Album: New Lane Road
Label: Sugar Hill Records
Release date: April 22, 2016
New Lane Road marks the end of a five year-hiatus from singer/songwriter/actor/multi-instrumentalist and Top 40-recording artist Josh Kelley. What he quotes as his most honest work to date, Josh attempts an organic warmth guided by the influences of Otis Redding, Al Green, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and Joe Cocker. His new album contains such new tunes as "Take It On Back," "You're My Angel," "Life's Too Short," "It's Your Move" and "One Foot in the Grave".
There is no denying the fact that this native Georgian has had a varied career, with hits such as “Amazing” and “Only You,” as well as theme songs for current TV show Mike and Molly, the Golf Channel, and feature film Home Sweet Hell, not to mention having his work featured in Smallville, Scrubs, Brothers and Sisters and MTV’s The Hills. On this album, for the first time however, the listener gets a true snapshot into his life. Josh and wife Katherine Heigl raise two children in the hills of Utah. New Lane Road gives us an intimate glimpse of home.
"This record is the most me of any record I've ever made," Kelley asserts. "It's the most honest I've ever been, and it's the best subject matter I've ever had to write about. When I was first coming up, I was young and inexperienced, and I had to make things up. Now that I'm older and I've traveled the world and had kids and have seen more and felt more, I have things to write songs about."
"It was recorded in four different studios, but mainly at my place, which is my mad-scientist laboratory," he says. "It's kind of a snapshot of our life in Utah, and how I feel about being a father and a husband. It's also a snapshot of what I've been listening to. I've been listening to a ton of Otis Redding, Al Green, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and Joe Cocker; that organic warmth is what I'm always trying to achieve."
"I'm in the studio every day," he notes. "Being the producer, the engineer and the artist can get lonely sometimes, but it's very empowering and very satisfying creatively. For me, there's no better drug than spending the morning writing a song, spending the afternoon recording and producing it, and then making a copy and listening to it in the car on the way home. It's so much fun having that instant gratification, of creating something from scratch."
"I tend to get totally immersed in anything I'm creating," he continues. "I've been that way my whole life, whether it's recording or drawing or painting or whatever. It's a part of myself that I've never really shown to the world. I play 10 or 15 different instruments, and if I need one and don't have it, I'll buy one on Craigslist and learn to play it. If it weren't for my wife, I would probably just be a Sasquatch and stay in my studio all day every day. She saved me from that by forcing me to get out and engage with the world a little more."
"I feel like I actually know what I'm doing now, which was not always the case in the past," Kelley concludes. "I'm a better player and performer than I've ever been, and I've found the sweet spot in my voice. I write, record and create every single day, and because of that, I think I've gotten better at everything. I'm a better husband, a better dad, and I'm better at my craft. I think of all of the stuff I did before as my apprenticeship for what I'm doing now."
No comments:
Post a Comment