Kevin Fisher has two words and 12 songs for all country-rock fans needing to de-stress after a long, hard day at work: BEER ME!
After years finding success as a country music songwriter but toiling somewhat anonymously behind the scenes, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and "almost famous" rocker plays conduit to the gods of suds, channeling their glory while taking center stage as an artist with his full-length debut on 37 Records / McJames Music. The album is available on
Spotify,
iTunes,
CDBaby and coming soon to other major online retailers.
Awash in hops and foam, playful metaphors and witty storytelling, 'Beer Me!' is a clever, powerfully rocking, fun and freewheeling, but often heartfelt, musically eclectic joyride of 12 tracks celebrating the magical powers of brew - when someone sees life through beer goggles, the adjectives flow freely!)
Some of these infectious titles will make you laugh, and that's as much the point as sharing the heartbreak of the collection's lone ballad "Beer Blue Sky." You can't help but have a party listening to songs like "Beer Me," "I Wish You Were Beer," "Dog Beers," "Better Beer," "Beerly Beloved," "Beer Thirty," "Beer in the Fridge," "To Beer or Not To Beer" (Kevin's ode to Shakespeare and his English Major days) and "I Like Beer." And no suds-centered collection would be complete without a shout out like "Last Call."
For Kevin, reality and crafty marketing mythology meet at the moment where producer Steven McClintock and the gang at 37 Records found him, sitting on a fence between rock and roll and country. The myth is that he couldn't decide between Chardonnay and beer and he was toiling in a band called Hank Zeppelin. The reality is that Kevin's been in bands since the '90s, when his folk/rock group Naked to the World became the "most endorsed unsigned band in history."
But let's go with the fun stuff. He was in a constant state of confusion about what to listen to, what to drink and what to play. So there Kevin sat, box of wine on his left and a twelve pack on his right. More likely, after a day of serious songwriting, he was de-stressing with his favorite beers. His actual favorites are Sierra Nevada and Newcastle, but more mainstream brews like Coors Light or Pabst Blue Ribbon will do in a pinch. He paid for them, and bought rounds for the whole bar with the royalties from having his songs cut by multi-platinum country music greats like Rascal Flatts,
Sara Evans and
Uncle Kracker and getting his babies played on "True Blood," "Pretty Little Liars," "Brotherhood" and "America's Funniest Home Videos."
All of a sudden, out of the Beer Blue Sky, a vision of Hank William Shakesbeer showed up with two tall icy cold cans of beer. Billy Shakesbeer hovered over Kevin and spoke these words, "Son, pop a top and let country be your rock. If you can't find it in Country music and beer you can't find it.
Then came the glorious epiphanies of McClintock's partner, Tim James, and Kevin, which inspired the creation of 'BEER ME'. Kevin's life now had meaning: beer. Kevin's life now had purpose: beer. Kevin's thirst now had been quenched: beer. In turn, he wants to tell all country-rock fans who love recent classics like Toby Keith's feisty "Red Solo Cup" and Luke Bryan's haunting "Drink A Beer": Quench YOUR thirst: Drink in this 12 pack and BEER ME!
"In my regular life as a songwriter, I take my work very seriously," Kevin says, "and there is nothing that moves me more than receiving an email or letter from someone saying that something I wrote really moved them, touched their life or helped them through a hard time and kept their marriage together.
"Most of those songs find me writing about love, life, truth, beauty and other things that are important to me. The tunes on this album are just fun, a total release valve from business as usual. They still take the technical and literary skills I have developed to write a compelling song, and they still have to make sense, with a beginning, middle and end to their stories. But I put all of those in a more playful context, playing off beer puns and themes. They can't be too stupid...or maybe they have to be way stupid. When my songwriter/producer friend Josh Leo heard 'Beerly Beloved,' he said, 'That idea is so stupid, it just might work.' And he was right!"
Kevin has been signed with McJames Music, the publishing company owned by McClintock and James, for four years. He released his Americana oriented debut EP 'A Beautiful Thing' in 2015. Along the way, he came up randomly with a few beer-oriented songs and thought about the way country music goes in waves - sometimes being driven by party/drinking songs, other times not. Realizing those kinds of tunes have been popular lately, he responded with a few brew-filled tunes. He had stockpiled four when McClintock suggested he create a whole album of them.
Kevin says, "My attitude was, broad genres like country, rock and Americana don't line up anymore, so maybe it's time to create a whole new subgenre. Jimmy Buffet's got his Parrotheads, and has cornered the market on island rock or trop rock. Maybe 'Beer Me' can be the start of what we can call 'Libation rock.'"
The singer's many connections ensured that this Nashville and Los
Angeles production would include some of the industry's top session and touring players, including guitarists
Brent Mason (George Strait, Alan Jackson, Zac Brown Band, Blake Shelton) and
John Jorgenson (Elton John, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash) and keyboardist Buddy Hyatt (Collin Raye, Johnny Lee, The Bellamy Brothers).
"Usually I work and play everything by myself in the studio, so it was really a blast to work with a live band, to watch and listen to these amazing country musicians play the snot out of these songs," says Kevin, who took the tracks back to L.A. to lay down the vocals. "They were up for any song, any tempo, anytime. They all had fun and were laughing a lot. I realized this project created a release valve for them as well. Which is the whole point of Beer Me. Whether I'm singing about how a 'Beer in the Fridge' would make the perfect life better, making excuses for drinking too much and explaining them away in 'Dog Beers' or telling my loved one 'I Wish You Were Beer,' I want people to smile, sing along and have a good time."
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