Best new indie rock songs, indie news, best bands, reviews
Quite simply this playlist is more of the best DIY indie of 2018 that we didn’t get a chance to review or post before (other than on some of our socials) due to time.
As always, IRC playlists are uninterrupted and commercial-free (except the tons we have on Spotify too). Please follow us – it makes our day!
J. Mascis
Soap&Skin
Deerhunter
Worn-Tin
Drug Church
Laura Jane Grace and The Devouring Mothers
Bill Ryder-Jones
Chandler Marriott
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Molino – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The Women of the Night – Brooklyn, New York
The Flusters – Palm Desert, California
Mikey Mike – Hollywood, California
Para Lia – Cottbus, Germany
Le Corbeau – Oslo, Norway
Fornis – Sacramento, California
Tapes and Tubes – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Mumford & Sons
Phosphorescent
Cat Power
Kurt Vile
Beirut
Boy Pablo
Kero Kero Bonito
The 1975
Thom Yorke
The Struts
Wax Statues – San Francisco, California
James Waves – Chicago, Illinois
Telamor – Boston, Massachusetts
Daniel Doorman – Toronto, Ontario
Joel Strauss – Kelowna, British Columbia
I’m No Chessman – Bournemouth, England
Little Birds – Stockholm, Sweden
PV & The Heheheee’s – Bergen, Norway
Catherine Michelle – Austin, Texas
PinnedCrooks – Tehran, Iran
Band of Dust – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Cold Seas – Ashbury Park, New Jersey
Alvie & The Breakfast Pigs – San Francisco, California
MILO – Zwolle, The Netherlands
Ragman’s Daughter – London, England
EllaHarp – Half Moon Bay, California
Roam Like Ghosts – Virginia/North Carolina
The Iron Sailor Project – Compton, California
The Rassle – Austin, Texas
Max Goedecke – Cologne, Germany
Linnea Krepper – Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
Moonshifter – Melbourne, Australia
FM Band – Nashville, Tennessee
The Sleeping Tongues – Brooklyn, New York
Walden – Athens, Georgia
aeseaes – Austin, Texas
Manager – Brooklyn, New York
MOSAICS – San Francisco, California
Død Beverte – Denver, Colorado
Thunderbird – Vancouver, British Columbia
KG Morris – Denver, Colorado
Victims of the New Math – Phoenix-Charlotte
Parker Moore – Oakland, California
Tom Harrison – Los Angeles, California
Another batch of new DIY indie tracks. Tom Waits fans will likely appreciate the tantalizing music and video from California indie band Hollow Down, plus a new single from New York City’s The Hasbros and a number of other artists and bands listed below:
Hollow Down – Eureka, California
The Hasbros – New York, New York
The New Investors – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
A Fawn At Dawn – Quebec City
Penn Johnson – Austin, Texas
Reptiel – San Francisco, California
Dark rhythmic rock radiates from the new single, “Silas The Wanderer,” from the Eureka, California band Hollow Down. The track is from the band’s debut album.
If you are a Tom Waits fan, or just familiar with his music, you will swear then that this was one of his tracks. It’s been a while that we’ve heard an artist sound so much like another artist that it is striking in comparison.
The band has been told that they sound “as if Tom Waits took acid and tried to play bluegrass with a punk band” and “good music to drown to.”
Now on a six-month long tour, Hollow Down also shot a music video (featured above) for the track this past summer.
The video, directed and edited by Violet Crabtree, features a combination of crafty stop-motion animation, film footage, stills and a creepy theme of birds and ghosts that is timely with Halloween having just passed. It’s quite an impressive video for a DIY artist.
In addition to the obvious Waits’ influence on their music, the band members say they are most influenced by The Cramps and Ween.
The latest single from New York City indie rock band The Hasbros just dropped and it’s a beauty. Drowned in melodic electric guitars, a romping percussion, a cross-pollination of folk rock and 90’s rock elements and topped by a catchy chorus.
The song reminds us a little bit of the Gin Blossoms. It’s also a fitting track for a DIY Road Trip playlist.
According to songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Robert J Hanophy, the track “is a modern age love song where the guy is the one that gets hurt the most.
He wants to take the relationship to the next level, but she’s not having it…he’s tired of just being a booty call” leading him to “sarcastically ask; “how’s the ‘ever after, now?'”
