Subjects with lightness and optimism, with pin-sharp melodies
Acclaimed singer-songwriter Waiting For Smith has unveiled the stunning video for “Heal”, the latest track to be taken from the Amsterdam-based Londoner’s new six-track EP Trying Not To Try which was produced and co-written by Dane Etteridge (Lewis Capaldi, Declan J Donovan, & StLundi and is out now.
The themes of Trying Not To Try are centred around mental health and becoming. If that sounds like heavy going, it most certainly isn’t; Lloyd tackles these subjects with lightness and optimism, with pin-sharp melodies and hooks that are instant earworms. The songwriter shares,
“Over the past few years I’ve been on a real search to explore my mind while pursuing music, beginning with a year in bed after an accident. I read and watched everything I could to be inspired. I tried many forms of therapy and healing in search of a calmer approach to life’s ups and downs – realising I couldn’t control my life but I could control how I reacted to it. The EP came out of those early discoveries of philosophy, meditation and The Tao Te Ching. This all helped to find out what I was looking for: Ask for it, and then let go of the outcome. And that is the meaning of Trying Not To Try”.
For the video for “Heal”, Waiting For Smith sat in a studio meditating for 8 hours throughout the day, while out on a nearby street passers-by were asked the question: What is it that you would like to heal? They were then invited to write their answers on his body. People from all nationalities, all backgrounds and around 17 languages were involved. The idea was that a non-judgemental and still presence would present the perfect canvas to be written on, and by being listened to and heard these volunteers were able to let go of what they didn’t need.
Waiting For Smith is Harry Lloyd, who decided to dedicate his life to music after breaking his back aged 24 and spending a year in recovery. He had always been musical – Lloyd began writing songs aged 7 and has been playing drums and piano since the same age – but finding himself bedbound for a year he learned the guitar and, after finding comfort in poetry, started writing songs with a renewed sense of purpose. Once mobile again Lloyd formed Waiting for Smith, named after endlessly waiting for their original drummer Smith, who always failed to show up.
Since debuting his music in 2019, Waiting for Smith has received millions of Spotify plays and landed radio play on over 190 stations around the world, including Huw Stephens on Radio 1, Dermot O’Leary and Jo Whiley on Radio 2, Tom Robinson on 6 Music, Maz Tappuni on Radio X, Flux Fm in Germany, Radio Doble Neuve in Lima, Peru and KROQ and KISS FM in the USA and Radio One in India. He’s received over 2000 syncs internationally, from the US to Finland and Indonesia. WFS tracks have provided the sonics for the Japanese Grand Prix and a big Netflix Series ‘Vis A Vis (Locked Up)’, to the standout soap in Germany and one of the biggest TV commercials in Spain, the Christmas ad for El Corte Ingles. He has toured the UK and internationally, both as a headliner and support.
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