Today Seattle duo Roy Rodgers‘ debut their new track “Sugar“. The song is off the band’s upcoming LP if you can’t feel the markers then you better believe due out March 17th via BIG BLDG RCRDS/Blind Blind Tiger. BIG BLDG ran a Kickstarter to fund the album and as it ran well over the goal the label will be putting the record out on vinyl, with Blind Blind Tiger handling digital distribution and a cassette release.
Roy Rodgers’ features multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Patrick Latham and drummer Ryan Poush. The pair met as kids in California and have played together since 2007. Latham relocated to Seattle in 2012 and Poush followed two years later. The duo has a self-released cassette under their belt called 99 – Never, but the upcoming record, according to Latham, is “more fleshed out and has a wider range of instrumentation.”
“Sugar” was “thrown together days before the studio” as Latham tells it, and he wrote the lyrics while tracking the song at the Unknown in Anacortes, WA. While the lyrics are a “playful”, “hodgepodge of sex, warmth, triumph and crystal meth”, I wouldn’t try that one at home kids! Unknown’s amazing acoustic space–it’s located in what was once an old Catholic church–can also be heard throughout this cut’s exhilarating arrangement. Latham provides its’ woozy, off-kilter lyrics and his guitar shines in the warm and ample setting while Poush’s expressive drumming shimmers in a bronze light. And, from these almost subdued beginnings, this track blooms into a lush arrangement with horns and a King Korg taking “Sugar” to dizzying heights.
