Stream: Arthur Buck, ‘Are You Electrified?’

S.Lo on May 7th, 2018

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Musical comrades and friends for decades, Joseph Arthur and Peter Buck (of R.E.M.) began to jam when Arthur made a stop at Buck and his wife’s pad in Baja, California, on the way to retrieving a lost guitar. What they found was a great co-songwriting synergy, so strong that they’ve made their project together, Arthur Buck, a real thing.

The second single for their upcoming self-titled album (out June 15 on New West Records) is “Are You Electrified?” The uplifting rocker is a shot of optimism in sometimes tired and depressing times. Alongside Buck’s blasting power chords, Arthur sings, “Run, run, run, run wide open / Are you electrified? / Is your third eye open, baby?… Run, run, run, baby, they weren’t jokin’ / The boogeyman is comin’ and you know what he’s hopin,’ don’t you? / That I give away my dreams / and you…” It’s a call to stay awake, aware and free, with Arthur singing to not let the “spiders get up inside [our] heads.”

It’s a promising track produced, as the entire album, by Arthur and mixed by Tchad Blake (U2, Pearl Jam, the Black Keys). Recording initial tracks in Portland, Ore., at Type Foundry Studio, the two worked briskly: “About seven hours,” Buck says. Then Arthur took the rough mixes back to his home studio in Brooklyn for vocals, instrumental and electronic overdubs as well as further producing before handing them over to Blake. “It was all new songs, and it was spontaneous,” Arthur says, “And the great thing about working that way was that it didn’t have to be anything in particular. It was liberated from any expectation. It was free.”

Buck echoed the serendipity of the project, “I wasn’t really sure what would happen. Everyone has different ways of writing and Joe tends to really write off of inspiration… I tend to throw in a lot of bridges. I like chords. I like hooks. So the two of us complement each other really well. And I also like that the songs we wrote are really forward-looking in a lot of ways. It’s a very positive record.”

By the sounds of “Are You Electrified?” that aim hits the mark. Arthur reflexively agrees, “I mean, with the state of the world right now, do we really want to hear a white guy singing about how miserable he is? We need some optimistic music. But at the same time, I don’t feel this music voids the struggle at all.”

It’s a struggle a lot of us of all backgrounds feel, and this is inspiration a whole lot of us need right now.

||| Watch: The video for “Are You Electrified?”