Graham Colton's upcoming album Lonely Ones, due out Jan. 21 through his own Graham Colton Recordings, is one of the best new 2014 releases I've heard so far.
See the official bio below for more info; initial tour dates also follow...
"I'm not the same guy."
That's
certainly an understatement for Graham Colton. After a major label
career, numerous TV appearances and the limiting musical peg of
"singer-songwriter," Colton has gone through a complete reinvention on
his new album Lonely Ones.
Credit
his reinvention to a few things: Colton's return to the Oklahoma music
scene; a budding friendship with the Flaming Lips; and for his new
record, an entirely new approach to songwriting.
Colton's
return to Oklahoma may come as a surprise. The singer admits he
initially had to leave his home state to find his footing as a musician.
"My dad was in a cover band, but besides that and some open mic nights,
I wasn't exposed to any sort of 'scene,'" he admits. "I'd just sit
around writing songs in my bedroom. It wasn't until I moved to Dallas
that my professional career in music started."
And while that early career led to success - major label albums (Drive and Here Right Now), performances on The Tonight Show and The Late Show,
videos on TRL, tours with everyone from John Mayer to Dave Matthews
Band to Maroon Five - there were tradeoffs. A little stifled creativity.
The musical designation of being a singer-songwriter, a genre not known
for taking risks.
Things
changed after Colton's move back home. There, he met his wife, and
re-discovered a thriving music scene...which included a creative
friendship with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. "Oklahoma has a
tremendously active music community," says Colton. "Wayne and I met at a
few functions and hit it off. I started chatting about my past, what
the Lips had done, and having these really long, crazy music
conversations. Everything really graduated from there."
Inspired,
Colton decided a complete reinvention was in order. "I didn't have a
starting point for this," he admits. "But I knew I had to grow and do
things differently than I had done before." Eschewing labels, he turned
to Kickstarter to connect directly with fans. "I couldn't do it like I'd
done my last two records [2008's Twenty Something and 2010's Pacific Coast Eyes].
I wanted to work with some good friends [longtime collaborators Chad
Copelin and Jarod Evans] and record in good studios. This was going to
be a record where I wanted the freedom to do something new, without any
parameters."
Now
reconnected with Copelin and Evans and ensconced with his family back
in Oklahoma, Colton felt comfortable taking chances. And working closely
alongside Coyne and Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips certainly helped
radicalize his recording process. "It was completely unlike anything I'd
ever done," says the singer. "It wasn't a Flaming Lips record, but I
borrowed some gear from them and used those guys as a sounding board."
Instead of writing an acoustic song and having his band flesh it out, Colton took the opposite tack: he never
wrote on guitar. "Guitars became an accent, not the cornerstone," he
says. He would try out scenarios where Copelin and Evans would make
sounds in one end of the studio, and he'd begin writing from there. And
the singer would spend hours just "twisting knobs and pushing buttons,"
both Chad
& Jarod's Blackwatch Studios in Norman, OK and the legendary Sonic
Ranch studios in Tornillo, TX, home to some of Colton's favorite bands
(Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House, Bright Eyes)
"The
point was to make me the most uncomfortable," he says, laughing. "I had
to unlearn everything from 12 years. It was amazing and humbling at the
same time."
Lyrically,
Colton found the shift liberating. "I had been an autobiographical
storyteller," he says. "I love that, but this was the polar opposite.
The sounds made me think different things. I mean, I'm married with a
kid and live back home...I wasn't writing love songs. It was freeing: I
didn't feel the need to be real direct. This time, I wrote visually."
The result, Lonely Ones,
is a lyrically desolate album - dark at times, open to interpretation
at others. And there are moments when Colton's voice works as more of an
accent to the song, rather than the focal point. "It needed to be
another instrument," he says. "As a singer-songwriter all you have is
your voice and your lyrics. I could let that go here."
The
biggest example of change comes from the first single, "Born to Raise
Hell," an initially upbeat psychedelic rocker full of "la la las" and
whistles that disguises a rather gruesome subject matter: a story about a
hitchhiker who turned out to be a famous serial killer. "The guy,
Richard Speck, was in the car with Chad Copelin's dad," says Colton. "He
had a big tattoo on his forearm that said 'Born to Raise Hell.' Once I
heard that story, I was like, I have to write about that."
Musically, Lonely Ones
runs a wide gamut, veering from synths to guitars to strings, full of
psychedelic flourishes and big production. But at its heart: a real
sense of melody and plenty of choruses to wrap your head around. Think
of it as catchy, thoughtful headphone music.
When
Colton takes to the road this fall, he'll face his next challenge:
turning his bold new music into something equally as bold in a live
setting. "I've been doing a lot of solo acoustic before this, and that
won't happen," he says. "It's a full band, and there may even be moments
where I don't play guitar. These aren't songs you strum along to."
He adds: "Just like the record, I'm prepared to unlearn my live experience. I'm just really excited to begin everything again."
TOUR DATES
2/13 - Grand Rapids, MI - The Intersection
2/14 - Racine, WI - Route 20 Outhouse
2/15 - Evanston, IL - S.P.A.C.E.
2/16 - Ann Arbor, MI - The Ark
2/19 - Philadelphia, PA - Milkboy
2/20 - Cambridge, MA -- TT The Bears
2/22 - New York, NY - Rockwood Music Hall
2/23 - Vienna, VA - Jammin' Java
2/26 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
2/27 - TBC - Charlotte, NC
2/28 - Atlanta GA - Smith's Old Bar
3/1 - Nashville, TN - 12th & Porter 3/2 - Birmingham, AL - Worthplay Theater
2/14 - Racine, WI - Route 20 Outhouse
2/15 - Evanston, IL - S.P.A.C.E.
2/16 - Ann Arbor, MI - The Ark
2/19 - Philadelphia, PA - Milkboy
2/20 - Cambridge, MA -- TT The Bears
2/22 - New York, NY - Rockwood Music Hall
2/23 - Vienna, VA - Jammin' Java
2/26 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
2/27 - TBC - Charlotte, NC
2/28 - Atlanta GA - Smith's Old Bar
3/1 - Nashville, TN - 12th & Porter 3/2 - Birmingham, AL - Worthplay Theater
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