Now we know times have changed for sure when the man wants a commitment and the female doesn’t. There are songs all throughout the band’s debut album, Cart Before The Horse, that wrestle with relationships, broken hearts and the perils of modern times.
We’ll be reviewing this exciting album more extensively in our year-end wrap up of 2018 DIY releases.
“Ever After Now” – The Hasbros from Cart Before The Horse
The Hasbros band on Facebook
Following the drop of its enthralling debut EP, Quebec City alt-pop band A Fawn at Dawn received accolades in the local music community and drew comparisons to Animal Collective, Sam Roberts and Broken Social Scene.
Interesting and fairly strong DIY psych-pop track with a heavy underlying percussionist vibe, jangling lo-fi guitars and catchy little alt.-style chorus.
The Danish indie rock band, The New Investors, which made IRC’s Top Ten Songs playlist for September, is back with this new and inspiring little number, “Utopia,” showcasing the band’s penchant for creating complex songs that sound solid.
The song, in addition to its heady lyrical content, is hard not to play again. This is a talented band and rising. The New Investors has been making headway in both the European and now U.S. markets, so keep an ear out. Solid band.
Musician Penn Johnson weaves glimmers of hope and love through his intimate and esoteric musical story-telling on songs like the standout title track of his new debut album, Burn A Little Sage.
His music, he says, is a “genre yet to be defined” by conventional labels and instead is music that he likes to call “modern medicinal folk music” geared to inspire health and healing.
An Austin resident and a Massachusetts native, Johnson traveled the country for several years playing his songs from town to town and building a small following along the way.
His musical influences include Nahko, Trevor Hall, Xavier Rudd, Rising Appalachia, Jack Johnson, Todd Snider. He has opened for Bumpin Uglies, Joey Harkum, Desert Dwellers, Iya Terra, and Sessions Americana.
The Bay Area rock band, REPTIEL, has dropped a new lead single, “Spirit Usher,” from the album The Planet of Progkp.
The San Francisco-based band’s album is a “science fiction sequel to the euphonious fantasy precursor, Hobbitozz … A Land That Never Was.”
The drop marks the fourth album by REPTIEL and the second of a multi-part series of “psychedelic sci-fi/fantasy rock albums” the band is producing.
“Employing the soft, theatrical and atmospherics of Hobbitozz,” the band explains, “the Progkp LP focuses on the protagonist of the land that never was ushered through space and time to a world unlike any other, where shadows reign and the sun has set forever.”
Formed in 2009, REPTIEL features members of seminal San Francisco bands like The Cubby Creatures, Thee More Shallows and The Druggles. The REPTIELians practice “ritual musick” to summon stories and sounds, and only rarely perform live due to “the various members’ agoraphobia, superstitiousness [sic], and severe anxiety.”
Indie rock musician Conor Oberst dropped two fresh, while somber, tracks on Bandcamp this week; the melancholy of “No One Changes” and “The Rockaways”.
In typical Oberst style, on the latter track, a gloomy, introspective piano piece is peppered by lyrics like: “a goddam shit show.”
On the melancholic “No One Changes,” Oberst reflects on a breakup from the heart. The tracks are available now digitally and will drop as a double A side 7″ single in February 2019.
Here’s another batch of 2018 indie rock songs from talented DIY artists and bands, including:
Wax Statues – San Francisco, California
James Waves – Chicago, Illinois
Telamor – Boston, Massachusetts
Daniel Doorman – Toronto, Ontario
Joel Strauss – Kelowna, British Columbia
The San Francisco multi-genre-wielding indie rock band, Wax Statues, is set to drop its self-titled debut album on October 19 with a release party performance at Amnesia in San Francisco.
The band’s first single, “It Was All A Dream,” from its debut, is a dreamy psych-pop track that might just get you tapping your feet or getting up to dance. There is also a music video as well.
Wax Statues rose from the ashes of the dissolution of the band The Singing Limbs.
The prolific Chicago indie musician James Waves got our attention a couple of years ago thanks to his studious songwriting and mainly acoustic songs and covers. We’ve been fans since the start.
Waves’ latest single, “This Is Love,” is a departure from his earlier singer-songwriter releases. In fact it’s a radical departure. Waves took a risk and plunged into a totally different genre.
His latest release is a suave mix of funky electro-pop disco that is indelibly energetic and memorable.
One of our favorite Boston-area musicians, the notoriously reclusive rock veteran Tom Hauck, has been dropping singles and albums left and right since forming his moniker Telamor back in 2014. Since then, he’s gained numerous radio rotations for his singles and also received some blog love.
Telamor’s latest single drop, “Rockin’ In The Free World,” is a uniquely individualistic cover of the famous Neil Young original. The guitars are ringing and Hauck is pouring his heart into this compelling cover with respect for Mr. Young in the process.
Last week, Telamor also released the original song, “Go With The Flow” and man does it flow.
The cover was produced Hauck and Warren Babson – the latter who also mixed and recorded at Bang-A-Song studios. The newest Telamor effort was mastered by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound studios in Nashville.
Musician Daniel Doorman is a Toronto based singer/songwriter with a brooding, but uplifting indie folk sound. His songs are lyrically motivated by stories that are introspective, hopeful and heartfelt.
Such is the case with his newest single, “A Better Man,” a memorable song that is not the average track you’d hear at a coffee house performance (and that’s not putting down coffee house musicians at all). Doorman has a true and lasting emotional effect with his music. This song captures his best attributes perfectly.
His debut album, Contrition, he says “is a reflection on the human condition” that draws “wisdom from diverse sources” and themes of “despair; a desire for truth; a longing for home, and a need for personal redemption.” The album was produced and engineered by Brandon Pero at Inception Sound Studios in Toronto.
Doorman’s biggest influences include Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, David Ramirez, Noah Gundersen, Matthew Mayfield, Corey Kilgannon and Julien Baker. He performs on the regular and captivates audiences wherever he performs. His emotional and interactive performances are highlighted by his tenor vocals and folksy melodies.
IRC first featured the talented young Canadian DIY musician Joel Strauss a few years ago following the release of his debut album, Don’t Lose That Feeling, featuring standout singles like the title track and “The New City.”
Strauss latest release, “Cross The Desert,” demonstrates a maturation of his songwriting and musical abilities and yet another confirmation of an artist who is under the radar. The track is from his upcoming album to be released this fall.
“The song is about going through all the stages of breaking through addiction,” Strauss says, “including boredom and self-loathing. There is a line at the end: ‘If something could be enough/I’d be alright’ that is sung repeatedly of someone crying out for help.”
MP3: “Cross The Desert” – Joel Strauss
The latest new indie rock songs from the following indie and DIY bands:
The New Investors – Copenhagen, Denmark
Atlas Run – Glasgow, Scotland
Johnny Raincloud – Portland, Oregon
Band of Dust – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Glen Spardello – Warwick, Rhode Island
The Copenhagen indie rock band, The New Investors, has made a stand in the venues of its local Danish stomping ground by packing in enthusiastic audiences and building a loyal following.
Over the past couple of years, the band has dropped a series of singles and two albums, including its new sophomore album, In Love With Everyone.
The new album is a bit of a departure from the beach-driven indie rock, 1960s-influenced melodies, and harmonies that first gave rise to the band’s popularity.
While still relying heavily on its signature sound, the band says its new release features a “dreamy layer of dark Twin Peaks-like synths” as a more dominant element.
The album is filled with songs apparently about past girlfriends: the emotive “Patricia”; the opening track, “Molly”; followed by the pensive “Eva” and the standout new single, “Deborah.”
Among other tracks on the album is the anthemic, unforgettable, “Utopia”.
In Love With Everyone is “a journey which begins and ends in the same place, with loneliness,” the band exclaims, “which is a basic condition for The New Investors and all other ‘Chemists of Love’ who must go by trial and error in their search for the Formula of Love.”
The band members – vocalist and guitarist Glenn Müller; drummer Kristian Karup; bassist Fredy Kaalhauge; guitarists and keyboardists Andreas Eriksen and Søren Tiemroth – all share a common love for “the silky harmonies of The Beach Boys and Prefab Sprout, the breezy chords of Real Estate, the fragile vocal melancholy of Cass McCombs and the fierce sarcasm of The Smiths.”
Back in 2016, when we first heard Glasgow alt. rock band Atlas Run, the group had dropped a pair of solid debut singles, “Home” and “Bookshelf,” we knew they’d be a band to watch over the years.
The band’s latest single, “Choices,” demonstrates its progression over the past couple of years, wherein incorporating pop anthem influences is helping to shape its overall sound.
