On October 6th, American abstract artist and Hawk bandleader David Hawkins will release the stunning third album of his orchestral art-rock supergroup Be, Here, a lush and intricate song cycle inspired by The Beach Boys’ classic Pet Sounds and dedicated to Brian Wilson, though one can also hear traces of mystical Beatles psychedelia and The Velvet Underground’s tangled hum among its influences. (A companion album, There, featuring Hawkins’ recordings in Morocco with The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar, the legendary Moroccan Sufi Trance band known for their collaborations with Brian Jones, the Rolling Stones and Ornette Coleman and 2023 recipients of the Kennedy Center Gold Medal of the Arts Award, is due out next year.)
Besides Hawkins, Here features rock luminaries Morgan Fisher (Mott the Hoople, Queen), Brian Wilson’s musical director Paul Von Mertens, the legendary drummer Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello, Elliot Smith), guest vocals by Gary Louris of the Jayhawks among others, and was mastered and co-mixed by Mike Hagler (Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Mekons). With the highly anticipated Here, Hawkins’ musical vision continues to expand, again proving himself to be a formidable rising voice in American music.
Today Glide is premiering the standout track “Shine Your Love Light,” a charming work of psych-pop that finds sunny harmonies dancing merrily over a bouncing beat. This is a certain simplicity to this song that makes it feel like it was born from a flash, a brief moment of inspiration that Hawkins was able to transform into a song. For fans of acts like The Beach Boys and Teenage Fanclub, this tune is sure to be a winner with its delightful power pop styling.
Listen to the track and read Hawkins’ reflection on the inspiration below…
“I remember being in my room when I was younger and listening to Pet Sounds for the first time. I was laying on my bed with headphones on, spellbound; how did he know how I feel? How did they capture that yearning in their songs? They had somehow turned all my complicated emotions and the first stirrings of love I was feeling into music! I was floored. I would play it over and over like a balm for my soul. It became like a secret place that I would escape to and let my imagination wander and my feelings flow. I had never heard music like that before. You could live in there. And I did.
Over the years, I’ve delved into all different kinds of music, but that record remained a place I could go to daydream and just hide from the world. Later, when I started making music myself, I became fascinated with the stories of how they had recorded it, and I realized it was as special as I thought it was as a kid – even more so.
In my own songwriting, my biggest influences have probably been Dylan, the Beatles, Stones, and the Velvet Underground, but I had always wanted to explore the world Brian had created – it felt like a whole world unto itself. I had already begun experimenting with layering vocal harmonies and I knew those arrangements by heart, so I decided to try to incorporate some of those elements into an album as a way to honor his music and its huge influence on me. This is one of the first ones I wrote.
The chorus lyric and melody came first, and when I landed on the “living for the light in your eyes” line, it all came together, and that theme of the light became one of the central themes of the album. I worked on this one for weeks on end, trying to get everything just right (I think I did like 17 vocal harmony tracks!), and was honored to have Gary Louris of The Jayhawks join us again on guest vocals. He’s one of my favorite singers (and songwriters), and I love how our voices fit together – they’re similar but his is a little higher and they just lock together like a dream.
While this song came earlier, most of the album was recorded in those intense early days of the pandemic – as an escape from the news cycle and to give me something to focus on – and I really dove deep into writing and recording, spending months on end working on every little detail and then incorporating the other’s parts. I’m so grateful to have such great musicians playing with me: Morgan Fisher (Mott the Hoople, Queen), Brian Wilson Band’s musical director Paul Von Mertens, legendary drummer Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello, Elliot Smith), Randy Morris (Hawk), Regan Souders and Matthew Pittman among others. My dear friend and collaborator Mike Hagler (Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Mekons) and I mixed It together and we set a personal record (at least for me) for the longest time mixing an album – we worked on mixing it for weeks. I had to get every detail right, the way Brian would.
Making this album was a real labor of love. Written and recorded largely during one of the darkest moments in recent memory, it was a really uplifting experience for us all and a testament to the power of music. Looking back, I realized that after all these years of being a comfort and a refuge, Brian’s music (or, this time, my attempt at honoring and thanking him for it) had saved me again.”
