Premiere: Ward, ‘Crush’

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WARD
WARD

Only two years ago, Christopher Grant Ward lived in New York City and worked as an executive in the world of tech. Things like mobile applications, smooth-running platforms, low eCommerce friction and high conversion were all music to his ears. By all accounts, Ward was good at it, but that life was not the song he wanted to write.

The Northern California native chucked it all to move to L.A. and make rock music, under the name Ward. The music is carved from the stone of alt-rock heroes (especially the British kind) from the late ’80s and ’90s, its overarching themes based on the realization, as Ward says, that, “Life tries to tell you who you should be before you even figured out who you are. This is important to talk about as people today, perhaps more than ever, struggle with personal identity, self-expression, anxiety and depression.”

“Crush” is cathartic missile aiming at blowing up those workaday blues. “Feel the crush in the middle of the city, / In your car hundred-ten degrees / You get rushed all around this busy, / But you can’t get where you need,” Ward sings over its insistent rhythm, as if he’s found a surface-street shortcut to the promised land. The first of seven songs Ward plans to release this year, “Crush,” the follow-up to Ward’s 2017 EP “The First Four,” was produced by Chris Keup (Parachute, Sanders Bohlke, Jason Mraz) and mixed by Darrell Thorpe (Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Beck, Air). Sales of “Crush” this year will be donated to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The single is officially out on Friday.

||| Stream: “Crush”

||| Also: Stream “Velvet Walls” from his 2017 EP