11 January 2023
The seven-track album by David Bias topped The Publish and Courier’s list of greatest South Carolina albums in 2018, and a seven-track album simply by John Bias is once again topping the newspaper’s listing of best South Carolina albums within 2022. In our Best of Sc Music collaboration with Columbia’s The Free Times, Bias’ three-piece rock band The Simpleness snagged the top spot along with Valentine’s Day release “Dahlin’. inch The album is lovestruck and lovesick and vivacious and theatrical, taking the enthusiastic energy that guitarist, pianist and singer Bias, bassist Tommy Merritt and drummer Drew Lewis produce onstage and carrying it full-throttle into the studio.
Charleston Picture
The record was constructed with Charleston producer Ryan “Wolfgang” Zimmerman, who also labored on Band of Horses’ 2022 record “Things Are Great” and the Susto catalog. “Wolfie is the subtle hand that will moves mountains, ” Prejudice said. “He has a hands off approach but it’s not indifferent, ” added Lewis. “He’s very concentrated on what the particular goal is and guides things back to the main idea while still motivating you to continue down whichever creative path you’re upon at the moment. “For The Simpleness, the goal was switch some demos tracked in a friend’s place in Asheville right into a more professional and clearer package. During the pandemic, the particular trio scraped together all of their unemployment money and passed it over to Zimmerman to help make the magic happen. They arrived with five songs nearly fully fleshed out. For your other two, they asked for a little help from their friends. “Percy St . ” and “War” were recorded live from the floor with a small bubble of pals that added to the ambiance. Tyler Sim’s piano playing, for instance, caused it to be in, along with a chair noise when he leaned back again after tapping the last few secrets.
Our favorite albums that skipped the cut for Best associated with South Carolina Music 2022″It’s been a dream of mine to slice everything live on the floor, inch Lewis said. “Like, all of the mics are on and you can listen to the bleed into this particular and that, like the old Rocks records and the old doldrums records. I feel like i was able to accomplish that inside a really beautiful way along with those two songs, to hear the squeaking from the chair and maybe the tambourine is a little out of time or even it’s not on the two plus four but it still offers this really cool live feel to it where you feel like you aren’t in the room with the music artists. “
Free Times
An additional interesting note is that the origins for strutting-down-the-sunset-strip anthem “War” were configured by Prejudice on acoustic guitar just the previous night; that track ended up changing another one meant for the release. Piano also makes a lots of the songs on the disk, expanding what it means to play reside for the three-piece that has delivered to adding a fourth gamer for full instrumental possible. “We have that trio energy, but there are always likely to be musical ideas that people want to work on that we didn’t want to always do with only the three of us, ” Prejudice said. “That’s why ‘Dahlin” is such an important record for me personally. We were somehow able to work together with our friends and create a record that we all might be proud of. “A central style to the disc is the numerous layers and stages associated with love. It’s part of exactly what bonded the three friends to begin with. “We all had various points of view on an identical subject, ” Bias mentioned. “That kind of helped with the particular writing, because, you know, really like isn’t just one thing or another; it can kind of all the things. It all actually came from sitting there speaking with the boys every day regarding our lives, when one of all of us is like, ‘Man, I’m going to need to break up with this girl, ‘ other person is like, ‘I’m falling in love with this girl, ‘ and other one’s like, ‘Well, I’m just so uncertain of what we are. ‘”Lewis describes this way: “We all distributed these feelings, and we all of wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll. ” Merritt recalls it all beginning with a car gyro in the rain. While on the lunch break at Clarinet Center, where Merritt plus Bias had just started working together, Bias played among his demos. Merritt informed Bias he should give up his band and start some thing with him and his friend Lewis. That subsequent three-hour jam session would end up being the Simplicity’s first practice. At this point, the trio is already focusing on their next record, plus according to Bias, this one is usually less about relationships particularly and more about life in general. Musically, it’s still centered on being a trio while furthermore expanding and experimenting with a lot more instrumentation. Until then, we now have “Dahlin'” to remember 2022 simply by and enjoy live whenever The particular Simplicity graces us using a show around town. I actually hear their next you are in February at The Regal American.
Free Times