The Grand Rapids singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist will unfurl a new all-star album during late April concerts in Grand Rapids and Traverse City. The back story at Local Spins.
Fronting a New Band and Releasing a New Album: Max Lockwood (Photo/Anna Sink)
SCROLL DOWN TO LISTEN TO THE FIRST SINGLE FROM THE NEW ALBUM
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Max Lockwood recalls driving north on a dirt road near Lake Township, surrounded by towering White Pines.
After a couple miles of following that narrow, two-track road, he reached a clearing where a lone cabin stood, a remote recording studio hidden deep in the Manistee Forest: Cinnamon Ranch.
Harboured there for three days with his four bandmates and engineer, Lockwood crafted a record under the new moniker “Rivereye.”
Long influenced and inspired by themes of the natural world, Lockwood found the cabin studio — and the new artist name — to be the perfect home to channel energy from the environments around him. The crew even took a moment to collectively dip their hands into a nearby creek as a symbolic gesture.
The New Album
“We wanted to connect with the land and the water that was there and allow that to be a part of the process, literally. Our hands are all vital to our instruments, even in the case of Nick, our engineer, and so it was a symbolic gesture and a physical one. From there, we climbed back up into the studio and made sounds,” Lockwood says about the recording process behind “Rivereye,” which was tracked mostly live.
As an introduction to the songs and the project, Lockwood and his band will perform two upcoming shows in Michigan. The first is at The Stray in Grand Rapids at 7 p.m. April 24, with The Temperances also on the bill. on April 24th at 7p.m., supporting The Temperances. Tickets are $19 and available online here.
The following night, on April 25, the band travels to Traverse City to perform at The Alluvion at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance and available online here; $25 the day of the show.
LISTEN: “The Longest Holiday,” from “Rivereye”
‘EVERYONE COMING TOGETHER AT A REALLY HIGH LEVEL’
The self-titled record contains nine songs, each fearlessly flowing into the next. Described by Lockwood as a “31-minute blast of rock ‘n’ roll, a bit of folk-rock and tinted by ’90s grunge,” it’s a listening journey best experienced at a generous volume. Cut mostly live in the same room, the album breathes, expanding with each layer and note as the measures unfold.
“There’s just something intangible that is captured, I believe, in the act of playing a song with a group of musicians who are all in each other’s literal physical presence, that you can’t capture that energy any other way. It’s everyone coming together at a really high level,” Lockwood says about the cast of top-tier players.
“Everyone was just so deeply engaged and deeply experienced, and just the right musicians for this music, too, so the energy was consistently there. We had a limited amount of time. So to get all the songs down with live tracks and capture these takes that everyone felt really good about was pretty amazing.”
Playing GR and Traverse City: Lockwood (Photo/Tyler Franz)
Accompanying Lockwood in the studio were Jeff Moehle (drums), Eric O’Daly (bass and background vocals), Phil Barry (guitar) and Joe Hettinga (keyboards). Lockwood wrote and performed guitar and lead vocals on all songs. Behind the control booth was Nick Nagurka, who engineered and mixed the album, while Philip Shaw Bova oversaw mastering. (Keyboardist Mike Lynch will join the band for the live performances.)
For Lockwood, poetry is an important foundation for his songwriting. Influenced by the works of Jim Harrison, as well as other poets and writers who explore the interactions humans have with the natural world, Lockwood is himself a student of the outdoors.
“In addition to being a songwriter and musician, I’m a poet and a lover of the natural world. So there’s a lot of focus on the lyricism and the poetry and the stories for me,” says Lockwood, who also fronts The Insiders Tom Petty tribute band and performs regularly with other artists, including May Erlewine.
“I hope people take in the whole record, you know, I feel like there’s a lot of interconnectedness to the poetry of these songs. There’s a cohesiveness not only in the music, but in the words. And I hope people hear that.”
In the Studio: The band at Cinnamon Ranch. (Photo/Colin Boyd)
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