Built up of talented musicians and performers, up and coming band Slothrust recently released an exciting and rebellious video for their song ‘Double Down’ on July 12th. The video as well as the band, presents a sense of rock music along with a mix of alternative genres, that gives the video a carefree rock and roll vibe, which is the type of attitude that everybody needs this summer. ‘Double Down’ is just a taste for what’s to come off of Slothrust’s new album THE PACT, which is to be released on September 14th. Slothrust provides an aspect of carefree yet meaningful and empowering music that is appealing to anyone no matter what genre it may be. Make sure you’re ready for when their new album comes out, because it will be sure to set all of the bars!
Parker Bossley, a soulful singer from Canada, with many past music experiences such as playing in Hot Hot Heat and The Gay Nineties, recently released the song ‘Chemicals’ on June 14, 2018. This song combines the likes of indie rock music mixed with alternative feels that gives it the right combination for a perfect 2018 summer song. The instrumentals used in this song – such as tambourine and the steady drum beat – give this song a modern, yet classic, style so that it is not set to one specific genre, style, or category. This makes it enjoyable for everyone to listen to.
Admits Parker, “‘Chemicals’ is me writing about my relationships with drugs and love. The hook was spawned in my head on the 3rd day of a festival when the drugs just literally didn’t work anymore.”
Make sure to keep and eye on up and coming music star Parker Bossley for more soulful and modern music along with a new music video for ‘Chemicals’ coming out on July 13th!
On July 12th, Austin-based indie pop act Carry Illinois – comprised of Lizzy Lehman (Lead Singer/ Rhythm Guitar), Andrew Pressman (Bass), Rudy Villarreal (Drums), Darwin Smith (Guitar), and Benjamin Rowe Violet (Keys) – will make a much anticipated appearance The Rino in Kansas City, MO. But before we head out to celebrate the summertime with this impressive quintet, we wanted to ask brainchild and front woman Lizzy Lehman some questions. Below, she delves into her inspiration and the development of the band.
What was your first musical memory? Do you think that memory has any bearing on how you create music now?
My first musical memories are of watching The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” and Maurice Sendak’s cartoon musical “Really Rosie” (with music sung by Carole King). Hearing the music from both artists absolutely inspired my love of singing and a deep desire to create truthful, emotional, and relatable music that reflects the journey of navigating the challenges and triumphs of life.
What unique flare do you think performing and creating in Austin, TX has given to your music?
Austin is a very accepting and supportive city where it is ok, and even encouraged, to be different and loud and proud about being yourself. Performing and creating here has made it possible for my music to fully represent my awkward, wonderful, painful, scary, and hopeful personal experience without fear of being judged.
Music lovers in Austin want to see artists expressing themselves in the most authentic way possible. My music has been embraced by people from all walks of life, even by those I would never expect to connect to it, and that is truly rewarding and validating.
What’s the story of how the musical project started and expanded? Was it a meet cute?
After the break up of a previous band, I knew I did not want to go back to playing solo. I had grown to love the power that comes with having a full band behind me. I set to work recruiting some of my favorite musicians- some old friends, and some new friends of friends. Darwin and Rudy have been with me from the beginning, through all the experiments, and the ups and downs. I am so grateful for their love and support. Following the painful loss of our bass player and dear friend John, we brought on Andrew, who has been a good friend and part of my chosen family for a long time. We lost our former keys player to the domestic life, but it made us think more about the sounds we want to hear, and we were very lucky to find Benjamin. He has added depth and sparkle to our sound in all the right places, with his array of synths and keys. We’ve made some changes to our sound over the years, with me “going electric” and accepting my love of pop and rock music. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive and creative group of guys. It wasn’t exactly a meet cute but the love is strong!
Your new EP Work in Progress is so vulnerable and honestly provides such a kaleidoscope soundscape. What was it like, making that EP?
Making the new EP was a highly creative, visceral, and fully collaborative experience. It was amazing to have several days to build up the instrumentation, allow my band members to flex their creative muscles by experimenting with different sounds, and then record my vocals with a fully realized and rich musical context already in place. I was able to engage my emotions in a much deeper and connected manner while recording this EP because I was singing my most revealing and brutally honest lyrics to date.
