British blues rock guitarist Aynsley Lister will release his eighth studio album, Along For The Ride, on 11th November, a date that also happens to be just three days before his birthday.
Keeping the familiar close, the album will be released under Lister’s own label Straight Talkin’ Records Ltd, that co-founded with his wife, Stephanie. The project is said to sees Lister reach deep into his gutsy blues influences to bring a storyteller’s perspective to some anthemic rock tracks. Fueled equally by the everyday and an amp to 11 music philosophy, Along For The Ride intends to soundtrack its listeners’ lives with a face-melting score.
Along For The Ride’s lead single ‘Made Up My Mind’ introduces audiences to the world of the album with exactly that message. The rawness of the songwriting mixes with Lister’s mastery of his craft, all driven by emotive vocals and wailing guitar. Word has it that, “Aynsley’s symbiotic relationship with his six string makes the instrument incredibly versatile, effortlessly switching between rousing background chorales to in your face, attitude-laden riff machine.”
Thirteen tracks long, Along For The Ride takes listeners on a round trip though swelling choruses, tender moments, and everything in between. The artist himself takes a musical journey, branching out from the 60s and 70s blues influences that soundtracked his childhood, to contemporary songwriting and production that’s destined for stadiums.
Lister has built his reputation as a live performer, opening for such legendary acts as Jools Holland, John Mayall, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, and ZZ Top, before headlining himself.His performance at the Jools Holland’s shows were so electrifying it sparked the sound engineer to scream at him to turn it down. Some 25 years later and the moment has become legendary in the fan favourite track ‘Soundman’ that audiences still rave for.
His gutsy blues-rock stylings to anthemic songs, have earned him a worthy global reputation. With over 100,000 albums sold, rave reviews from the likes of The Times and MOJO, a hotly anticipated nationwide tour, and the release of Along For The Ride just around the corner, things. If unfamiliar with his work, check out some of the videos featured here at RAMzine.
Available across all platforms from the 11th November, Along For The Ride features the following tracks, that Lister himself comments on:
‘Amazing’ – All about my dislike of social media. As a touring musician it’s a given that you take part in it and I have learned to accept it and take part. However, I do have days when all I seem to see is this virtual world of amazingness, almost like a fantasy or alternate reality to what is actually going on in the real world. People generally only ever post the ‘highlight reel’ of their life, which is often exaggerated beyond recognition. The pressure to keep up or compete is an everyday reality for too many people and quite probably, a massive contribution to mental illnesses such as depression.”
‘Bide My Time’ – “Life can be so busy at times… Juggling families, work, friends, social events, health and fitness regimes etc. Sometimes, we’re all guilty of cramming too much into the day to day that although you can live with someone, you actually aren’t getting very much real time together at all. When I wrote this song, I was kind of daydreaming about spending time together with my wife like we used to ‘in the old days’ (ha, ha!) and longing for a bit of time out together. Ironically, we then had the first UK lockdown and we had some funny ‘be careful what you wish for’ moments, when all we had was time together! Life is just about balance, and this track is really about getting that balance back.”
‘Wait For Me’ – A song about mental health… About dealing with life’s problems and struggling to get your thoughts in order. This one is about love – really about those you love always being there, literally waiting for you to be ready to come back to them. There’s a lot of comfort in knowing your people have always got you!”
‘Is This Really Happening Now’ – “When the world suddenly came to a standstill in March 2020, it almost seemed like a dream. I couldn’t quite get my head round it, and the way people responded to it shocked me even more. The panic buying, the selfishness of some. I wrote this in about an hour flat. The first line about ‘tanks on the street’ was actually a sighting I’d heard about that day! There had been some army tanks seen on a UK motorway and there was fake news spreading all across social media about the army being drafted in to stop people leaving their homes. No-one knew what lay ahead and it was something nobody was really ready for.”
‘Eve Part I’ – “I watched the series Killing Eve and got totally hooked. The whole premise of the series, the two main characters and the dialogue were the inspiration for this song. I imagined writing a soundtrack piece that would fit into the series and it developed from there. Using as many quotes and references as possible from the series, the lyrics paint the cat and mouse story between Eve and Villanelle while musically I tried to create that slightly eery, sinister almost Bond style backdrop. I loved writing this and just to add that explosive crescendo to it, I went for a Pink Floyd-esque style guitar solo at the end.”
‘Cast A Light’ – “A song of hope and positivity in desperate times. Another song written in the first lockdown of 2020 although it has a more general theme and is not necessarily just tied to the pandemic. I wrote this one day when I was having a more optimistic outlook thinking how a lot more positivity could be brought about just by our own actions and how we can always help each other more and consider others. In the village where we live, there was a massive community effort to look out for people struggling that was really uplifting and that seems to have continued, even now.’
‘Along For The Ride’ – “Maybe it’s something to do with getting a bit older but more and more I think about how relatively short life is and how precious it can be. There’s a certain amount of control we have in our lives but so much of what happens along the way is out of our hands altogether. You never know what’s around the corner and it’s how we negotiate this that defines where our life takes us. Live for the moment, do the things you want to do and spend time with the ones you hold close while you can because at any point that could be taken away. As a family, we really try to live by this idea, rather than just talk about it.
“This song became the title track of the album as so much of it is written about life’s experiences, the journey we all take. The album cover really stands out for me – my wife Steph spent a lot of time working on this with one of our favourite artists (Anthony Greentree). There was a tour we were on in Europe and Steph brought a couple of friends along to experience the shows out there. We were all walking down the street, talking and taking photos and when we got back and looked through them, each person had seemed to see something completely different, despite us all being together. There’s always something going on around us. Each one of us have our own thoughts/feelings/experiences and see and feel life in totally different ways. It fascinates me.”
‘World Is Falling’ – This song is directly about the pandemic, the lockdowns, the loss of employment and the sheer chaos and panic that ensued. Again, written during that first lockdown of 2020. I wanted to convey an urgent and desperate feel to it creating a kinda of angst musically so it’s probably one of the heaviest on the album. I didn’t want the album to be a ‘lockdown album’ and it definitely isn’t – most of the tracks were already written and ready before we had even heard about it – however, it’s been such a significant part of people’s lives the past couple of years and definitely a part of this album’s journey, so I decided to include these tracks anyway. There are many stories I could tell you about the efforts to recording this album and the ‘journey’ it has taken… From being kicked out the studio part way through recording, to being allowed to record but still not able to book a hotel or eat out at a restaurant!”
‘Invincible’ – “This song is about friendship. Love and friends. We all have days, sometimes weeks, when nothing seems to go our way. Sometimes it seems as though everything is up against you and you can’t see what’s right in front of you. Sometimes it just takes a bit of perspective from someone else to help you find the reality of where you’re really at and more often than not, nothing is as bad as you think it is. There’s always people around us to hold us up when we feel like we’re gonna fall and I guess the message here is that we’re only human, that it’s okay, and that our friends have really got our backs. We don’t have to deal with it alone.”
‘Made Up My Mind’ – “A relationship of love plagued with problems and deeper issues that never seem to get sorted out. The relationship reaches a climax and it ends but neither can live without the other so they try again and again but it keeps going round in circles.”
‘Masquerade’ – “A story of finally being free from a toxic relationship of control, darkness and deceit. Coming out of it a better and stronger person and seeing it for what it really was. I went for a slightly quirky edge to the music, keeping it pretty lo-fi in places with an old-skool bluesy vibe while still keeping a modern edge to the production.”
‘No One Else But You’ – “I’ve always loved old recordings of blues and soul like Fleetwood Mac or Ray Charles for example. A lot of the live stuff was literally just a few mics capturing a performance and that was the idea here. To try and go down that old style approach of capturing a band playing live in a room and of course this goes right back to my blues roots – a proper chance to rip out on a slow blues but in the most authentic and ‘real’ way we could. A personal song to me lyrically but one everyone can relate to – finding the ying to your yang, the person who you just click with perfectly!!”
‘Eve Part II: Love You To Death’ – “Another song based on the Killing Eve series. Almost like another chapter that digs deeper into the relationship between the two main characters as the series develops. The further into the series they go, the more twisted, bizarre and obsessive the relationship becomes so that meant more menacing music and again using as many quotes and references. The hook line of ‘She’ll love you to death’ is a from a scene with Constantine talking to Eve and warning her against pursuing Villanelle. I really loved this show!”
