Ocean Carolina is what happens when a life-long musician stops questioning himself and lets the music unfold on its own. Michael Simone left an EDM career as a producer to become the songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist behind the band and Ocean Carolina will release Maudlin Days today, June 30 via Old Hand Record Company.
Maudlin Days is an exercise in giving up control and allowing the music to be what it's meant to become. Simone has immersed himself in music since he was a teenager, and his varied passions and interests-from Prince to Led Zeppelin,
The Cure to Waylon Jennings, and Jeff Buckley to The Smiths, everything has culminated to produce a record that sounds like '70s alt-rock while maintaining a timeless story of heartbreak and trying to find one's place in the world. Using all of the techniques he's learned from his career-from production, keyboards, synth, rhythm, guitar, and earnest songwriting-Simone created
Maudlin Days, a group of songs that are sincere and honest, but also capture the energy and spark of Ocean Carolina's live performances.
"For the first time, I just wanted to be the guy who showed up in the studio with my guitar and played and sang my songs with a band and capture that," says Simone. "We were lucky enough to get Jon Graboff at the helm as producer and we knocked out the entire thing in eleven days. Jon was adamant on making sure we stuck to the tradition of making albums the way they used to be made."
Listen to album opener "All I Can Do" and feel free to post:
https://soundcloud.com/old-hand-record-company/all-i-can-do
Maudlin Days is the follow-up to their well-received debut LP, All the Way Home. The studio band features accomplished New York studio musicians Tony Leone (Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Levon Helm, Phil Lesh) on drums, Jon Graboff (Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Willie Nelson, Noel Gallagher) on guitar and pedal steel, guitarist Dave Wanamaker (Expanding Man, Loveless) and Simone's life-long friend, bassist Alex Cox.
Ocean Carolina has been forming and re-forming since its inception, but a few players always remained key: Simone himself, of course, but also his bassist Alex Cox. "I've known Alex for 23 years now, so as with any musical project I decide I want to start, he's the first phone call I make," Simone says. "That guy is basically the brother I never had."
Ocean Carolina will be on the road all summer with dates to be announced shortly.
Maudlin Days Track List
1 - All I Can Do
2 - Words
3 - Once You've Done Me Wrong
4 - Cry Baby Cry
5 - If It Burns Out Bright
6 - Nobody Wants To Cry
7 - Don't Carry On
8 - Something
9 - Summersmile
10 - Little Things
11 - Yer Feet
12 - Someday Soon
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