my head. I sang the line, ‘every take every morning and it allows me to time that I would come back to life I’ll see you again.’ and Jon just kind of looks wake up and see how beautiful life can really be, and for that, I’m grateful. So at me and said, ‘what did you say’ and I why not write a song about it? I’m not said it again. All four of us kept it going saying that this will work for everybody. and then Ben had that verse melody and Going to a doctor is not what’s right for the first verse lyrics, and then we hashed everyone. What the song is about, is it out and in about 30 minutes we had what works for me, and the biggest thing that song. That song to me is kind of in there it is being open and honest with like the story of the Phoenix and the people. Sometimes I wake up and I’m rebirth. It’s not what you go through on not the best version of myself, but I the way down, its how you recover from know that you can feel it when you wake that when you’re coming back up.” up, and you have to fight through those The song “Push Down & Turn” is continued on next page more of a personal song to Chris. It was based on a medical condition of his and November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 73

as Chris explains, “ The title came after all the songs. We were in the process of being recorded. We’re working on vocals and some of the last stuff that we do on the records. We were throwing around different album titles and all at once our bass player John said, ‘It’s like a human condition. There’s a song for every aspect on this record’ and we just stopped and said, well there’s the title of the record. It just kind of summed up all the songs nicely. It just seemed like the right thing for the group of songs on this album. It just seemed to embody that entire thing.”

Black Stone Cherry continued from previous page days. Anyway, the first step of healing in any kind of situation in admitting there’s a problem. As heavy as this song is, I think it’s one of the most emotional and human involved songs on the record.”

wife and my son. It was also inspired by the loss of Jon’s grandmother. For me, it’s just a song that I hope those two ladies can hear in heaven, you know, and smile, knowing how much they meant to the world and us.”

Another song on the album that Chris says is especially personal to him Besides all the original songs on the album, the band also decided to add a is “When Angels Learn To Fly.” Here’s another song that he had the music to it cover song to the album. This is something that they like to do from time sitting on his computer for three or four years till he decided to revisit it for this to time. This time they selected the song, “Don’t Let Me Down,” by Jeff album. The song is actually about his mother-in-law that passed away. He also Lynne and ELO. While the song sounds tells us that it was a little hard to write a bit like ELO, it definitely has a and tears were flowing during the different flair to it as Chris explains, “We process. “It’s really beautiful music,” always do a cover here and there, typically for B-sides, so we were looking says Chris. All the music is exactly what it was about three or four years ago when for a cover song. We looked at several songs, even a Fleetwood Mac song, and we wrote it, but we never had lyrics. we just landed on that one. That’s like a Sometimes you go through extremely tragic events in life and just like the song fist in the air, like a little bit more of a rockin’ song than ELO did it. We’re all talks about, it’s about overcoming those things and how we get through those huge Jeff Lynne fans and we said, let’s things that define you and who you are. just do it. Let’s just do it the way we would do it. We took out all the syntheMy mother-in-law was one of the most caring woman I ever had the privilege of sizers and added more guitar parts and just made it out own tune.” meeting. She took me in when I was 16 years old when I met her daughter, like I After all the songs were recorded, was her son. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with a very rapid form of the band sat down and brainstormed to try to find a title for the new album. cancer last year and passed away. And the song is just honestly about what it’s After throwing around a few ideas, bassist Jon Lawhon came up with an idea like dealing with that for me and my 74 Rock and Blues International • November 2020

“When I listen back to this record, I feel all these different emotions,” Jon Lawhon says. “We started when we were teens, and life has taken its course, especially now. Through it all, your heart and your perspectives change, but one thing that hasn’t changed is our connection as friends.” Chris affirms: “This is a brotherhood. It’s been amazing to stick around with all four original members and still be inspired. Here’s to 7 more albums and another 19 years!” There’s a lot of emotion packed into the original songs on this album. There are songs about politics, there are songs about addiction. They have a song for virtually every human emotion you can think of on this album. It’s probably the most emotional album that the band has ever released in their career. Some of the music from the songs comes from as far back as when the guy’s were just teenagers, but those songs have been revisited and updated and stand up with some of the best songs they’ve ever written. And without a doubt, this is one of the heaviest albums that the band has ever written. From the moment the album starts, you’ll find yourself captivated by the music filled with pounding drums, thunderous bass and some of the best melodies you’ve ever heard on a Black Stone Cherry album. Chris Robertson’s vocals are simply superb on this album. The emotion his voice generates at times will range from having your fist in the air pounding at the sky to even sitting there with a tear in your eyes. It gets very emotional at times. The album is so good, that no doubt you’ll find yourself playing it over and over again… each time experiencing a new emotion and feeling. A big congratulation goes out to Chris Robertson Ben Wells, Jon Lawhon, and John Fred Young for such a groundbreaking album. Yeah guys, you hit the ball straight out of the park. It’s definitely a home run.

