new song: Light Outside by WAKEY!WAKEY!

So. About the only thing I am a sucker for in songwriting, beyond a bass player who writes songs, is a keyboard singer/songwriter. This guy is a dynamic personality at the piano and isn’t afraid to wrap different instruments (violins and strings) to fill out a pretty frenetic writing style. Also has a wonderful habit of filling in the harmony with a female voice which is interesting because his voice has a higher quality anyway.

Anyway. Light Outside is a simple but complex song which probably makes it interesting.

Simple in that at its core it is just a piano player singing a minimalistic lyric story.

Complex because it has a parallel frenetic and calm musical style.

Anyway. His singing style isn’t really conducive to a love ballad but his song has a heart wrenching thread to it that kind of tugs at your heart and makes you think. (I include another track at the end of the post too.)

Light Outside youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD02bI09dOM&feature=related

(i don’t particularly like the official video so I didn’t include it)

The lead singer is really interesting. This comes from their website:

“I was a scrawny, dopey kid—the worst athlete on the face of the planet,” says Wakey!Wakey! frontman Mike Grubbs. “You know tee ball? I got to first base one time.”

Grubbs grew up in a house learning to play a burgundy baby grand in a music room that also housed a French horn, clarinet, violin and autoharp. In his youth his mother—a longtime piano teacher and choir director—would ask the kids to sight read songs before they could even think of eating cereal.

“For every school subject done,” he says, “I could play the piano for an hour. It was almost like video games for me.” The games got a bit more complicated in high school, as Grubbs stumbled upon the songbooks of Billy Joel and Elton John. Not to mention the arena-ready anthems of Led Zeppelin as well as Bach, Beethoven and Brahms (you will note a classical thread in his music).

“One of my main influences now is the fact that I didn’t have someone teach me proper jazz or rock playing,” explains Grubbs. “I had no idea how to put a song together; no one telling me, ‘Hey, you should check out Gershwin,’ but it was all so fascinating to me. So I found my own style by experimenting with what works and what doesn’t.”

It is a different style of music. It is an infectious frenetic pop sound with classical (or maybe jazz) undertones. Pick up the song. Heck. Pick up the cd.

Oh.

A bonus. “Almost Everything.”  It is the second song I heard from Wakey!Wakey!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQo6DoXknY

It sounds really good. It will be interesting to follow these guys.