Americana/indie-pop outfit Sam Gyllenhaal Band has just released a new single, “Ocean Baby,” and Sam recently sat down with @skopemag to talk about this wonderful new song.
@skopemag: Tell us about your amazing new song, “Ocean Baby.”
Sam Gyllenhaal: I started this song back in 2014 while living in Washington, DC. I was rehearsing with Old Moonlight, my band at the time. I had tuned a spare guitar to open E tuning and gave it to our lead guitar player, Taylor Burke, who’d never actually played in that tuning. The first thing that came to him was this bouncy, four-bar, call-and-answer riff, and it was catchy as hell, so I started singing a verse melody that played against it. The melody had nonsense, filler lyrics but ended with the words “ocean baby.” I had plans of replacing all of the words, but our third co-writer, John Cirillo, liked “ocean baby” and said we should build the song around it.
@skopemag: Tell us about the process of putting this song together.
Sam: We’ve been playing this song live for about seven years, and it’s always been a fan favorite. I’d taken a couple of stabs at producing a demo for it, but I couldn’t quite get an angle on it. Now that I’ve got more experience as a producer and guitar player, I was finally able to build a track that lived up to the vision I had for it. The robust background vocals from Alex Schreiner and Alaina Stacey, along with hard-grooving drums from Gabe Rabben, went a very long way in helping me reach that vision.
@skopemag: What do you hope is the message of the song?
Sam: This song is the ultimate infectious summer anthem to me. I love the beach town imagery in the lyrics and the tropical twist in the sonic approach, and I hope listeners feel like they’re riding the wave with us when they hear it.
@skopemag: Can fans see you on tour this fall?
Sam: We don’t have our fall tour plans mapped out, but we’ll be announcing it on our socials (@samgyllenhaalband).
@samgyllenhaalband
