NASHVILLE ||
DT: JUNE 8, 2017
FM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/MIKE GOWEN
MSO PR
DEAD ROCK WEST
TO RELEASE ‘MORE LOVE’ ALBUM AUGUST 11
MARKS THE CALIFORNIA DUO’S
FIRST ALBUM FOR INDIE LABEL OMNIVORE RECORDINGS
ANNOUNCE DAY-OF-RELEASE ALBUM RELEASE SHOW
AT MCCABE’S GUITAR SHOP
IN SANTA MONICA, CA
 Above: album art for More Love
MORE LOVE is the album where it all comes together for DEAD ROCK WEST like never before.
For their fourth album and first for Omnivore Recordings that’s due out August 11, the California vocal duo of Cindy Wasserman and Frank Lee Drennen have joined forces with producer John Doe–of the legendary band X, with whom they’ve toured numerous times–to create an album that places their achingly beautiful signature vocals and harmonies in finely etched rock, alt-country and pop settings. The sound is both contemporary and timeless. “John brought focus, passion, and experience to the sessions, bringing out a better version of us,” says the duo that’ll perform the day the disc comes out at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, CA.
MORE LOVE–-recorded, mixed and mastered in Los Angeles by multiple Grammy Award winner Dave Way–is comprised of 12 songs about the joy and heartbreak of love. There are 11 DEAD ROCK WEST originals–among them the joyously infectious first single “Boundless Fearless Love,” “Radio Silence” and “Waiting Patiently“–plus a cover of Sam Cooke‘s “Bring It On Home to Me” that thematically closes this deeply felt album. The masterful band on MORE LOVE includes D.J. Bonebrake of X, lead guitarist Elliot Easton of The Cars and ace pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz.
“This was a group effort; band, singers, engineer, producer all equal, all working toward a common, honest goal,” says John Doe. “All of us in a room making real music, from the heart, from intuition, from aching & wanting, from beauty & the desert.”
MORE LOVE follows the Los Angeles-based duo’s critically hailed tribute album to the Everly Brothers, It’s Everlys Time! (2015), a work that galvanized the group vocally in the studio and onstage at their headline performances as well as on tour with X and Dave Alvin and Phil Alvin. A sample of the praise that DEAD ROCK WEST garnered from outlets such as the Los Angeles Times—which premiered the single and video for the album’s “I Used To Love You”–and Boston Globe is below. “They have combined all of the influences (alt-country, gospel, Everly Bros) from their previous records into this one,” says John Doe. “Great songs. Great playing. Wonderful performances. More Love is heart & soul from two deeply original singers & songwriters.” Doe adds: “Somehow Cindy & Frank connect the dots between ’70 country & ’60 soul music. They are a modern day Gram & Emmylou singing songs that Otis & Carla would sing.”
“These are difficult days and we need more, more love,” says Frank Lee Drennen about the new album. “Love never fails,” he adds about “Boundless Fearless Love,” which cuts deep with lyrics like: “I hear it calling in the distance/ I take it on like a boxing champ/Though desolation has no secrets/I still believe the loser stands a chance.”
“As Willie Dixon said to me when I was blessed to meet him some years ago, all songs are about love,” says Cindy Wasserman. “Happy or sad songs, they are all about love–more love. This record to me is performed and created from the spirit seed of the wonderful Willie Dixon in mind and with all our love.”
DEAD ROCK WEST will support MORE LOVE with tour dates (TBA), videos and live performances including the above-mentioned album release show and this August’s West of the West/Roots On The Rails journey where they will join their friend Dave Alvin and other musicians on an unforgettable musical train ride across the musical heart of America: http://www.rootsontherails.com/upcoming-trips-2017-west-of-the-west
“At their performance Thursday night at Hotel Café on the eve of the album’s release, Drennen and Wasserman sang by turns with joyful abandon, bittersweet beauty and transcendent sadness, the kind that acts as catharsis for the pain of love lost or love unrequited…Drennen and Wasserman bent notes in tandem, musically summoning a flawless union, the kind the song’s lyric [‘(Why Am I) Chained to a Memory’] laments when it self-destructs. It’s a theme they came back to in the indescribably aching heartbreak ballad ‘So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)’…with powerful backing from a muscular four-piece band, Wasserman and Drennen tapped an insistent groove similar to that which Robert Plant and Alison Krauss conjured up on their 2007 version of ‘Gone, Gone, Gone.’ Toward the end, they also introduced an original song, ‘More Love,’ that fit stylistically and emotionally alongside the vintage Everly songs.”
“…It’s Everly Time!, a collection that tweaks the [Everly] brothers’ material via marvelous male-female harmonizing.”
MORE LOVE‘s track listing:
 Above: DEAD ROCK WEST
(Frank Lee Drennen and Cindy Wasserman)
For more information on DEAD ROCK WEST, visit:
Click here for past press releases and assets
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For press inquiries regarding DEAD ROCK WEST, contact:
MSO PR
818.380.0400
Mitch Schneider // mschneider@msopr.com
Mike Gowen // mgowen@msopr.com
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