Sawyer Fredericks premieres the video for his single, "Lies You Tell," with DittyTV today. The video is currently available for view on DittyTV's website and will make its broadcast debut on DittyTV's Stand By Your Van on Tuesday, September 1 at noon CT with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, September 2 at noon CT. Immediately striking, "Lies You Tell", pairs Sawyer's powerful vocals with a rhythmic groove and inventive instrumental arrangement, including djembe, strings, and Sawyer's signature percussive finger picking. The song features Katie Larson and Sav Buist of The Accidentals on strings.
Originally envisioned as a performance style video, it ended up being created in the middle of the pandemic so the team had to get creative.
Sawyer explains, "As we were preparing for our radio campaign for "Lies You Tell", we knew we needed a video. We wanted a performance style video, but it was the middle of a pandemic and 3 of the musicians were quarantined in distant states. Fortunately we had behind-the-scenes footage from the day Katie and Sav, of The Accidentals, were recording their string arrangements, but we did *not* have footage from that song of Chris Thomas (drummer) and Jerome Goosman (guitarist). So the three of us met with studio engineer Ariel Shafir, and videographer, Lindsey Morano, and did a re-creation of "the making of" at Dreamland Recording Studios, socially distanced, and masked when off camera. It was very surreal experience, in a studio that feels like home with people who feel like family: no touching equipment, no hugs, everyone assigned their own bathroom for the day, lol! Lindsey did a great job of editing the pre-pandemic clips with the new footage, so it looks like we are all there together. Looking forward to when that can be a reality again."
"Lies You Tell" was the result of Sawyer's first co-writing session, with Smith Carlson and Collin McLoughlin, when he was 16. The rough draft was shelved when songs were selected for A Good Storm. Sawyer remarks, "I always wanted to record it and after 5 years of honing my guitar skills, growing collaboratively with my bandmates, and making new talented friends, The Accidentals, who agreed to play on the recording, it felt like the time was right to record it."
Flowers For You and this video were made possible by Sawyer's Patreon patrons whose names all appear in the credits at the end of the video. Originally, the plan had been to acknowledge patrons on a video for the title track, "Flowers For You," once 250 patrons was reached, but that magic number happened after quarantine began, and the story concept that was planned for that song couldn't be done without all the band members being together.
"Lies You Tell" is off Flowers For You, the follow-up to Fredericks' declaration of independence, 2018's Hide Your Ghost, which Chris Griffy praised in No Depression as "a bluesy folk rocker with a no-frills production that relies on Fredericks' raw voice to carry the emotional weight," including it in his Top 10 Americana albums of 2018. Fredericks and his band toured the US extensively behind Hide Your Ghost, with highlights including Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and official showcases in 2019 at SXSW, AmericanaFest, Folk Alliance International, and BMI's Island Hopper Songwriter Fest.
Written and produced by Fredericks, Flowers For You was recorded fully to analog tape at Dreamland Recording Studio in Woodstock, NY with his band Gannon Ferrell on bass guitar, Chris Thomas on drums and Jerome Goosman on guitar. Special guests Katie Larson and Sav Buist of The Accidentals contributed strings to "Lies You Tell" and "Days Go By".
Two songs from Flowers For You won top awards from the 18th annual Independent Music Awards, "Born" won in the Folk/Singer-Songwriter category and "Amen" won the Vox Pop award in the Social Action Song category.
"Born," premiered on American Songwriter, where AS declared, "If you have yet to check out the new track from Sawyer Fredericks, we can not emphasize enough that you need to!" Born" is a personal song inspired by Fredericks' relationship with his mother and was recently officially added to SiriusXM's Coffee House channel.
The title track premiered with People Magazine in November 2019. "Flowers For You" harkens back to the signature blues infused roots rock that first drew the nation's attention, alternating heavily featured musicianship with biting self deprecating lyrics sung with the all the fierceness, rage, and frustration of a young man calling out his own shallowness and hypocrisy.
Sawyer will be performing two solo sets during this year's Virtual Burning Man as part of Reverbia Multiverse. He will perform on Reverbia's Concerts in the Shade Series Stage on Thursday, September 2 at 5pm PDT and Saturday, September 5 at 4:30pm PDT. RSVP and Download the App at
https://dustymultiverse.com/
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