Jake La Botz Shares New Single 'Hope The Sunshine' From Forthcoming Album 'Hair On Fire'

Jake La Botz shares the latest single off his upcoming album Hair On Fire, "Hope TheSunshine", along with an accompanying music video directed by Joe D'Augustine. Hair On Fire will be released on September 9, 2022.

"To me this song is very literal," states La Botz. "It's a prayer directly to the light. Having a sense that it is always nearby trying to get in. That we need only call out to it, asking it to reach us in this dark age we're living in. To bring the warmth of compassion to us all. To show us the way forward out of the darkness we bring about ourselves."

On the making of the video, D'Augustine notes that, "When I heard Jake's beautiful song a lot of ideas came to mind. One was something that Lionel Ziprin had said. He was a Jewish mystic and poet who lived on the Lower East Side of NYC. He said that the Spirits of the Air were attracted by the electric music of the 60's and came down to Earth. I was always intrigued by that. I also thought back to the Underground films I had watched in NYC. I knew a filmmaker named Harry Smith, I used to visit him at the Chelsea Hotel. There are several references to his work in this piece as well as an homage to Man Ray's L'Etoile de Mer, and other indelible images from my youthful explorations of Art Cinema."

"Hope The Sunshine" follows the previous single and title track, "Hair On Fire," which Holler said, "Imagine the gospel fervour of Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth For Christ Choir mixed up with the energetic neo-folk of Arcade Fire and the contemporary rootsiness of The Lumineers and you might be getting somewhere close to the sound that La Botz has pulled together on 'Hair On Fire'... It's both heavily indebted and oddly anachronistic. A loose fusion of floor thumping country, hand-clapping gospel folk and low down and dirty delta blues, as unexpected as it is familiar, that lifts up and shakes out your soul."

"There's a saying in Buddhism," La Botz, who is also a meditation teacher, explains of the title track, "that one should practice as if their hair is on fire, which means there should be an urgency towards using the tools of meditation to open up and see what is. The message is: life is short and, if you want to wake up and discover what it's about, now is the time.""

Jake La Botz was teaching meditation in a northwest Georgia prison when something unexpected caught his ear. He wasn't sure at first, but he could swear it sounded like a band was playing in the room next door. And not just any band, for that matter, but a genuine, bonafide, soul-shaking gospel band. "I remember getting really excited because I could feel both of my worlds coming together in that moment," La Botz recalls. "The two sides of my life converged into this one, beautiful experience, and it just stopped me in my tracks."

La Botz didn't realize it at the time, but that marriage of music and meditation would go on to form the bedrock of his captivating new album, Hair On Fire. Recorded with an all-star band of players including engineer/drummer Alex Hall (JD McPherson, Neko Case), bassist Beau Sample (Pokey LaFarge, Cactus Blossoms), and NRBQ guitarist Scott Ligon, the collection balances the wisdom and patience of La Botz's decades of Buddhist training with the grit and vigor of his Chicago upbringing to create a sound that's at once unabashedly vintage and decidedly present.

Like other spiritually motivated songwriters before him, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison to name a few, the two streams of songwriting and spirituality have very much come together for La Botz. Prior to Covid, he taught meditation in prisons, Buddhist centers, living rooms, and elsewhere, ever looking to meet people where they're at and to share what meditation has to offer. For La Botz both meditation and music are very important points of connection with others, and sometimes his music fans even end up practicing meditation with him. During the pandemic he has continued to focus on his two primary loves the best way he can - teaching meditation over Zoom for people around the world, and writing and recording songs to share with others.

Over the years, Jake's work has been praised by Rolling Stone, World Cafe, No Depression, Folk Alley, Atwood Magazine, American Songwriter, PopMatters, Glide, Bluegrass Situation, and many more.

La Botz recently signed with Mongrel Music for North American booking, and announced a handful of tour dates for this Summer. More shows to be announced soon.

Watch the new music video here:

Tour Dates

07/16: Minneapolis, MN @ Under The Canopy
08/04: Southbridge, MA @ Starlite
08/05: Norwood, MA @ Extended Play Sessions
08/06: Mason, NH @ Blues on the Range
08/07: New Haven, CT @ Cafe Nine
08/29: Saint Paul, MN @ Minnesota State Fair
08/30: Saint Paul, MN @ Minnesota State Fair

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