“We make tight, honest rock music rooted deeply in Scottish culture and influenced by bands such as Biffy Clyro, The Xcerts and Fatherson,” says bassist Stefan Connor.
The other band members include vocalist and guitarist Paul Howie; guitarist Ryan Hamilton; and drummer Ryan Monteith.
Atlas Run has opened for bands like We Were Giants, Just Hope, and Ayakara, and are mainly influenced by artists such as Deaf Havana and Car Seat Headrest.
Flashback MP3: ”Bookshelf” – Atlas Run
Three years ago, Florida born cousins Mike Stortz (guitar, keys, vocals) and Jon Hampton (bass) formed the band Johnny Raincloud, adding drummer Timmy Hidalgo. Soon after, the band dropped its debut EP, No More Horses In This One Horse Town.
Not long after that, the guys moved a continent away to the great city of Portland, Oregon, and dropped a second EP last year, Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.
The band’s latest effort, its sophomore album, The Unexpected Death of an Acrobat, dropped earlier this year, featuring standout and unforgettable songs like the lead single, “Idiocracy.”
The band mixes a variety of genres that include indie rock, alternative rock, and post-rock, and are most influenced by bands like Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, The Growlers, and Radiohead.
Pairing catchy rock melodies with clever songwriting, Milwaukee indie rock outfit, Band of Dust, dropped its anticipated sophomore EP, Songs for All Blood Types, on September 14, 2018, featuring the new and enthralling track, “Vicious Love.”
During the summer of 2018, BOD released the first single from SFABT, “Lara and The Devil,” just days after a successful appearance at SummerFest, one of the largest and longest-running music festivals in North America.
The band’s sound is both contemporary and classic, informed by influential artist like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Replacements, and Strand of Oaks.
BOD’s debut album, Whispers Are Roars, has led them on a Midwestern excursion, with singles like “Blue Flame” rocking the radio waves and getting big reactions at shows.
Now, the infectious infusions of guitar and organ continue on, boasting an expanded sonic template within a new collection of songs that pack an emotionally powerful punch. The band formed in 2015.
Rhode Island indie rock musician Glen Spardello has a lot to say. In fact, his debut album, 5IVE 2N9E, that we profiled earlier this year, features an extensive track listing featuring 26 songs.
More recently, Spardello dropped a catchy new single, “Lighthouse Tonight,” a ‘very different kind of love song,’ he says.
“I am atypical, and by and large reclusive,” Spardello adds. “But I’m also very transparent and would not want to be anything but upfront and honest with myself, others and my music.”
Spardello’s music is a lo-fi, exceptionally unique and raw sound that is hard to pinpoint; it’s not quite blues and not really folk; it’s not straight-up rock and it’s definitely not pop.
His talents, songwriting, and versatility follow the vein of artists like Mac Delmarco. In addition to the piano and drums, Spardello also plays acoustic and electric guitars.
As with many indie artists who blaze their very own DIY path, Spardello draws from many different influences, ranging from 1990’s alternative rock to 70’s classic rock; indie punk to lo-fi.
And the artists who have had the biggest impact on his music, Spardello says, include Mother Love Bone, Eric Clapton, Queensryche, Layne Staley, and Brian Wilson.
All of these influences have sept into his music, and fermented over the years as he worked on his own epic debut that he calls “an authentic listening experience for those looking for honesty in today’s nebulous musical landscape” highlighting tracks like “Gypsy’s Reign” and “I Ain’t No Rolling Stone,” and “Slithering Snake,” among others.
“My writing style is erratic,” Spardello says. “Like most musicians, I go through times where I write a lot, and times where I don’t write at all.”
This best new indie rock songs playlist features the following artists of note:
I’m No Chessman – Bournemouth, England
PinnedCrooks – Tehran, Iran
PV & The Heheheee’s – Bergen, Norway
Catherine Michelle – Austin, Texas
Little Birds – Stockholm, Sweden
Based in the town of Bournemouth in the Dorset area of the UK, alternative rock and indie band I’m No Chessman has a sizzling 2018 track titled, “Actors,” that caught the attention of press and music lovers in the UK.
Formed in 2013, the band “wears its modern rock sound well, writing sleek, grooving songs that still pack the needed punch and crunch of proper post rock,” according to guitarist and pianist Jason Wheeler.
The other members of the band are frontman and guitarist Michael Rockett (what a great rock name!); bassist Aaron Roberts and drummer Jez Lee.
I’m No Chessman is influenced by Say Anything, Foo Fighters, QOTSA, Muse, and Biffy Clyro.
Obviously influenced by The Cure, and perhaps The Fall, Iranian artist PinnedCrooks‘s single, “Machine Run,” is strangely and menacingly enthralling.
A demo rip for sure, the track is characterized by a repetitive, dark bass line; rattling drumsticks and a forceful beat; and raw, ringing guitars – that break out into mini post-punk/new wave jams – around the odd vocals of a musician who goes by the name of Eddie English.
And yet, we like it. Yes, it needs help from a good engineer and mixer, and a bit more fine-tuning on the composition side of things, but the band shows promise.
Based in Bergen, Norway, indie rock band PV & The HeheheeeY´s originally started out as a studio project.
After the drop of the band’s debut, Create Your Lover, it set out on the road, performing in cities and towns across Norway and the U.S.
Altogether, PV has performed hundreds of shows and built a small but loyal following. Nowadays, PV is back to a studio project.
The band’s newest release, Eye Say II, is the sixth studio album and it’s an EP well worth listening to and sharing. One of the most notable tracks, “A Craving For Leather,” is the band’s latest single.
The band’s drummer, Iver Sandøy, is also a member of the famous world-touring metal band Enslaved. PV’s top musical influences include The Beatles, The Kinks, Queen, and Jellyfish.
Austin singer/songwriter Catherine Michelle‘s music is perhaps best described as a mix of indie soul and pop with elements of jazz classic vocalists like Billie Holiday and rock singers like John Mayer.
Michelle’s inspirational new single, “A Little More Faith,” recalls components of traditional southern gospel and Leon Bridges-inspired neo-soul.
Altogether, she has put her musical stake in ground of the competitive music space of Austin with a fine debut.
With upbeat, jangly guitars, sweet, steady beats and soothing vocals, Stockholm indie band Little Birds latest single, “Know You Better,” is a perfect end-of-summer track.
Following in the footsteps of bands like Shout Out Louds and The Wombats, Little Birds has flown on to the radar of our listeners and others from around the world.
Other song releases of note recently include:
“Landlady” – Young Mammals
“Sirens” (via Soundcloud) – DOM
“Be Cool” – FD20
“Joy” (via Spotify) – The Informal Thief
The Unexpected Death of An Acrobat (via Bandcamp) – Johnny Raincloud
The new and best 2018 indie rock playlist for July (part one). Enjoy and please share and like.
The Rassle – Austin, Texas
Max Goedecke – Cologne, Germany
Linnea Krepper – Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
Moonshifter – Melbourne, Australia
FM Band – Nashville, Tennessee
The Sleeping Tongues – Brooklyn, New York
Austin-via-NYC indie rock duo, The Rassle, who we pegged as a band to watch all the way back in 2010, has just dropped a new summer anthem, the wonderfully infectious, fist-pumping single, “Roll On.”
The song is the latest in a string of celebratory, upbeat, chorus-driven tracks put out over the years by the band, which has built its fanbase gradually over nearly a decade now.
Inspired by artists such as Arcade Fire, Kasabian, The Kinks and The Clash, The Rassle are brothers Blair and Reed Van Nort, originally from NYC.
The duo has a wholly original sound that combines a raucous American spirit with anthem-rich energy and a New York edge.
The brothers fuse electronic and acoustic and electric guitar with an authentic, upbeat indie rock/pop sound that one could imagine wow’ing a crowd in a small venue or a big music hall.
With a series of breakout tracks going back almost a decade since the duo’s NYC days, and the debut single building true, organic buzz via SoundCloud First and other playlists, The Rassle is finally getting the recognition they deserved years ago.
The duo’s synch appeal is growing with recent television spots on ABC’s Kevin (Probably) Saves the World and several MTV series, as well as via video games like MLB: The Show and Saints Row.
The latest single from one of our favorite DIY Swedish female artists, Linnea Krepper, is a soaring track with all of the energy and imagery of a summertime anthem.
“Show A Little Love Tonight,” recorded in Zoetermeer, Netherlands is “a song about love, like many others, but this love is the kind that you give away without getting nothing in return,” Krepper reveals.
“For people in this kind of relationship,” she adds, “I want to give them the energy to say no and the courage to walk away. There is something better waiting for you, you just need to take the chances when you see them.”