GRETA VAN FLEET RETURNS WITH A JOYOUS NEW SINGLE AND MUSIC VIDEO, “MY WAY, SOON” By T.J. It’s been a little over a year since we’ve heard anything from Greta Van Fleet, but now they’re back. Yes, the band that was touted worldwide as a Led Zeppelin clone has just released a new single and a video to go with it. After nearly three years of touring with their debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, which was released in 2018, the band is striking back with a new sound and a new direction. Tired of hearing the comparisons between their band and Led Zeppelin, the band is back to show that they are more than just a Led Zeppelin sound-alike band. Their new single is titled “My Way, Soon” and definitely features a new direction for the band. The song is slated to be included on the band’s new album, which they are currently working on. Last year the band stated that they were going to shed this image that both elevated them to star status, and pidgin-holed them in a narrow field. With the release of “My Way, Soon” they feel that they are well on the way to do that.

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Written in more of a shuffle arrangement, the band expresses the transition that they have made from being a teenage garage band to becoming a national touring act. “My Way, Soon” is a real rocker and sounds a bit different from what we’ve been hearing from the band. It displays a more mature sound that is creeping in to be their own, although it is still rooted in that 60s and 70s retro sound that they have become known for. Along with the song comes a new video that is both playful and retro with a look that resembles being filmed from one of those old Super 8 cameras. The video features the band at play with both performance footage and leisure time mixed in showing both their serious side and their playful side. “This song was inspired by what three years of touring did by opening so many doorways. This is my truth, how I feel about all of our travels, but I know it echoes the experiences and changes of perspectives for Jake, Sam, and Danny as well,” explains lead singer Josh Kiszka.

It’s been quite a ride for the young band that started out in their parent’s garage just a few years ago with their first song, “Highway Tune.” Almost immediately they started drawing attention to themselves and their music before they even reached their 18th birthdays. “Highway Tune” went on to become an international hit and propelled them to the top of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Singles chart. Within no time they had released their first album and had 3 more singles rocketing up the charts. They even received a GRAMMY® Award for “Best Rock Album” for their debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. It didn’t take long after that before they received their first Gold Album Award. Things were going crazy for the band. Everywhere they performed was a sold-out show, in fact, they had 246 sold-out shows in 13 countries spread out over 5 continents. It was amazing… the band was selling out shows before a couple of them had even graduated High School. They found themselves performing on late night television shows, such as “The Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live,” shows that were usually reserved for seasoned musicians. They had certainly come a long way in such a short time. It was hard to believe those months before that they were living in their parent’s homes in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Now Josh, his twin brother Jake (guitar), his younger brother Sam (bass, keyboards) and their best friend Danny Wagner (drums) found themselves traveling the world in what was definitely a “new normal” for them.

I’ve packed my bags and I’ve got my freedom I’ve sacked the rules so I don’t have to heed them I’ll bet on a chance if I’ve just got one I’ll throw out the plans and live with no burden I have but a lifetime Seems so long but it flies by And in the moments passing I’ll bear no load I have yet to wander Many miles far yonder And with so much left to ponder I choose the road

song, a video and a goal to shed any comparisons of them and any other musicians out there. They are forging a path all their own and their new single, “My Way, Soon” is a great way to hit the road. It definitely shows a new side and a new direction to the band. I think that perhaps the words to their new song explains it all. “I’ve seen many people There are so many people Some are much younger people And some are so old I’ve seen many places There are so many places And where are the people going Will they choose the road

I’ve packed my bags and I’ve got my freedom I’ve sacked the rules so I don’t have to heed them I’ll bet on a chance if I’ve just got one I’ll throw out the plans and live with no burden I’ve packed my bags and I’ve got my freedom I’ve sacked the rules so I don’t have to heed them I’ll bet on a chance if I’ve just got one I’ll throw out the plans and live with no burden”

Keep you eyes focused on the pages of Rock And Blues International and when we have more news on Greta Van Fleet and their upcoming album, we’ll let you know about it.

As Danny explains, “The definition of ’normal’ has very much broadened over the past couple of years, and it has affected us as musicians, especially in the writing and recording of this new album. We realized that while growing up, we had been shielded by a lot of things, we were unaware of a lot of things. And then we were thrown out into this huge world, and it was a bit of a culture shock at first.” “We’ve seen how people live in different parts of the world,” added Sam, “and we’ve developed intrinsic respect for different cultures and people. We’ve gone from driving down a highway to a show and seeing endless miles of shantytowns in Sao Paulo, to playing some of the richest places on earth.” Added Jake, “The more we’ve seen different cultures, people, and traditions we’ve also seen a similarity between ourselves and these different cultures. It surprises me how similar we all are.” Now the band is back with a new November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

when they released their first EP Land Of The Setting Sun in 2015. Land Of The Setting Sun was filled with 9 thunderous songs, which involved 5 originals, 2 covers and 2 acoustic versions of the songs, “Pyre” and “So Willingly Desired” which are featured in their heavier form on the sam EP. While unleashing their primitive Viking offering, the band received a fair amount of attention and put themselves on the radar for their “gewyrdelic folk metal”. By the time 2016 rolled around, the band only released the single “Saxon Shore” which left their newly built fan base hungry.

Historical Folk Metal Band ISENMOR Emerges Victorious with Release of Shieldbrother By Tank It’s taken four long years, but Viking Folk Metal band, Isenmore have just released their long-awaited debut album, Shieldbrother. Despite all the setbacks the band has had to endure, they now have the album that their fans have been wanting. “Recording and releasing ‘Shieldbrother’ has been such a huge undertaking, I’m thrilled the day has finally arrived that our fans can hear the result of our efforts,” says drummer David Spencer. “Today we are proud and excited to unleash it into the wild. We hope many brothers and sisters will join our shield wall and drink to glory with us!” Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Isenmor paints picturesque landscapes of historical epic battles and Viking adventures. I can just visualize the intense battle scenes and frantic fighting between two great Viking armies while listening to this ““gewyrdelic folk metal” band. Listening to songs like “Battle Scarred”, “Drinking Glory” and the title track “Shieldbrother,” not to mention the opus 17-minute song, “Sigurd’s Song, I want to raise my sword high and lop off a few heads. Every instrument on this album highly compliments each other and blends together in a cacophony of furious excitement blending perfectly with their brutal vocals. This is just what I would expect from these Viking warriors and their ‘take no prisoners’ songs.

of Mark Williams and Nicholas Schneider mixed with the strategic guitarwork of Tim Regan and Peter Lesko. Add to that the thunderous melodic drums of David Spencer and the low end thump of bassist Mike Wilson, and you’ve got the basis for one epic battle of sound. Now add to that the keyboards of Jon Lyon and you’ve got a battlefield of sound couple with some slick lush keyboards. Without a doubt, Isenmor are going to be compared alongside with their predecessors, Amon Amarth. Face it, every band that enters this category of music is going to have to deal with the inevitable comparisons of Amon Amarth. Instrumentally the band is right on, but at times the vocals tend to take over, but why not, Isenmor has a story to tell in every song. If you’re into the whole Viking Metal Music Scene, then you’re going to be wielding your sword up high and singing along with these metal maniacs.

As we said before, this album has been a long time coming. Isenmore first hit the scene back in 2014 with their 4-song demo, which they released independently. Few people really heard the Taking center stage are the dark violins band until the following year Rock and Blues International • November 2020

With the release of Shieldbrother, the band is sure to start making waves in the Viking Metal Scene again. I dare to say that this is the album their fans have been waiting for and the band has delivered and conquered. The band takes full responsibility for the mayhem and madness that this album evokes, as they recorded, produced and mixed the album themselves. Dan Swanö of Unisound performed mastering on the album. As with their previous releases, Shieldbrother is independently released. Just a word of warning for all of you out there, Shieldbrother is not for the weak of heart. It will make you want to strap on your helmet and shield and get out there and war and pillage. It will have you screaming at the sky for war. The Vikings Are Back!! ISENMOR is: Peter Lesko (Lead Guitar), Jon Lyon (Keys, Vocals), Tim Regan (Guitar, Vocals), Nicholas Schneider (Violin, Vocals), David Spencer (Drums), Mark Williams (Violin), and Mike Wilson (Bass, Vocals). Tracklist: Battle Scarred Shieldbrother Mount Badon Furor Teutonicus Drink To Glory Kings of the Cold Mountains Wanderlust Sigurd’s Song

PG.LOST will be releasing their new album, Oscillate this month on November 20th. Oscillate,the band’s latest LP is packed to the gills with pure drama and catharsis. Their fifth overall and first effort since 2016’s much lauded Versus, Oscillate leans on an instrumental approach and while their keen understanding oftension/release may warrant comparison to the likes of MONO, Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, PG.LOST is unafraid to move into exciting new directions. With influences that range from the emotional heft of Big Thief to the inventive spirit of krautrock to the brutality of Neurosis to the dark experimentalism of COIL, these heavier elements intertwine and open up into wide-eyed expansiveness of Fennesz or Tim Hecker,revealing a beauty shimmering underneath and a range of depth rarely found in today’s over-compressed and spit-shined version of “modern music.” In making the new LP, PG.LOST opted to keep it simple and follow their gut. “On the previous records we have always tried to make it very basic and clean when it comes to production, not too many overdubs or add-ons,” reveals bassist Kristian Karlsson. “This time was more about not thinking about that at all. We don’t try to over analyse our records — it always starts with one or two songs and they often set the mood of the rest of the writing process. I think this album has more layers to it — you hear new

PG.LOST Their New Album, Oscillate This Month things every time you listen. We’re really looking forward to hearing what the listeners think.” Kicking off with a blossoming dark ambient passage on the title track, an ascendant guitar/synth part builds tension until final release is achieved with a massive chorus, wavesof eyeopening guitars and elephantine tribal drums. It’s emblematic of the album as a whole — massive in scope and even larger in sound, Oscillate is the true definition of its title with incredibly tense swells to the point of collapse leading to a slow but pensive disintegration. And again. And again. Oscillate is not just instrumental music, it’s cinematic — it’s high drama, executed in IMAX with a pristine soundtrack blasting at 120db. Due in November via Pelagic Records, the LP was recorded by the band in their own studio, and mixed/ mastered by Magnus

Lindberg from Cult of Luna. In creating the LP, the only hurdle seemingly was an internal one and making efficient use of individual scheduling. “When we formed the band we spent almost every night in the rehearsal space,” recalls Karlsson. “Nowadays we only rehearse for tours or when we plan to have writing sessions for example upcoming records. It is not as spontaneous as it used to be, but I think it forces us to really make the best out of it when we do see each other.” Founded in 2004 in Norrköping, Sweden, PG.LOST is Mattias Bhatt, Martin Hjertstedt (ex-Ghost), Gustav Almberg (The Great Discord) and Kristian Karlsson (Cult of Luna). Formed in pursuit of a singular love of post-rock, ambient and shoegaze with a bent towards post-metal, the band released their self-titled and the Yes, I Am EPs in 2006 and 2007. From there PG.LOST dropped their 2008 LP It’s Not Me, It’s You! quickly followed by 2009’s In Never Out, Key, the Wang Wen split LP and Versus followed in 2012, 2013 and 2016 respectively. Sovereign in execution and mammoth in scope, Oscillate is ten tracks of pure dramatic bombast and a massive step forward for the decades-old band. The four years away have been worth it.

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

New Music From Belgium

AMENRA SIGN TO RELAPSE RECORDS NEW FULL-LENGTH ALBUM COMING 2021 By Tank album Mass 1 in 2003. Relapse Records is happy to announce The band’s unique style has been that they just signed Belgium rockers’ described as “brooding atmospheres and Amenra to their roster. Ever since Relapse spiritual intensity” with a style rooted in caught wind of these Belgium “doom metal, “doom metal and hardcore punk.” Their live hardcore punk” rockers, they knew they had concerts are often accompanied with visual to add them to their label, and now they are art, described as “entrancing communions. happy to announce that Amenra has joined Shortly before the release of the band’s the Relapse family. sixth album, Mass VI, Colin H. Van Eeckhout The band tells us, “We are thrilled to explained his music to The Independent. “We announce that from now on we will be signed have one story to tell and it is always the to Relapse records. A haven to a lot of our same. I always write about life’s pain. I friends, and now to us as well. We are always use personal experiences as a looking forward to work with this more than reference to relate as truthfully and as capable team, and are eager to see where it honestly possible, from the heart. I try to will lead us. Our new record will see its first bend the darkness into the light… From the light mid 2021. Ever onwards.” beginning, our intention with the Mass In 1999 former Spineless members, albums was to devise a platform for selfvocalist Colin H. Van Eeckhout and guitarist reflection, to set a base for introspection: that Mathieu Vandekerckhove formed Amenra moment when you’re on your knees and you alongside former bassist Kristof J. Mondy. ask questions that don’t have answers.” Since the band was formed, they have been Amenra has been very influential in thrilling audiences worldwide through their the Belgium community for nurturing the concerts and their 6 previously released metal movement there. In 2005 they formed studio albums, along with three live albums. a collective called the Church of Ra which Their six studio albums were named “Mass”, was composed of like-minded friends from hence Mass 1, Mass 2, Mass 3, Mass 4, Mass various aspects of the entertainment industry. 5, and Mass 6. In addition to that, they have This included musicians, poets, and artists. also released a number of split 7" and 10" In a 2014 interview, Colin H. Van Eeckhout releases in which they share the release with said, “We started working together in another band. They released their debut different projects with Amenra and side 80 Rock and Blues International • Novemer 2020

projects Kingdom, Syndrome, etc… When Lennart Bossu and Levy Seynaeve joined Amenra, Oathbreaker and Hessian got formed. We worked together with Tomas Lootens and Valentijn Goethals from Webecameaware for layouts artwork etc, they are also in The Black Heart Rebellion. Treha Sektori from Paris also works with us a lot. I started talking to him in 2009, and soon thereafter we formed Sembler Deah, New projects CHVE, Harlowe, Caan, Darak, Wiegedood are being formed. Through the years photographers like Stefaan Temmerman, Jeroen Mylie, Thomas Sweertvaegher worked with us as well, dancer choreographer Thomas Steyaert, visual artist/graphic designer Tine Guns and so much more.’ With the band’s signing now to Relapse Records, it will be interesting to see how their style progresses on the new album. Will it be a continuation of Mass, or will it evolve into something more complicated. We’ll be finding out this next year when they release their new album. Amenra is Colin H. Van Eeckhout (Vocals), Mathieu Vandekerckhove (Guitars), Bjorn Lebon (Drums), Lennart Bossu (Guitars), and Tim De Gieter (Bass).

By Tank UK Death Metal band, Venom Prison, have just released their new Prosthetic Records release, Primeval. The new album release consists of re-recordings from their first two EPs, Defy The Tyrant and The Primal Chaos, which were released respectively in 2015, along with two new cuts. The songs from Defy The Tyrant are “Usurper of the Throne,” “Life Suffer,” “Mortal Abomination,” “Path Of Exile,” and “Defy The Tyrant.” From the EP, The Primal Chaos, they have included “Babylon The Whore,” “Daemon Vulgaris,” “Narcotic,” and “The Primal Chaos.” The new songs on the album are “Defiant To The Will Of God” and “Slayer of Holofemes.” Although they have included previously released songs, they insist that they are not simply a rehashing of old material, but rather new, improved versions of songs that they feel their fans may have missed as their previous two albums were released on a much broader basis in 2016. The band tells us, “We are proud to share Primeval with the world, the end of an era and the start of a new chapter for the band’s life. The essence of this release was to look back on our earlier days, reflecting on where it all started and giving new life to what these songs deserved from the start. Primeval consists of demo Defy The Tyrant (2015) & EP The Primal Chaos (2015) with 2 additional brand new songs which hint where the bands future may lay.” In a positive review of the album, The Guardian said, “As ever with VENOM PRISON, it’s disgust rather than titillation that drives their sound – Primeval is blistering death metal rooted in the horror of everyday violence and injustice.” Elsewhere,

New Music From Wales

VENOM PRISON RELEASE ‘PRIMEVAL’ ON PROSTHETIC RECORDS Metal Hammer also praised the release, releasing their first two EPs, they came to the concluding,”...while VENOM PRISON’s past attention of Prosthetic Records who signed is exhilarating, their future looks like it will the band and released their first two albums, be even more exciting.” Animus (2016) and Sansara (2019). Venom Prison is led by Russian born Their first full album release was singer, Larissa Stupar. Larissa had been part 2016’s Animus. Animus essentially unleashed of the German hardcore band, Wolf Down. this new band onto the metal scene and kickAfter relocating to Wales, she met Ash Gray started their metal odyssey. The album was of Brutality Will Prevail and the two of them simply magnificently brutal with a cover to started writing compliment the music. The cover featured a music together. castrated rapist being force fed his own It wasn’t long genitals. The music was definitely filled with before it came brutal lyrics and vicious vocals and a time to choose thunderous bottom end that would pound a name. They your skull. Topics on the album ranged from wanted rape culture, misogyny, and religion. something that Their sophomore album, 2019s would stand Samsara picked up where Animus left off, out, so they cementing them in the death metal marketchose the name place. Their second album was just as violent “Venom and graphic with songs like “Uterine Prison” as it Industrialisation” and “Self Inflected was “the most Violence.” Believe me folks, this album was metal name definitely hardcore. they could Now the band is back with their third imagine”. album and newly revitalized songs from their Other members first two EPs. From album to album Venom of the band Prison gets more hardcore and the same can include be said with this new release. Normally we guitarist Ben might say a release like this rocks, but not Thomas, with this band. This releases simply crushes. bassist Mike It sets a new bar for the death metal scene. Jeffries, and This album is designed for the most hardcore drummer Joe death metal fan out there. Bills. After November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 81

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Rock and Blues International • November 2020

has managed to take the styles of death metal, punk, grind, and noise rock and turn it into a sound distinctly theirs. The guys from Yautja tell us, “The members of Yautja have been fans of Relapse artists and releases since middle school and the label has always been an outlet for discovering new and subversive music for us. We couldn’t be more stoked to share the music we’ve been working on over the past few years through this label.” So far Yautja has two fulllength albums under their belt as well as a 12" EP and a few demos and splits that were released through Forcefield Records, Gilead Media and Anti-Corporate Music Inc. Yautja has also built up quite a reputation for their live shows, and has toured with bands such as Revocation, Exhumed, Dropdead, Inter Arma, Cult Leader, Rivers of Nihil, Black Breath, and more. This year the band recorded their new album at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio in Chicago. The album was engineered by Scott Evans/Antisleep Audio and mastered by Brad Boatright/ Audiosiege. Next year will see the release of this new project and we plan on keeping you informed of it in the pages of Rock And Blues International.

Sign To Relapse Records; New Full-Length Album Coming 2021 By Greg Fontaine Relapse Records are happy to announce that they have just signed the underground Nashville metal trio, Yautja. In addition to that, Yautja is also happy to announce that their new album for Relapse Records will be released this

PITCHFORK had this to say about Yautja: “Nashville trio Yautja are a prog-minded act that combines grindcore and Amphetamine Reptile-era noise with the artier shades of hardcore and death metal. Yautja doesn’t just stack hairpin turn after hairpin turn—an approach that was tired by next year in 2021. Yautja was originally technical death metal’s mid-’90s peak. formed in 2010 and they have been Instead, bassist Kayhan Vaziri, guitarist making quite a name for themselves in Shibby Poole, and drummer Tyler the metal realm since their inception ten Coburn create a highly malleable, years ago. The band was formed by mercury-like alloy that changes shape members from the bands Thou, Coliwith liquid ease yet retains the solidity of seum, Mutilation Rites and more. Yautja its structure.” November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 83

Mascot Records Announces Signing of LEVARA Premiere first song from band’s debut studio album to be released in 2021 Mascot Records has announced the signing of LEVARA, and the premiere of the first recording from the band’s debut studio album coming in 2021. To view the “Heaven Knows” video, go to: https://youtu.be/ Ca0yQq05QOE . Guitarist Trev Lukather shares, “’Heaven Knows’ is the opening track to our album so it makes sense to have it as our introduction to The World. Fast pace, in your face rock n roll with that added LEVARA swag. The video is an old school homage to the early MTV takeover days adding our album color concept, bringin’ that sharp dressed Miami Vice vibe to the mix. We are just three guys that love making music and having as much fun in the process so the video is simply an accurate representation of us.” If you want to get real deep, singer Jules Galli reveals, “’Heaven Knows’ is about digging through the darker parts of your own psyche. It’s about asking questions to yourself and recognizing our mystical connection to the bigger picture, a higher power... I like to think of it as a shamanic reading someone would receive in the Amazonian jungle. What’s stopping you from reaching your ultimate potential?” In summation, drummer Josh Devine states, “Whatever…” Trev Lukather, Jules Galli and Josh Devine are LEVARA. Collectively, their musical union brings life to the individual

talents of three musicians that together have enriched the aural landscape for all of us. Their songs offer an escape, as all music does, with points of reflection that relate to any listener’s life. The collective hope is simple. To be the catalyst for each and every person who comes across the music to find revelations through the experience of hearing these songs. Every tune on the band’s debut emanates from inspiration culled from their lives, and their mission is to rally the globe to connect with the band. These songs display a larger than life sound. A realized vision. Anthemic tunes written and recorded visualizing a mass audience becoming one with the body of work. Integrating their personal voices to the live experience. Or simply as a personal soundscape cruising the asphalt with the car stereo cranking. Their union merged in Los Angeles, one The World’s epicenters of musical creativity. Singer Jules Galli emigrated from France, while drummer Josh Devine chose L.A. as home versus his native United Kingdom following success behind the kit with One Direction. There they found common vision with Trev Lukather (guitar), son of Toto’s Steve Lukather, one of SoCal’s most successful ensembles to ever emerge from the city. On some level these three players believe the universe brought them together.

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

All of the members have history prior to the emergence of LEVARA. Growing up in Bournemouth, UK, Josh picked up drums as a kid, never put them down, and toured the globe and appeared in two live concert films on the throne for pop juggernaut One Direction. On the other side of the world, California native Trev Lukather ripped on Diamante’s debut album Coming In Hot, and on the road in addition to touring with EDM phenomenon What So Not and performing at top festivals such as Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and in arenas. He also found success as a songwriter, co-writing “Love/Hate Heartbreak” for Halestorm’s certified gold debut album alongside other compositions. After emigrating from France to Florida, Jules Galli relocated to Los Angeles five years ago, and has been an attraction at the popular Hotel Café leading his own ensemble of musicians prior to joining the band. As Galli shares, “When we started to collaborate, we found ourselves in the middle of something really fresh. My lyrics over the instruments created a new vibe none of us had heard before. We thought it would be a shame to not pursue the potential all of us were feeling.” Devine offers, “We all love classic rock, but we wanted to pay homage to it with a modern twist. Where’s the rock on the radio? Where’s the music we grew up loving? Where’s the guitar?” Trev Lukather urges, “We bring the feel-good anthems filled with emotion, tension and groove. Providing that much needed mutual escape. We are in it together. Artist to listener.” Prior to recording their debut, the band toured the United States several times and supported Toto on an arena tour last Summer. While in Europe, they staged several headline appearances across Germany and other countries, floored by the response with fans coming out at every date. In Early 2020, they began their collaboration with Producer Ethan Kaufmann at Elephant In The Room Studios in East Hollywood. The album unequivocally captured the magic they sought to see take life. “I believe LEVARA is a band that can spark an influence for young kids and people of all ages to pick up an instrument and feel that connection,” Trev concludes. “At the same time of singing along to anthemic, feelgood, and emotional tunes, you can incorporate the heart and soul that started music in the first place. We want to inspire our generation and the next to want to pick up a guitar, pick up a bass, pick up drum sticks, or go for those high notes vocally. I feel there is a need for epic ‘pop’ tunes to have that musicianship behind them like the classic bands we all love and admire. I believe we accomplished that with our album. If we can influence that in any way, we are winning.” The band has plans to tour late-Spring, 2021. A confirmed itinerary will be announced in the coming weeks.

The day has come to celebrate the release of HAMMERFALL’s new live album & BluRay, Live! Against The World! In a time when live shows are missed the most, the undisputed masters of groundbreaking anthems and unforgettable live shows deliver an outstanding testimony of power, energy and glory to the templars around the globe! Recorded on February 15th at the MHP Arena in Ludwigsburg, Germany, Live! Against The World contains songs fresh off their latest album, Dominion, mixed with a ton of band classics and a hand-picked selection of songs that rarely appear on HAMMERFALL’s setlists to fulfill the needs of both new and old fans. Singer Joacim Cans on the album release: “The thing with live releases is, they need to feel authentic, and LIVE! Against The World captures exactly what a live show with HammerFall is all about.“ To celebrate the album release, the band around singer Joacim Cans and founding member/ guitarist Oscar Dronjak have released the third video off the new album, the epic live version of the legendary “Any Means Necessary”. Guitarist and founding member Oscar Dronjak on the new video: “’Any Means Necessary’ has been a staple of our repertoire since it came out. This video shows really well why, it’s one of these songs that gets both audience and band going no matter what.” With absolutely impressive, grand live production, huge arenas and overwhelming pyrotechnics, HAMMERFALL, took over the world in 2019/2020 with their World Dominion tour. On this bombastic tour, they did not only celebrate the worldwide charting success of their freshly released 2019 studio album Dominion, but also the jubilee of the legendary Renegade album, by adding an impressive Renegade medley to the setlist, capturing the highly energetic spirit of HAMMERFALL. Joacim Cans on Live! Against The World:

Photo Credit: Joseph Llanes

HAMMERFALL Live Album & BluRay Live! Against The World “We Are HAMMERFALL And This Is What We Do! I am so damn proud that we are able to present a full blown, up-to-date, live show in these extremely difficult times. A time when real live shows in front of a ”real” live audience have ceased to exist. The show at MHP Arena Ludwigsburg was nothing but epic and really captured the strength and power of the band as a live act and shows the joy we are experiencing together on stage every night, no matter where we play. This is the biggest stage production we ever had and now you can experience this at home anywhere, at any time. HAMMERFALL is and always will be a live band and together with the greatest fans in the world we are an unstoppable force!” Oscar Dronjak adds: “The live act that HAMMERFALL is right now blows everything we have done previously out of the water, and I am super happy that we got to document it in this way on the biggest tour we have ever done. The setlist speaks for itself, every album is represented with at least one song; there’s stuff we have never performed live before, songs we haven’t played in a long time and of course all

the classics. It’s a great testament to where we stand today, and an added bonus is that we finally got to record something major in Germany, in front of the fans who have been with us literally since day one.” Live! Against The World is available in North America in the following formats: - BluRay + 2 CD Digipak - 3 LP Gatefold Vinyl Ink Spot Blue / White - 3 LP Gatefold Vinyl Orange Transparent - 48 page Earbook, including 2CDs + BluRay - Digital Album “a huge stage set, masses of pyro, a lighting rig to die for, a set list that is a fan’s wet dream and a crowd so pumped to be part of the event” -POWERPLAY, UK“Pure Heavy Metal - unbelievably powerful sound quality, which authentically captures the energy that the formation ignites on stage. A consistently high-quality affair.” -Legacy, Germany-

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Elvis Costello Curates Definitive Time Capsule Of Classic Third Album ‘Armed Forces’ ‘The Complete Armed Forces’ Explores The Album Across Nine Pieces Of Vinyl, Collecting Together B-sides, Demos, Outtakes, Alt Versions And 23 Unreleased Live Recordings In A Lavish Box Set To Provide An Illuminating Picture Of This Revered Record 86

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FEATURES NEW 2020 REMASTER OF ORIGINAL ALBUM TO MATCH SONIC FIDELITY OF 1979 UK PRESSING AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 6 VIA UMe Personally curated by Elvis Costello, The Complete Armed Forces is the definitive statement of the legendary songwriter and musician’s revered and essential 1979 album, featuring the classic hits “Accidents Will Happen,” “Green Shirt,” “Oliver’s Army” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding.” Leaving no musical stone unturned, no lyric notebook unrifled through and no detail left out, this new super deluxe edition vinyl box set is a thorough excavation of Costello’s vault from this metamorphic period of

his early beginnings, painting as complete a picture as possible of the events that led to the making of the album, its creation, and the wild success that followed for him, and his band The Attractions, and ignited his career. Armed Forces is explored across nine pieces of vinyl (3 12-inch LPs, 3 10-inch LPs and 3 7-inch singles), including a new 2020 remaster of the album, Bsides, alternate versions and outtakes, demos, and a slew of live recordings – including 23 unreleased live tracks taken from three especially riotous concerts. Releasing November 6 via UMe, The Complete Armed Forces will be exclusively available via Elvis Costello’s official online store and UMG’s online stores uDiscover and Sound of Vinyl, in two vinyl versions – 180-gram black vinyl and limited edition 180-gram multi-color opaque vinyl. It will also be available digitally for streaming and download. The collection is proceeded today with the release of a three-track digital EP featuring unreleased live performances of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?,” “Goon Squad” and “Pump It Up,” taken from the new live LPs, Christmas In The

Dominion - Live 24th December ’78, Riot At The Regent – Live In Sydney ’78 and Europe ’79 – Live At Pinkpop. This lavish box set fully embraces iconic designer Barney Bubbles’ epic pop-art packaging, including the paintsplattered cover artwork by Bubbles and Bazooka (used for the American release and included in the fold-out UK version) and features a unique origami cover that folds out to beautifully display the bold art and graphics and the six vinyl LPs, which are rounded out by three 7-inch reissues of the album’s singles “Oliver’s Army,” “Accidents Will Happen” and Nick Lowe’s “American Squirm” b/w “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” This treasure trove contains seven custom notebooks with newly updated liner notes from Costello, totaling nearly 10,000 words, facsimiles of first-draft, handwritten lyrics and examples of his lyrical working methods from his personal archive as well as rare photos, memorabilia and concert

ephemera. The notebooks offer fascinating insight into Costello’s continued on next page

November 2020 • Rock and Blues International

Elvis Costello continued from previous page songwriting process, showing the evolution from idea to finished work, while the liners detail the making of and stories behind the songs. The accompanying photos and memorabilia provide a vivid window into this exciting era. “Most of this record was written in hotel rooms or on a tour bus, scribbled in a notebook which rarely left my side or failing this, from fragments and phrases scrawled on paper cocktail napkins or hotel notepaper,” Costello writes in the liners. The comprehensive set also includes a print of the vintage grenade and gun poster and the four original postcards of each band member. Additionally, Costello commissioned acclaimed artist Todd Alcott to create pulp novel book covers of songs from Armed Forces starring himself as the protagonist in a variety of precarious situations. Armed Forces has been newly remastered by Costello and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig from the original analog tapes to match the sonic fidelity of the initial 1979 UK pressing. Striving for the utmost authenticity, they took care to match the feel and intention of the original mastering. “It sounds as close to the way it sounded to us in the studio as we could make it,” Costello recently revealed to MOJO. “That’s a beautiful thing.” The album’s evolution is documented on the 10-inch, Sketches For Emotional Fascism A.K.A. Armed Forces, which assembles together Bsides, demos and alternate versions, making many of these songs available on vinyl for the first time in decades. 88

