Billy Midnight
B I O
With a sound that has been described as “music that makes you homesick for a home you’ve never had”, Billy Midnight conjures an image of desert stars and sweeping ocean cliffs. The trio, formed by San Diego brothers, Billy and Bobby Shaddox, has traveled up and down the coast of their native state performing shows with the likes of other California Country Soul Rock acts as The Mother Hips, Jackpot and Mover. Their youthful live energy, tight harmonies, and Billy’s raw (often experimental) guitar style has earned them the comparison of “Pink Floyd meets Gram Parsons”. Listening closely to the boys’ sound, one can definitely detect a childhood steeped in California rock, ala The Beach Boys, Eagles and The Byrds. Billy Midnight’s rootsy, west coast sound borrows from the past while still pushing ahead in a fresh direction. “Our music is something your dad might dig. It’s got harmonies and riffs that remind him of the Rolling Stones, but then we’ll dive into a noisy wall of sound that he can’t relate to and it’ll freak him out. He’s never listened to the Pavement or Wilco albums that we have.” Bart Mendoza of the San Diego Union Tribune writes, “Billy Midnight mines a rich field of harmony-drenched Americana, with some inspired guitar.”
The band’s latest release is a return to do it yourself rock n’ roll. Everything from the recording to the packaging has been a labor of the boys themselves. The songs range from raw country ballads like Old Saloon, ala Dylan’s “Basement Tapes”, to progressive songs of space exploration such as “Mir”, a song Roger McGuinn might have created had he ever collaborated with Yes. Billy Midnight is taking California rock into new territories; it’s the sound of the song of the past surrendering to the noise of the future – coyotes howling above the roar of four lanes of traffic en route to a field of bermuda grass grown on solid granite beneath a sky of birds dodging jet planes carrying humans to the moon and back.
