Portland, Oregon-based musician/engineer/producer Steve Drizos, a professional touring musician for more than twenty-seven years and studio owner, can currently be found behind the drums for Jerry Joseph and The Jackmormons or helming the board at his SE Portland recording studio, The Panther. He recently released his sophomore full-length album, i love you now, leave me alone (Cavity Search Records).
Having worked with countless artists at The Panther, including Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers), Debbi Peterson (The Bangles), Spencer Tweedy, Chris Funk (The Decembrists), and Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., Minus 5, The Young Fresh Fellows), as well as his wife, The Decemberists’ Jenny Conlee, Drizos is no stranger to both sides of the studio, culminating in his debut solo album, Axiom, which was released on Cavity Search Records in 2021. Written and recorded during the start of the pandemic, Axiom was Drizos’ chance to experiment in the studio and make a solo album, playing most of the instruments himself. However, with i love you now leave me alone, he decided to demo everything and build a band around the songs, resulting in a powerful follow-up that finds the songwriter side of him growing and evolving, delivering another strong collection of eight powerful songs that find influence in 90s guitar-rock, pop, and folk.
Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the video for the standout track “shadow life,” which starts dark and slightly ominous before opening up into glowing work of folk-infused power pop. The visuals capture this contrast of light and dark, with Drizos’ poignant lyrics being accentuated by a simple soundtrack of dreamy electric guitar, hopeful piano, and layers of acoustic guitar. The song finally reaches a triumphant instrumental conclusion that is amplified by the dramatic drown footage of Portland.
Of the single, Drizos says, “The song ‘shadow life’ came about during the lockdown period of the pandemic, reflecting on these shifts that I, and many people I knew, were going through, questioning their current situations whether it be jobs, relationships, etc. Though I was trying very hard to not write any songs specific to that moment in time, I could not help but feel intrigued and inspired by that one particular, unique opportunity that was presented during those days.
The video is a collaboration with Portland-based director John Coletta. The original idea was how to play around with shadows and light, having the band members be represented in various silhouettes. Then the question became how big can we project these images, what exactly can we get away with. Over the course of many nights, we ran around Portland casting the images on numerous structures and getting amazing footage of the city’s nightscape. The video is a wonderful representation of the song, and our beautiful city stealing the show.”
WATCH:
