The 11-track debut record Radio Astro from Hearty Har, due out in February on BMG, is the work of rockers who are seasoned beyond their years and live up to their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lineage with a strand of that DNA they can truly call their own.
The sons of Creedence Clearwater Revival mastermind John Fogerty have been working under the Hearty Hear moniker since 2012, honing their crafts as songwriters and studio hands into a fully formed enterprise. Radio Astro shows off the brothers’ wide-ranging musicality; diversity while capturing an identifiable core sound from sibling chemistry. And plenty of hard work.
“We both really like to record and be in the studio,” Tyler says. “We’ve spent a lot of time experimenting and honing and learning how to use everything. Our whole thing is ‘Let’s just make good-sounding records and songs.” Shane adds that, “I feel like we’re constantly chasing something new and something exciting, trying to find sounds and trying to expand what we’ve done so far and always trying to elevate it. I think that’s the goal and what we’re trying to follow.”
With Tyler and Shane writing on their own, and two tracks composed together, the set kicks off in garage rock, lava lamp shimmer of “Radio Man 56’” and over the course of the album Hearty Har runs a gamut from the psychedelic blues of “One For the Other” to the gritty, Stax-flavored soul of “Calling You Out,” the Brit pop nods of “Don’t Go Looking For Me” and “Get Down,” touches of Middle Eastern in “Fare Thee Well” and a sprawling instrumental, “Canyon of the Banshee,” that lets the group “kind of flex our muscles,” according to Tyler.
Part perfectionists and part mad scientists, Tyler and Shane acknowledge they’ve discarded more ideas than they’ve taken to completion over the years. The songs that meet those exacting standards share a timeless urgency; You can imagine hearing “Can’t Keep Waiting” or “Don’t Go Looking For Me” or “Get Down” or “Scream and Shout!” at Woodstock — or Lollapalooza. And there’s openness in many of the arrangements that would have man a remixer licking their chops over.
“I just hope people love it and appreciate it,” Shane says. “I feel like the music speaks for itself, and when people hear it they’ll understand.”
Today Glide is excited to premiere the music video for “Waves of Ecstasy,” a track that perfectly captures what these brothers do best. With a spacey synth grooves that brings to mind groups like Tame Impala, the band layers in saccharine vocal harmonies that feel like their own style of psychedelic R&B. Though the band has a pedigree in throwback sounds, this music sounds fresh and different as it finds the band experimenting with a kaleidoscopic array of synth sounds and effects to make for a real mind-melter of a track. Ultimately, this song about melancholic longing is a drippy trippy groover that seems oddly fitting for these truly bizarre times we live in.
Tyler Fogerty describes the inspiration behind the song:
“‘Waves of Ecstasy’ is about a melancholic longing to live forever in a state of one’s highest form. It’s about understanding and empathy and finding beauty as the tide changes.”
WATCH:
