Kurt Baker is releasing his album Rock ‘N’ Roll Club, today via Stevie Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool Records. Baker’s long career has taken in Power Pop and Rock influences, and for this album, he was particularly mindful of the special venues we’ve encountered in our lives that now might be disappearing, hence the “Rock ‘N’ Roll Club” of the title.
Today we’re very pleased to debut Kurt Baker’s track and video for “Bright Blue Sky”. The video was shot by Wyatt Funderburk and Luis Sañchez on location at Voramar Beach, Benicàssim, Castellón, Spain featuring The Kurt Baker Band. It was also directed and edited by Wyatt Funderburk. Baker is known as a globe-trotter and brings special locations into videos when possible.
The song “Bright Blue Sky” has a lot of lyrical appeal for music and coffee lovers, not to mention a romantic angle that screams Rock ‘n Roll tradition. An underdog perspective, watching beauty from a distance, makes the imagery of the song that much more intense. Sonically, it’s an interesting blend of low-key and intense elements, with a steady undercurrent of Rock but a subdued, engaging delivery you might associate with Brit Pop.
The video makes for an interesting broad canvas for the song, but also a beautiful one that chimes with some of the track’s imagery and title. This may not be intentional, but seeing the band, and Baker, separated at times, out from the city at the beach, and occasionally surrounded by water, plays into the idea of the isolated, distant observer of the song. But the beauty’s still close enough, of course, to be inviting and distracting, just like the interplay we hear about among the song’s characters.
Kurt Baker shares about the song “Blue Sky”:
“Bright Blue Sky” was written in the basement of Geoff’s house when we started working on songs for the new album. I had just gotten back from living in Spain and was eager to start collaborating and demoing tracks with my old mates. I think we were having a bit of a party that night at Geoff’s… but I excused myself and went down to his basement studio, picked up the guitar, and started strumming the chords that would be the chorus of “Bright Blue Sky”.
About 20 minutes later Geoff came down the stairs looking for me and was like “Hey dude, what’s up?” and I told him, “Well, I think I’ve got an idea for a song!”. He picked up a guitar and started doing some lead guitar bits that fit over the rhythm chords I was playing. Then our good buddy and drummer Zack Sprague came down the stairs looking for both Geoff and I. He said something like “You both are missing out on a great party.. oh are you working on a song?” And he immediately picked up the notepad and started writing down lyrics.
It was a wonderful collaboration between all of us. During the recording of the song at Little Steven’s studio, Geoff Sanoff, who was engineering the session remarked that the song sounded like a mix between AC/DC and Oasis.. which was spot on. Throw a little Tom Petty influence, specifically “U get Me High”, and I guess that’s what I was going for with “Bright Blue Sky”. Love this one. Thanks for listening!
Baker adds about the video:
The video was shot in Benicassim, Spain on a day off from tour. It’s a beautiful beach. Nice town! Great people too.. Like Luis Sanchez, who helped film this video for us. We wanted to do a video that was visually appealing but also didn’t distract too much from the song. I’m amazed none of us broke our necks… those “things” were we standing on were pretty high up and I don’t think balance is one of the finer traits of any members in the KB Band… no idea what I’m talkin’ about? Watch the video!!
Upcoming shows:
Sept 29th Malden, MA @ Faces Brewing w/ Nate Doyle, Bad Idea USA
Sept 30th Portland, ME @ Genos w/ Capisic, Jeff Beam, East End Redemption
Japan Tour
Oct 22th Halloween Ball at LOFT SHINJUKU. TOKYO
Oct 25th at Livehaus SHIMOKITAZAWA. TOKYO
Oct 26th at Top Beat Club TOKYO
Oct 27th at Top Beat Club TOKYO
Oct 28th at OYS NAGOYA
Dec TBA NYC @ TV EYE
