Inspired by 60s psychedelia, from the Beach Boys to the Beatles
Grey Watson has lived in Seoul, Korea, for nearly five years after growing up in Birmingham, Alabama. Initially playing solo shows under the name, ‘grey of the 80’s,’ he quickly became a part of the underground music scene and formed the band, The Killer Drones. By the time the Killer Drones quit last summer, work on his first solo album, ‘Ruins,’ was underway. The album is now available at all your favorite music distribution outlets.
He sometimes plays with the Visions and the Visions are all featured on ‘Ruins.’ The members are all expatriates in Seoul from various parts of North America, including Hawaii, New York State and Newfoundland.
“The idea for this song happened while practicing for our 2016 US Summer tour,” Grey explains. “Brad Wheeler (bandmate/engineer) and I were jamming and I starting kinda riffing on it and he started harmonizing. Throughout the tour I kept on wanting to make it something we did just as a jam, but it wasn’t developed enough to really do anything with. However, rather than write several verses to go along with this refrain (like I usually do), I thought it would be cool to keep the idea simple. The basic idea being that ‘love’ is the best option in almost any situation and it doesn’t need much more explaining than that. I’m generally not very optimistic so the optimistic tunes don’t often choose me. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make an unabashed song about love.”
“When we were back in Seoul we slowly starting putting different pieces together. I felt like different sorts of love can be represented with a lot of different kinds of vibes. There is no shortage of beautiful love songs about romantic love. This song, however, was meant to promote an “all you need is love,”/ “make love not war,”/ or ‘love thy neighbor’ kind of mantra. It’s about all kinds of love–love among friends, family and lovers. Also, I hope that it will promote a general ethos about love and the importance of choosing it over more negative tendencies.“
“The music and arrangement are inspired by lots of the 60s including some of the psychedelia from the beach boys and the Beatles, however, the baseline and drums pull heavily from the 60’s and 70’s Soul music of Stax Records and Motown. The guitar work, specifically the solos, pulls a lot from the southern influence that I inevitably am subject to having grown up in Georgia and Alabama. The production and vocal work tend towards more modern vibes, despite reflecting heavy influence from the 60’s and 70’s, and plants the song in the present.”
Links:
https://soundcloud.com/greyofthe80s
http://www.grey-watson.com/
https://www.facebook.com/greywatsonmusic
https://twitter.com/greytweetson