Costello and The Attractions live prowess is fully celebrated with several previously unreleased concert recordings that bookended the recording and release of the album. Along with selections from the band’s legendary 1978 Hollywood High show, the collection shows off what a powerful force of nature the band was with three additional shows including highlights from the notorious Riot At The Regent – Live In Sydney ’78 and a Christmas Eve concert at London’s Dominion Theatre that same year, presented here as Christmas In The Dominion - Live 24th December ’78. “Riot At The Regent is a souvenir from our days Down Under and a second snap-shot of the Attractions in action during six months either side of the recording of Armed Forces,” Costello pens. Continuing, “We played right up to Christmas Eve and certainly sound full of cheery spirit on ‘Christmas In The Dominion,’ playing a version of ‘No Dancing’ in an apparently spontaneous arrangement that sounds as if we had just heard Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’ on the

Rock and Blues International • November 2020

radio and decided to re-work my song with a similar approach before closing the stand with the same song with which we had opened it: ‘Peace Love & Understanding.’” Costello’s full set at PinkPop in The Netherlands in 1979, titled Europe ’79 – Live At Pinkpop, is a thrilling concert that showcases the well-oiled band in fine form, exactly one year after their appearance at Hollywood High School, and sees them road testing songs that would end up on their follow up record, 1980’s Get Happy. All of the unreleased live recordings, taken from the original 2" multitracks, have been remixed by Costello’s longtime producer and mixer Sebastian Krys who recently mixed his forthcoming new album, Hey Clockface, and co-produced his 2018 GRAMMY® Award-winning album, Look Now. Produced by Nick Lowe, Armed Forces was Elvis Costello’s third album and his second with The Attractions –

Steve Nieve (keyboards), Bruce Thomas (bass) and Pete Thomas (drums) – following on from the immense success of their first effort, This Year’s Model. As a result, the songs for the album were written on the road while the band were on a non-stop tour where they were becoming tighter and tighter by the show. Moving away from the punk that inspired the previous record, Armed Forces, as Pitchfork wrote in their nearly perfect review of the album, “is extravagantly layered with dense instrumentation and rich, effusive textures,” adding “the production works to the record’s advantage, filling the songs out with bombastic power-pop arrangements and giving weight to their urgency.” At just 23 years old, the album cemented Costello’s legacy as one of the most gifted and articulate songwriters of his generation. Since it’s release it has only grown in popularity and stature, continually landing on best albums ever lists and finding new fans each year. With The Complete Armed Forces, Costello has provided an exhaustive time capsule that lets us celebrate this timeless album and understand how it came to be.

THE COMPLETE ARMED FORCES TRACKLISTING Armed Forces 12" LP SIDE A 1. Accidents Will Happen 2. Senior Service 3. Oliver’s Army 4. Big Boys 5. Green Shirt 6. Party Girl SIDE B 1. Goon Squad 2. Busy Bodies 3. Sunday’s Best 4. Moods For Moderns 5. Chemistry Class 6. Two Little Hitlers 7. (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?

Live at Hollywood High & Elsewhere 1978 12" LP SIDE A 1. Accidents Will Happen 2. Mystery Dance 3. Goon Squad 4. Party Girl 5. Stranger In The House SIDE B 1. Alison 2. Lipstick Vogue 3. Watching The Detectives 4. You Belong To Me 5. Chemistry Class (Live at The Warner Theatre, Washington D.C.) Europe ’79 – Live At Pinkpop 12" LP SIDE A 1. Goon Squad 2. B-Movie 3. Green Shirt 4. (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea 5. Opportunity 6. So Young 7. High Fidelity

SIDE B 1. This Year’s Girl 2. You Belong To Me 3. Pump It Up Christmas In The Dominion – Live 24th December ’78 10" LP SIDE A 1. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes 2. No Dancing SIDE B 1. I Stand Accused 2. (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding? “Oliver’s Army” 7" SIDE A 1. Oliver’s Army Side B 1. Big Boys (Demo) “Accidents Will Happen” 7" SIDE A 1. Accidents Will Happen

SIDE B 1 Lipstick Vogue 2. Watching The Detectives 3. Big Boys 4. Pump It Up 5. You Belong To Me 6. (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding? Sketches for Emotional Fascism 10" LP SIDE A 1. Clean Money 2. Talking In The Dark 3. Wednesday Week 4. Tiny Steps

Side B 1. Busy Bodies (Alternate) Nick Lowe & His Sound “American Squirm” 7" Side A 1. American Squirm Side B 2. (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?

SIDE B 1. Crawling To The U.S.A. 2. Big Boys (Alternate Version) 3. Green Shirt (Demo Version) 4. My Funny Valentine Riot At The Regent – Live In Sydney ’78 10" LP SIDE A 1. Oliver’s Army 2. Waiting For The End Of The World 3. Big Boys November 2020 • Rock and Blues International