How do you feel your music has progressed since you started?
My music has become much more personal, honest, and revealing. It has also gone from having a very rootsy/folk feel to fully embracing my unabashed love for pop music. While the subject matter of the songs has become more earnest, the music itself has gained a more driving, catchy, and relatable feel. I have gone from making up songs about things I have never experienced, to confronting my most painful insecurities and challenging life experiences. I have become a truth-teller who is no longer afraid to tell my story.
What is your favorite part about live performance?
I love getting to belt my heart out, and in doing so I am able to share my true voice with the audience. Singing is my first instrument and my greatest musical passion. When I sing live I feel alive, and it is extremely fulfilling to see people engage in both the intimate and dramatic moments throughout our set.
What do you hope people take away from your music, and from seeing you live?
I want people to know that we are all connected by a need for love, support, and understanding. I want them to know that it is ok to feel their feelings and process their own pain. I hope that they feel comfortable enough to come up to me and let me know that they share a common experience, and that my music helps them to not feel alone in the struggle for self-acceptance.
If you could be any superhero, who would you be and why?
I would be Wonder Woman because she is strong, powerful, confident, and can face any challenge that comes her way! I would love to be able to stand tall even when I am having a difficult time maintaining stamina to get through my toughest moments.
Anything else?
I’m looking forward to meeting you in Kansas City! Please come say hello!
The first album I purchased was ESC4P3 by Journey (1981).
I wasn’t familiar with their music, I just liked the album cover (I should mention that it was a cassette..I had just gotten my first “boom-box”). King Tut had toured through Chicago a couple of years before, and the Scarab meant a lot to me. So did the “1337 sp34k”–Google it if you aren’t familiar–on the cover. I spent much of late 1981 reproducing that cover in my school notebooks. I liked the imagery so much that I bought a baseball tee bearing the same imagery at the record store along with the album, still not having heard any of their tunes.
I had been brought up on The Clancy Brothers and Dean Martin and really didn’t care much for rock music, however I was determined to start “fitting in”. After all, I was 13 and I was tired of telling my schoolmates that rock wasn’t really music. Anyway, Journey is what I got. I told the other kids they were my favorite band, and I hadn’t really listened to another so I suppose it was true. I was informed pretty quickly that Journey was “a band girls liked” which I thought was just about as stupid as everything else. Within a year I had moved on to Motorhead and was in a whole other world of stupid. Before that, however, I stuck to my guns and picked up all of Journey’s cassettes through the Columbia Record and Tape Club. ESC4P3 remained my favorite and I continued to draw that album cover over and over.
It’s kinda funny, but listening to that album startles me to this day. It still has that 90s Platinum feel that simply is what it is…mostly due to Steve Perry being the Streisand of pop-metal. “Don’t Stop Believin'” is the highest-selling digital single of the 20th Century. I did think at the time that “streetlights…people…” was nicely abstract and potent. I can’t honestly say that I like the song. The feeling is more like love; the kind of love you feel when you’re thirteen and simply don’t know any better. It was also one of the first albums I listened to with headphones. Listening in my bottom bunk on my boom-box scared me sometimes. I had to take off the ‘phones and look around the room because it was so “real”. It was real. It was my first album. That’s all there is to it.
UprightMan showed us how emotional rock music can be on January 30th at Brooklyn Bowl. The band plays with enough energy to compel you to dance,while also playing with enough empathetic despondency to force listeners to reflect upon every decision that has guided them to this point. UprightMan‘s songs seem to move forward at the same time as staying still. Notes hang in soupy reverb. Unexpected distortion jaggedly cuts through the shimmer. UprightMan would be as comfortable opening for Steely Dan as they would sharing a stage with Royal Blood. The set helped me find myself only to lose myself time after time. The band deserves your attention, last night they certainly had mine.
In August, New York based rock trio Upright Man – comprised of Aidan Dolan (guitar/vocals), Nick Katz (bass/vocals) and Max Yassky (drums / percussion / background vocals) – released their debut self-titled album. Packed to the brim with guitar-driven psychedelia and well-rounded, intense – yet somehow innately relaxing – vocals, the ten track album made a strong impact on its audience almost immediately. Exploring a wide soundscape with the prowess of a much more experienced band, we’re under the very strong impression that Upright Man is here to stay, and they’ve certainly left a mark.
We caught up with the guys briefly before the holidays to get a little insight into their process and more. Check it out below, and get your ears on Upright Man if you haven’t quite yet!
What is the first song or album you ever remember hearing, and who introduced it to you?
Max: It’s either “Only The Lonely” by Roy Orbison, or “Busted” by Ray Charles. Thanks Mom.
Aidan: Though I had heard music everywhere before I knew what it was, the first album as a whole that I became aware of was probably Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?” It was in the CD player in our car that we took to and from school. The attitude and badassness was so obvious to me as a little kid and I still feel the same way.
Nick: Probably “With The Beatles” or “Help!” Though I discovered at 14 that I already knew all the words to “In My Hour of Darkness” by Gram Parsons even though I had no memory of listening to the record before. So I think I heard a lot of music before I was really making memories.
We know you met at NYU, but what is the Upright Man origin story like? Was it a meet-cute?
Max: I had to look up meet-cute. No it wasn’t anything like a romantic comedy, but we all did hit it off pretty quickly. We met and hung out as peers in school and then started making music for other people’s projects. We – all three – started making prog-jazz-classical music before we moved on to the space-rock music we’re making now.
Nick: Yeah, what Max said.
Your self-titled debut just released. What has that been like for you?
Max: Releasing an album feels like the most foreign part of making music to me. We play and write so much that sometimes I forget the end goal is for other people to hear it. I’m kind of stunned when I imagine strangers listening to it.
Aidan: It feels good to enter a new stage of development for the band. Now that we have a completed product, we have to get it out there and take the band on the road. Our passion is music and creating it, but as musicians and a band, we have to take responsibility for so many aspects of the business of being a band as well.
Nick: There’s inherent satisfaction in seeing things finished. Having people seem to like it is just a nice little bonus.
Do you have any fun anecdotes from the recording process?
Max: We had a fight with a very obstinate restaurateur. We ordered enough tortilla chips and guac to fuel a small force of underpaid interns, but got zilch. When we called up the restaurant, instead of your expected “Oh we’ll fix it”, we got put on hold while the owner checked the security tapes and assured us that all the chips left with the delivery fella. What do you do, right? Try and explain the laws of physics? Zero tortilla chips delivered to us = zero tortilla chips delivered to us. We each tried to explain this to the owner and finally our producer hung up dejectedly.
Aidan: While we were recording at Avatar Studios in NYC, we decided to use the physical reverb chambers, which are located somewhere in the stairwell of the building. We realized the mics in the reverb chambers were picking up this whole class of elementary school students playing outside, creating a really eerie far away sound of children screaming and laughing. We decided to record that and even took it a step further by running outside and asking them all to make as much noise as possible to be on our record! It sounded awesome, but we never found a place for it. Maybe next record..
Nick: It was awful and I hated every minute of it … I’m just kidding, I love being in the studio.
If your album were any Thanksgiving meal dish – an appetizer, main course, side dish, dessert, drink, whatever – what would it be and why?
Max: It’s the unidentifiable yet delicious troth of hot mash brought by that one obscure work friend of your cousin’s.
Aidan: Dat bomb gravy.
Nick: Guys, you’re really selling it short, it’s the whole turkey, stuffing, drippings and all.
We really love the composition and overall sound of “Ecstasy”. What inspired that song – if we may ask – specifically?
Max: Thanks. When we were writing it I remember thinking of this image I had in my head from a news clipping. Apparently some of the older folks in Gaza would sit on this one couch on the edge of the city, eat watermelon, smoke cigars, and watch the chaos as if it were a television program.
Aidan: It started off on guitar as the little intro chorus/riff. The lyrics sort of came from describing a feeling of pure resignation and disconnection from the world, while still being ironically blissful in its comfort. There is a moment of self realization and hopefulness in the song, but some things never last. The form has an interesting way of mirroring that emotion in a developmental way.
Nick: It was born of self restraint in a way.
Being a musical project located in NYC has its advantages and disadvantages, of course, just as any place else does. Have you been able to navigate the highly saturated music scene in NYC to find some of your favorite gems?
Max: That saturation is one of my favorite things about the city. It does make people cynical about exploring new music, but for studios, venues, stores and new people to meet, being here is a total boon. Of course you meet great people everywhere and there’s plenty of shit here too.
Aidan: The saturation is advantageous in the way that Max says, giving you so many options to experience many different types of music at a high level musicianship, but as a band in its nascent stage, you have a lot of other bands and forms of entertainment to compete with on any given night, so it’s hard to grow beyond the audience of your family, friends, and friends of friends. There is a very elusive sense of a scene and you have to really make a ruckus to get people to come to your show over something else.
What are you most excited about with your debut album?
Max: Having a copy.
Aidan: Seeing and hearing other people’s reaction to our music.
Nick: Getting to the next one.
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The band will be playing a show in honor of an upcoming video release and Aidan’s birthday at Mercury Lounge. Tickets are available now. Keep up with Upright Man here.
We caught up with the highly revered Juliette Lewis on a freezing cold day working from home. There was a strange sense of excitement in the air for about an hour before the phone call, which may or may not be attributed to the holiday season. (Or our immense love for this woman and all of her talents. Could be that.) My nerves had gotten the best of me, as I explained to my father earlier in the day that Lewis recently released her first collection of songs in years – an incredible EP titled Future Deep – and that seeing her perform live this past summer had really increased my faith in her ridiculous amount of talent.
Check out the fun – but all too quick – conversation we had with Juliette below. We’ve included the EP for you to rock out to for the rest of the year and beyond.
How are you today?
I’m pretty good. Just a few more days until Christmas. I’m not sure. When is it? (laughing) Where are you based out of? I’m in Los Angeles right now.
I am actually in Kansas City, Missouri.
Wow, that’s neat.
So we’re snowed in right now. Is it OK out there? Heard it’s been raining.
Oh yeah. It’s raining and it’s freezing per L.A. weather, which is great. (laughing) It’s good. We needed rain so it’s all good.
Absolutely. Alright, let’s dig in! Your career is super expansive and amazing. Everything you touch turns to gold. So we were wondering, what keeps bringing you back to music?
That’s sweet. When I was a kid, I was always involved in music. So when I was a kid – before the art mediums were segregated to the extent that they are now – I took dance and sang in musicals and created characters and did storytelling. Then, I got successful doing one thing, which was mainly actin gin movies. When I turned around 30, I thought, “Holy shit, you’re 30 and you didn’t do that thing you wanted to do.” And that thing was to make music.
For me, it begins and ends with a live show and the live show experience. I always likened The Licks – my first band – to like, when you have a band out of high school. The music was really energy based, I wrote songs specifically to perform live. It’s not until now that I’m really enjoying the process of making the album. I got into the idea of making rock music as a collective, so I worked on this record [Future Deep] with Brad Schultz – who produced half of it and is a songwriter as well as a member of Cage the Elephant – and Isabella Summers – who is in Florence & The Machine, I did a few songs with her. For Future Deep, I wanted to work with people and write songs that I dug.
What keeps me coming back to music – and any art form – is necessity. I was touring for about five years and wasn’t making movies. What brought me back to acting was the thought that I wasn’t done and I still had more to say. In both mediums, I feel like I still have more to say. So it’s about navigation of those two streams – those two currants – and it’s proved challenging but exciting at the same time.
Fair enough! Your live performance – like you said – is crazy. I knew you made music and I had heard it before, but I didn’t get to see you until Riot Fest Denver this year and you KILLED IT. Your Evel Knievel outfit, your presence. What made you decide to go with that?
I don’t know! (laughing) I like showmanship. But at the same time, there’s no other way I can be on stage. I don’t know how to do a sedate show or a whatever show. Every show I do, it’s like my life depends on it. And it’s the people that bring it out in me because I want to move every single set of eyes I see in the crowd.
Music – for me – has been sort of spiritual in the sense that I used music to get over a lot of fears. I used to – believe it or not – have a fear of crowds that was happening when I lost my anonymity at around twenty. I never wanted to go to malls or concerts or any place where there could be crowds. The great irony is I formed a rock band and now there’s no crowd I can’t put myself in front of. I don’t throw myself in every crowd, but mostly it cured me of my fear of people. I like the idea of bringing danger and electricity and unpredictability to a live show experience. It’s an expression to me against the anesthetized, plastic part of our culture that’s been happening, especially with women in the arts where there’s this weird, unspoken way with which we deal with women in the arts.
I also feel like a superhero on stage. And Evel Knievel, he wore a badass suit. So I got one made. (laughing) I was inspired by David Lee Roth and others growing up, and he wore great outfits.
performing at riot fest denver 2016
I wish I could pull it off! You do everything right!
Well thank you, I’m glad you were there!
Very happy I got to experience it. So what do you do to prep for a live performance like that though?
It’s weird because when I started my band, I very much approached it – and I guess acting more and more as I go on – by trying to maintain energy. So before I go on, I stretch and love looking at a venue or a space before it’s filled. Every stage has an electricity or a vibe, which is one of the pleasures of touring. You have all that came before you in that space.
I am inspired a lot by my band this time around. I had a bass player named Juan Alderete (The Mars Volta) and his groove alone would excite me for a show. He’s one of my favorite bass players of all time. I was just really excited to play with the group of people I put together. I always know why I’m doing it. I love people and having them come into a space to form a collective and shed their fears and problems and get into a space where we all unite and celebrate life, love, and music.
One ritual I do have is when I’m putting makeup on my eyes. When I’m doing my eyes in the mirror, there’s a focus and I’m doing vocal warmups while I work on it. I always do my eyes, but everything else I sweat off.
So Future Deep makes you feel like a total badass when you listen to it. Are there any fun anecdotes that you have from creating it?
Each song has a whole life of its own. “Hello Hero” is a song Isabella and I created in London. I met with her, we talked about music. It’s so neat to talk about something, to play a song and to create a beat or melody and watch it all come to life. When Brad and I made all our songs, it was snowing. I went to Nashville and we bunked out at a studio there and it was so great because it was snowing outside so we didn’t want to go outside. We made “Any Way You Want” and “I Know Trouble” – which is very inspired by “I Put A Spell On You”.
A lot of the best songs will sort of write themselves. I usually work with musicians who will play something and it will unlock a whole story that is sitting there within me, or a melody. If you’re connected to your truth, you can then access it.
One time, they took me out to Bowling Green, KY. I basically kidnapped most of the members of Cage the Elephant and made my EP. Drummer Jared Champion, Matt, and then Brad Schultz took me out to a bar in Bowling Green. I have a rule where I don’t accept shots or drinks from strangers, but (laughing) I just missed that rule. It was their southern hospitality. I was wrecked in the studio for two days and they just made fun of me. So that was good, I was like a member of the band for a minute. I passed the test. (laughing)
The whole record was made in a couple weeks. It started because I knew Brad Schultz from ten years ago when we were both touring in London and then I heard a recent record of theirs, and I digged the sound a lot. New rock n’ roll doesn’t have a whole lot that’s carrying the torch of soul and groove in the music, but they do it. They do it right.
Do you have a favorite song from the EP at all?
Definitely. We played most of them live the past year, so I do. These songs live take on a life all their own. Like “Future Deep” takes on this dance tone, and people are super into it. “I Know Trouble” is definitely a favorite as far as just a soul-ripping blues song. I love “Any Way You Want” as an out of the gate rock track. And “Hello Hero” is one of my favorite things I’ve done of all time. It’s dancey with big beats and the grooviest bass line. I love “Hello Hero”.
I will have to say I do everything haphazard because I’m totally independent. Vinyl is coming in two weeks, I’m making all of this myself. There’s a lot of freedom in it. Then there is social media and things like this interview that are fun and very helpful.
Over the years, have you had anything interesting or fun on your rider list?
We have such a basic rider. One, we’re so punk rock and low budget. (laughing) There is NOTHING fun on our rider. We play little rock clubs where you’re lucky if you get half your rider. PLUS I always have a couple vegans in my crew, so we prioritize getting them fed. Especially in Europe. So there’s nothing fun ever. Socks? I’m not vegan, but ginger cookies. I like ginger. Nothing exciting. (laughing)
What would your advice to young girls chasing their dreams around the world be, especially with our current political climate?
