Brian Setzer heeft een nieuwe single uitgebracht, getiteld ‘Smash Up On Highway One’, de tweede single van ‘Gotta Have The Rumble’, zijn eerste solo album in 7 jaar. Het album komt uit op 27 augustus 2021 via Surfdog Records (CD Digipack, Digitaal en later in de herfst op vinyl (TBA)).
De iconische gitarist, songwriter, vocalist en winnaar van 3 Grammy awards kondigde afgelopen maand het album aan met 11 originele nieuwe tracks met de geanimeerde video voor eerste nieuwe single ‘Checkered Flag’. Setzer schreef tweede single ‘Smash Up On Highway One’ met zijn frequente schrijfpartner Mike Himelstein.
“I usually start out with a guitar riff,” zegt Setzer over het schrijven van “Smash Up On Highway One.” “I was playing ‘Misirlou’ by Dick Dale with the Stray Cats, and I thought, ‘wow I’d love to write something as cool as that riff.’ So I came up with something out of left field. I don’t know what you would call it–Middle Eastern or Eastern-European. Some college professor probably has a name for that scale. I had that riff laying around. I guess you could say I’m always collecting cool guitar parts. Mike Himelstein sent me those lyrics and they just fit right in. I think it’s really cool–it’s a way to move the whole rockabilly genre forward. The surf drum part in there with the guy playing the tom-toms similar to ‘Wipeout’. I love it.”
Het album is geproduceerd door Julian Raymond (Glen Campbell and Cheap Trick) en alle tracks zijn (co-) geschreven door Setzer. Het album is opgenomen in zowel Minneapolis (Setzer’s nieuwe thuis) en Nashville. ‘Gotta Have The Rumble’ is een gloeiendheet album van begin tot eind – Amerikaanse muziek versterkt tot 10 – met nummers vol dynamiek en bravoure. Hoogtepunten zijn onder meer ‘Checkered Flag’, ‘Smash Up On Highway One’, ‘Drip Drop’, ‘The Cat with 9 Wives’, ‘One Bad Habit’ en ‘Rockabilly Banjo’.
“Obviously, it’s a reference to my motorcycles and hot rods, something that hasn’t changed since I was 15 years old,” verteld SETZER over de albumtitel ‘Gotta Have The Rumble’. “I still have the same passion for going fast and adrenaline. But it’s also about my hearing problem with tinnitus–the ringing of the ear. It was pretty bad, and I realized that I couldn’t play the way I wanted to. As I recovered, standing in front of a small amplifier just didn’t cut it. The sound from my big amp makes the guitar rumble. Which is a big part of my sound. I was really despondent for a while because I thought I wouldn’t be able to do that again. So, ‘Gotta Have The Rumble’ refers to both of those things.”