Since his major label debut, the groundbreaking Salesmen and Racists, Ike Reilly has been making punk/folk/blues influenced rock ’n’ roll records that lean heavily on stories of outsiders with keen details and broad strokes that insinuate a crack in the American dream. Reilly’s band, The Assassination, has been called one of the best live bands in America, and the body of recorded work they’ve turned out has been poetic, rebellious, wholly original, and critically acclaimed. Press praise for Reilly’s music has been extensive over the years.
Now the the Libertyville, IL-based genre-bending singer-songwriter is set to release a new song, “Trick of the Light,” on July 30th. It is the first single from his forthcoming eighth studio album, Because the Angels, which will be released later in 2021 via Rock Ridge Music. “Trick of the Light” drops 20 years to the day after Reilly released his debut album, Salesmen And Racists, which was released before 50% of singers on this track were born. Reilly’s long-time band, The Assassination, once again proves nimble in serving another one of his unique and brilliant songs. The single, and forthcoming album, were produced by Reilly and Phil Karnats (Secret Machines, Polyphonic Spree), and mixed by Mario McNulty (David Bowie, Prince, Julian Lennon).
Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of “Trick of the Light” (PRE-ORDER). The song is a dark-pop celebration of family dysfunction, with Reilly ironically sharing lead vocal duties with three of his own children. Pulling us in with just vocals and acoustic strumming, the band wastes little time in getting into their anthemic family harmonies brimming with hope and good vibes despite the darker questions about faith, hope, family, money, and fate. The combination of pop, roots, punk and barroom rock and roll serves the lyrics well, with the voices of Shane, Kevin, and Mickey Reilly coming together in a loose and rowdy party complete with a touch of brass. As with many of Reilly’s songs, “Trick of the Light” is the kind of infectious, pop-inflected rocker that would have been a radio hit in the 90s.
Says Reilly of the song, “This recording shows how combustible things can get when you tear down walls and preconceptions. The wall between my family and my band has been blown to bits. We had these characters, these singers, my kids, right in front of us all the time, then this question-and-answer song about petty family sh*t shows up, and I liked the idea of different voices asking the questions. It never dawned on me that my boys would or even could sing on that track until I heard them mimicking the opening lines. It was pretty clear once we got them in the studio with the band that they belonged there and that ‘Trick of the Light’ captured something special… something that nobody else could ever capture. It’s our own f***ing thing.”
Listen to the song and read our chat with Reilly below…
This song features four Reillys on lead vocals — you and your three sons. How did you end up having your sons share lead vocals on this song with you?
The band and I were doing a show at the First Avenue in Minneapolis on Thanksgiving Eve, and three of my boys were on the road with us because they were each on school breaks. I had just worked up the “Trick of The Light” song with the band, and we were gonna run it for the first time that night. The boys had done some singing but never in front of anybody as far as I knew.
That song lends itself to different, individual voices asking these rhetorical questions and joining together in a gang chorus. So we divvied up the lines in the verses, giving the opening lines of each verse to my youngest son Mick, and then my son Kevin takes a line, and then my oldest boy Shane and I pick up the next line, and we sing all together on the chorus. We did it for the first time there, and it was pretty great — it was surreal, and it went over. The song is rooted in family squabble and misunderstanding, ya know, f**king dysfunction — yet for us, it seemed celebratory and cleansing. For me at least.
So it wasn’t just a one-off with them singing it at that show, then, since they ended up on the recorded track.
Right. When the pandemic hit, I began my internet hustling-busking-begging routine with my family outta the house — a livestream series. I coerced the family — my boys, my mother, wife, daughter, my son-in-law — to join me, and we began singing together. The boys got more comfortable, more confident.
How was it working with your sons in the studio? And how do you feel about the finished song, as far as how your voices work together and the vibe that the shared lead vocals gives to the track?
Well, the band had recorded the song just prior to the pandemic shutdown, but I hadn’t sung the final vocal yet. By this time, we had sung “Trick Of The Light” on our Reilly Family Quarantine Hour many times, following the same vocal arrangement we introduced at the First Avenue. This familiarity with the song made recording the vocals together very easy and natural.
We definitely sound related, a f**king curse for those guys for sure. My son Shane sounds a bit different from Mick and Kevin and me, and he handles the lower harmonies. Mick goes high, and Kevin often doubles me. Working in the studio with them is no different than anything else we do; I do lot of yelling and they f**k with me… there is total lack of respect. I did see a glimmer of respect when they heard the final mix of this song, though. They really dug it — they knew it was different, special, and not just for us but as a song, a recording for this hopeless time.