My biggest advice is to find your truth. I learned how to sing from jazz music, and I realized imitation isn’t bad as long as you develop who you really are. To imitate Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald – I used to sing like that. Then I got with Linda Perry and she helped me get more courageous. She asked me what I like and what it is I want to say and we just started playing. So I would just tell people to try. There is no perfection. Be willing to make mistakes in your art and keep doing it. Stop it with the pressure.
I think with social media, people like writing and directing their own bits online and putting themselves out there. Perhaps there’s less perfection. But then on the flip side, there are young girls who say, “I can’t take a bad picture.”
I’m really big into doing what you fear. Not in an unhealthy way, but to stand up and speak a poem you wrote that was meaningful to you. Say it in front of people. There are so many inspiring things that come from that and you’ll find that there are other people who hear and feel your truth. You’ll find who you’re meant to speak to and where you’re supposed to be.
Please break the mold and don’t get lost in beauty stereotypes. Nowhere in my art am I thinking about being safe or attractive. My deeper concern is expression and connection. That is the end all be all.
I got the privilege of touring with Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders and it showed me that with certain artists, I don’t see any age. I don’t see anything but a one of a kind voice and a musical force with the most incredible songs. I got to tour with her and Cat Power f0r a month and it was such a phenomenal experience. Two completely different women and musicians. It was so liberating.
You do amazing things, woman.
Well thanks! I’m just open to opportunities and trying not to overthink. I try to leave it to chance. I don’t always feel prepared, but I’ll go for it and do my best in that moment, where I’m at. This record we just made is nothing I would have been able to write ten years ago. But ten years ago was what I could do at that time.
Do you have any big plans for the holidays?
Yes, I’m going to go to the snow. I grew up in California, the snow is like a miracle of life. “OH MY GOD! THERE’S SNOW!” I just want to be surrounded by it. I love that you’re surrounded by it and can’t drive right now. We’re going to Utah. I’m going with my guy and his kids and my sister and their kids for New Years. I’m really excited to play board games and to be stuck with each other and do things in the snow.
As far as Christmas, I’m just doing my thing with family. Should be relaxing.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Try and be active in the things you believe in and connect with other groups who are also active. Try to protect the vulnerable. That’s the main concern with our political climate is those people who have to be vulnerable by whatever things are about to be laid down. Right now is a very inspiring time. People are finding their voice and coming together. I’m going to that march on Washington for female rights at the end of January. We’re all coming together. It’s amazing.
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To get your own copy of Future Deep, head over to juliettelewis.com. Keep up with this unicorn of a human on Facebook.
Just one day before the release of his new Newport Drive EP, Gaston Light (Dallas, Texas’ rock musician Jason Corcoran) is releasing his title track to tease your ears a bit. Slow and moody like a Brian Fallon song, Corcoran has really captured a robust, deep rasp that could entrance any human being. All that aside, the melancholic tone really makes you look inward as the words roll around in your head, building into crashing symbols and a grand, rock opera feel. We can’t imagine a person in the house not raising a lighter, or at least their phone flashlight, to enjoy “Newport Drive” to its fullest.
Newport Light is out November 17th. It is available for preorder now. Keep up with Gaston Light here.
Acoustically-driven alt indie rock musician Michael Vickers might hail from Leicester, but the message in his music is universal. Thankfully, he is currently working on an EP to release in early 2018, and new tracks are emerging from this project to give us a little taste of what’s to come. Though his new track “Every Time We Meet” won’t be out until Friday, we actually have the official U.S. streaming premiere of it for you right now.
The tambourine and bluesy sound of the harmonica drive the track, as Vickers reflects on the good times and the feelings associated with those memories. A follow up to his track “Won’t Stop Believing” (which hit number 42 on the iTunes Singer Songwriter charts), Vickers has similar hopes for “Every Time We Meet”, and we can’t blame him. Co-written with Michael Tedstone, Vickers paid homage to his recently passed grandfather by playing his harmonica on the track, a sweet and heartbreaking facet to the song that gives it a bit more meaning for Vickers himself. His heart-wrenching vocals take you on a journey through the “butterflies” and insane positivity that comes with love. It will absolutely put a smile on your face, so why not take a quick break with it?
“Every Time We Meet” is out November 17th. Keep up with Michael Vickers here.
