Atlanta-based American guitarist Eddie 9V is pleased to announce the release of the official lyric video for their latest single "Halo".
"Halo" is the second single taken from Eddie 9V's forthcoming album Saratoga released by Ruf Records on Friday 22nd November 2024. The album is available to pre-order HERE.
The new album dovetails Eddie’s November and December UK Tour where he will support Robert Jon & The Wreck at Oxford, Academy 2 (Nov 30) and Nottingham, Rock City (Dec 1), followed by headline UK club shows Newcastle, Cluny 2 (Dec 2), Edinburgh, The Caves (Dec 3), London, The Black Heart (Dec 4), and Manchester, Retro Bar (Dec 5).
Tickets are available from www.alttickets.com/eddie-9v-tickets & www.eddie9volt.com/tour.
Eddie 9V has an endless stockpile of cool stories – and you’ll find twelve of them on new studio album Saratoga. It’s a record that will thrill both newcomers and fans who have trailed Eddie since the start, showcasing his fresh, fiery spin on Southern soul, blues, rock and funk, with his signature wit and sharp observations of modern America placing him squarely in the here-and-now. “I do think it’s a wonderful road trip album,” he nods.
Eddie 9V has powered up. From the day he first slung a guitar on a local stage, the Georgia-born bandleader announced himself as an artist to watch. But in the last few meteoric years, Eddie’s music has crossed oceans and airwaves, transcending his cult-hero status to become a beacon for fans of real music everywhere. “Eddie 9V is something else,” wrote the UK’s Classic Rock Magazine – “A man who genuinely inhabits golden-era American roots, playing the most instinctive blues you’ll hear all year.”
Check out the gig listings and you’ll find this rising star playing a bigger club every time he blows through town. Scan the charts and you’ll find his most recent album, 2022’s Capricorn, locking horns with the giants of rock ‘n’ roll. “Capricorn debuted at #1 and that was a cool feeling for a week, until Bonnie Raitt kicked us off,” reflects Eddie with a smile. “But hey, that’s a cool story to be able to say…”
We’ve rode shotgun with Eddie for a couple of decades now. Born Brooks Mason in June 1996, he was playing guitar by the age of six (“One of those with the speaker in it – the most bang for your buck, y’know?”). Even then, manufactured pop music held nothing for him, and his years at Union Grove High School were instead soundtracked by local heroes like Sean Costello, alongside his studies of “older cats” like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Freddie King and Rory Gallagher.
“I wanted to see what made them groove and tick,” he explains. “I’ve been making up lyrics on the spot for years. I believe that came from my Uncle Brian at our family fish fries – he taught me about what made people laugh and what kept the audience’s attention.”
Coming up on his home state’s live circuit – first with covers band The Smokin’ Frogs, then with highly rated blues-rockers The Georgia Flood – Mason soon turned heads, even representing the Atlanta Blues Society at the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis. But his true birth as an artist came when he buried his birth name and adopted that striking solo moniker. “A lot of people wanted me to be the Brooks Mason Blues Band, but that’s been done,” he reasons. “I wanted to start from scratch – and I ain’t never heard of no bluesman named Eddie 9V.”
From the start, Eddie’s output pricked up ears, with 2019’s “Left My Soul In Memphis” dubbed “fresh and life-affirming” by Rock and Blues Muse and the chaotic free-for-all of 2021’s “Little Black Flies” praised by Classic Rock Magazine as “like having all your best mates in the speakers”. In 2023, he got his best reviews yet for Capricorn, a record tracked at the near-mythical Macon studio of the same name, that led Classic Rock’s Henry Yates to declare: “As an artist, he sounds fully charged."
But the great artists evolve, and in both its songcraft and execution, Saratoga finds Eddie painting with more colours from his palette. “I was shooting for a more Americana-type album this time, less blues songs and solos and more focusing on the songwriting,” he explains of the eleven originals co-written with his brother, the much-respected Southern musician, Lane Kelly. Unlike the anarchy of earlier albums, meanwhile, the sessions mostly saw the multi-instrumentalist siblings hunkered down at their own Echo Deco Studio in Atlanta, self-producing the new tracks with Patrick Meese and inviting guest players to supply horns, fiddle and lap steel.
“It was definitely more me and my brother in our home studio recording everything. There’s a lot of guests, for sure, but it was mainly overdubbing. We did the songs “Saratoga,” “Delta,” and “Halo” at Crown Lanes Studio in Denver, Colorado, and it was nice to take a break, walk outside, see the mountains, feel the fresh air. At our studio, it’s just muggy with mosquitoes. But sometimes it’s good to not have distractions.”
Likewise, the new songs of Saratoga deserve nothing less than your full attention. Eddie’s latest album announces his new groove with the crisp, purposeful beats of the opening title track, an instant favourite that gets under your skin with its almost disco-style harmonies and joust of horns and slide guitar. As Eddie says: “That song is about being in a lonely tiny town that feels impossible to escape.”
“Halo” struts from the speakers on Eddie’s falsetto howl, before the lush yearning of “Cry Like A River” and “Love Moves So Slow” (co-written by Spencer Pope) brings vintage soul into the modern age. The brittle riffs and spacey vocal of Delta mark another gearshift, flowing into "Red River’s" reflective-yet-kinetic groove. “Wasp Weather” speaks to Eddie’s love of rapid-fire streams of consciousness. “That’s my favourite lyrically ’cos I like spewing words that don’t make sense into songs. ‘I got a big mud house that I can’t keep clean, it’s useless’ – I love that line.”
The album plays out in style with the trilling alt-folk of “Truckee.” “We got high and did shrooms and camped on the Truckee river in California,” he explains of the inspiration – the wistful “Tides” and “Love You All The Way Down.” Eddie even slips in a brass-blasting take on Mac DeMarco’s “Chamber Of Reflection,” before bringing the record home with “The Road To Nowhere’s” shuddering, tremolo-drenched country lament, his trademark twang utterly transformed into a vintage croon.
Eddie 9V is right: this latest album takes us all over the musical and emotional map, while announcing that his recent career peaks are just the start. “Capricorn was a big jump for us,” he reflects. “But I’m already writing new songs, y’know?”
Jessica says "’Something ‘Bout You’ is a feel-good story about falling in love and having the most amazing adventures together. There is something nostalgic about the song and I hope it brings everyone listening back to a really special time in their lives. This is a collection of music that I’m really proud of that speaks on my journey not just through love and life, but also very specifically, the music business and all of its trials and tribulations.”
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Ahead of the release of his sophomore album What Golden Hues, Josie Lockhart is set to unleash his first single 'Every Kind of Light' on October 18th, a foot stomping americana filled listen, that will grab your attention from the moment you hit play.
After Austin synth-pop group Sphynx went on hiatus in 2019, frontman Aaron Miller found himself adrift. “I had hundreds of songs on my hard drives in various stages of completion, all over the place,” Miller says. “So much of my identity was wrapped up in trying to be a successful musician that I started to wonder if it was healthy. I tried to put it down for a while.” Miller spent a few months working to remove the expectations he had set for himself and reconnect with the songwriting process. “I realised itʼs something I need for myself, I donʼt feel right unless Iʼm putting together an album in my head.” Miller continued to tinker in his South Austin home studio and it wasnʼt long before he emerged with a sonic identity that blended his synth-pop background with the americana and twang he had grown up around.
Miller introduced his Josie Lockhart moniker with the 2021 release of Santa Rosa, mixed by Chris Coady (Beach House, Grizzly Bear, Future Islands), the album went on to be featured on the BBC, NPR, American Songwriter, Obscure Sound and Fresh On The Net, as well as picking up radio-play in the US, UK, Australia, Spain, and Brazil. “Making Santa Rosa was a cathartic experience,” says Miller, who performed and recorded the album entirely by himself. “That album broke some kind of seal, and I just kept putting songs together.” Two months after the release of Santa Rosa, Miller holed up at his familyʼs home in Durango, Colorado and assembled a collection of 11 tracks for Josie Lockhartʼs sophomore album, What Golden Hues.
Instead of the DIY recording style of his debut, Miller opted for a full-on studio production. Enlisting the help of producer Carey McGraw (Wild Child, Modern Medicine), Miller took his self-produced version of the album and reconstructed it, bringing in talented studio musicians from Austin and Nashville and spending hours in McGrawʼs Club Sound Machine studio recording and editing. Steve Christensen (Khruangbin, Leon Bridges, Steve Earle) was tapped to mix What Golden Hues and give the album its warm, lived-in feel. What Golden Hues takes Santa Rosaʼs americana thread and
runs with it. The album features steel guitar, wurlitzer, and saxophone on a bed of analog synth; heartland rock with a modern spin. Millerʼs lyrics are earnest, and the melodies and harmonies soar. The upcoming album signifies a return to his roots. “I wanted to draw from the well of music I grew up listening to, Lucinda Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Townes Van Zandt,” Miller says. The playing is masterful and the production shines. Where Santa Rosa introduced an artist, What Golden Hues reveals a songwriter in his prime, an artist fully formed.
Josie wrote 'Every Kind of Light' and recorded the demo in his South Austin home studio. After that, he took it to Carey McGraw at Club Sound Machine Studios in Lockhart, TX and brought in session players from Austin and Nashville to help produce a studio version of the track. The new single offers a tasteful glimpse of What Golden Hues, promising an incredible new era for the hard-working artist.
When it comes to the specific meaning behind his addictive new single, Josie has channelled into an honest theme of fulfilment that comes with growing up: "This is a song about a feeling of contentment and understanding that comes as you become an adult. After searching and feeling like you're falling short of your goals in your 20s, I've found some peace with my station in life as a dad in my 30s, and a great deal of gratitude. I needed that wanderlust to get here though."
FFO: Kurt Vile, MJ Lenderman, The War on Drugs, Fruit Bats, The Shins
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