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NASHVILLE’S NEWEST AND MOST EXCITING BLUES BAND SIMO TO RELEASE “LET LOVE SHOW THE WAY” ON JANUARY 29
 
On January 29, 2016, Nashville rock & roll trinity SIMO will release their new album Let Love Show The Way on Mascot Label Group/Provogue. SIMO’s sophomore album, with 13 straight to the heart songs, offers nothing but the ultimate mix of southern heavy and blues rock.
 
Let Love Show The Way is a frenetic collection of songs that consists of both live favourites and new tracks. As if creeping from the Southern swamps and mist-soaked cotton fields, SIMO’s cover of Elmore James’ Stranger Blues is the perfect table setter for the Nashville power trio’s vibrant sophomore release. The song is a blueprint for reinvigorating the fusion of jazz improvisation, downhome blues and classic R&B, as well as these genres’ psychedelic Brit Invasion and countrified Southern Rock manifestations. The rest of the record follows suit, a souped-up vehicle transporting the band on a deeply satisfying, off-the-cuff musical journey.
 
Continuing to steam headlong into the album we are treated to brand new songs; Two Timin’ Woman which is three rip-roaring minutes written the day before it was cut in around 15 minutes. I Lied was written during recording and is about lying when asked if everything is ok, “We all wanna put up a good front,” the singer adds. “I inserted one of my favourite Ginsberg essays, “Why is God Love Jack”. A letter Allen Ginsberg had written to Jack Kerouac.”
 
Bursting with live favourites, Can’t Say Her Name has been in the repertoire for a couple of years and is about unspoken love for a woman from a man who is already in a relationship, whilst Please is a spiralling upbeat Beatles meets Motown stomper about love, indebted to the fab fours Please Please Me. Long May You Sail changes tone a little as the guitar squeels around the pounding rhythm section telling the tale of saying goodbye to an old friend. Continuting the tales of anguish I’ll Always Be Around is about not wanting to let go of someone, but having to do so with as much dignity as you can, as the highly charged and emotional as JD sings: “Go on don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine eventually, Take your things and say your goodbyes, I don’t want to be the one to hold you back and change your mind.”
 
Becky’s Last Occupation is a play on words based around the bank bail out in the US. Rather Die In Vain gives the chance for the band to go wild with improvisation calling on the power to struggle against your internal darknesss. Today I’m Here is a subtle and tranquil breather on the album and was written for a dear friend of the band based around a progression he had been playing.
 
Let Love Show The Way is an abstract song, “Lennon had it right”, JD, reflects, “Love really is all we need. I was writing more about things I thought were dreamy or a somewhat mental picture for the first verses. Then the notion of love being what we should let govern our actions or decisions was where I took it. I’m a peaceful guy and I’m proud to have a song that has content like this. I think we need more of it!” Jamming is a huge part of what SIMO do best and Ain’t Doin’ Nothin’ is a jam from the Big House Sessions. “It was the start of the 2nd day of recording there and Adam and Elad starting playing that groove and I walked in the room and picked up Duane Allman’s old Goldtop and what you hear is what happened. Good way to start the day!”
 
Please Be With Me, another cover, is a beautiful way to close the album, the last song to be recorded at the Big House. “I wanted to do something appropriate since we were in the Allman’s old house and all but I didn’t want to do something too obvious or overdone. This is a song that the band Cowboy did with Duane not long before he died. It was on the Duane Allman Anthology in the 70’s. So as a peace offering to that lovely place I sat on the steps looking right at Duane’s old room and sang and played it. My voice was torn up from days of singing and I like how frail I sound on it now. I had given all I had to give and I was very vulnerable at that moment and I think it fits.”
 
Cut entirely live in full, unbroken takes—vocals and solos included—the sound of Let Love Show The Way is primal, sweltering and immediate. “We live and die by the take,” says singer-guitarist JD Simo. “We don’t edit, and if there are overdubs, they’re minimal. I want it to be unaffected and pure. For me, the music that always resonates most is when a performance is captured. That’s what I love, and that’s what we go for.”

ALBUM

PHOTOS

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MUSIC

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Editorial note/Not for publication: For additional information, stream links, and interview requests, please contact:
Mascot Label Group | Ben Hofland | Office: +31 (0)10 512 03 84 | To e-mail, please use the form on the contact page

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