The autobiographical nature of the track gives it a more heartfelt and genuine quality with Krepper’s vocals soaring with emotions above an industrial pop-rock percussive edge.
Situated in the historic city of Cologne, Germany, songwriter/musician Max Goedecke has crafted a wonderful selection of authentic sounds, featuring an eclectic and heady mix of 1970’s and 80’s pop-rock styles, on his new album, Newspeak.
The opening track, “She’s A Good Damn Girl” (or ‘damn good girl’?) has influences of Tom Petty, and more recently, Kurt Vile.
“It’s [“She’s A Good Damn Girl”] a song I have written in dedication to Avril Lavigne when I was still in high school and she had her heydays.”
The next track, the energy-driven, 80’s-influenced, “Slowly to Sink,” is another memorable song off the album, with Goedecke’s ringing guitar and his raspy vocals conjuring up influences like The Black Keys and Jack White here.
In contrast to its predecessor, track three, “Like a Child,” features a harmonica and emotive vocals mixed with an array of musical atmospherics.
One of the highlight tracks – perhaps our favorite – on the album is “Alessai Di Castellabate” – starts out with seagull sound effects and twangy keys before launching into full-blown percussive measures take over and a folksy pop-rock vibe hooks the listener in.
With a track this strong, one that could be an indie hit on the right playlist somewhere, Goedecke knows to runs away with it; and somehow combining elements of rock, blues, folk, country and pop into one track.
The song, Goedecke explains, “is about a barmaid I met at a beach booth called Geco Beach in Castellebate de Santa Maria, Italy, along with the Amalfi Coast.”
The more we listen to it, the more we like it and appreciate his skills as a musician.
Other tracks include the Steve Earle-tinged indie rock of “Behind the Sun,” and the huge 80’s-infused, “Meant to Be,” that also stands out among the album’s 10 tracks.
Keep an eye out for Max Goedecke and defintely spin this album at his Bandcamp page.
Shifting gears now.
Headbangers reunite. Moonshifter, the heavy, hard rockers from Down Under recently dropped the debut album, Love Lust Fire Dust. Love that album name.
Combining the power of 1970’s and 80’s metal rock riffs with a 21st-century vigor, the band’s 11-track debut album is a relentless powerhouse of energy and hard-hitting rock.
Tracks like the standout single, “Dirty Mind,” and amp-blazing, “Leave You Baby,” will leave you buzzing, as it does the crowds whenever the band plays in Melbourne and beyond.
Moonshifter’s fast-charging, in-your-face old-school hard rock does not sound ‘old’ at all. The band’s loud, burning sound is delivered by rock veterans Lachlan Cross on vocals; guitarists Mark Cambruzzi and Wayne Elkin; bassist Andy Baker and drummer Mike Cato.
The band members have a storied history in the classic rock and metal realms as professional, veteran musicians with influences like Van Halen, AC/DC, Kiss and The Rolling Stones.
The Nashville indie duo, FM Band, consists of two seasoned musicians, vocalist Allie Farris and multi-instrumentalist Cheyenne Medders.
Over the past couple of years, their collaboration has produced songs, like the new single, “Two of A Kind,” steeped in a bygone era of classic pop and rock, when artists like America, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac dominated the radio waves.
They are currently working on a debut album. Stay tuned.
Brooklyn indie project, The Sleeping Tongues, recently dropped the 80’s new wave-influenced indie single, “Strawberry Kisses,” an indelibly catchy song that recalls themes of
“youth and awkward lust; substance abuse and addiction; anxiety and humor.”
TST is the project of multi-instrumentalist Craig Kepen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Raised in a family of pilots, Kepen was also surrounded by all styles of music from soul to country to rock and pop, leading to a rich and eclectic mix of influences and styles that allowed Kepen to inform his songwriting and musical preference for enjoyable and high energy pop-rock.
Kepen wasn’t totally solo on this project; he received help from other pros like Alex Chung on drums with Gabe MG lending his mixing skills and Joe Lambert providing the master.
“I played and overdubbed the other instrumental parts one at a time,” Kepen says. “There’s a whole lot of fuzz and slide guitars on the song, which is fun and different from our previous songs. ”
Kepen says that the track is “generally about being a young, awkward, horny individual looking for relief wherever you can find it – drugs, sex, booze etc.”
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