Connor Bracken and The Mother Leeds Band deliver their second studio album Nightbird Motel on Friday 25th September.
Two years in the making, the album captures the band’s intent to blend their live show energy with the superior sound of the studio. Having received rave reviews for their debut rock album, The Light in The Day, that was recorded live in the studio on 9th April 2016, they spent the next two years toured the east coast of America, climaxing with 2019’s Wonderful Year live release.
Hailing from Asbury Park, New Jersey, the same stomping grounds as Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Connor Bracken(Lead vocals, guitar), alongside Rich Seyffart (Drums, vocals), Chris Dubrow(Bass, vocals), and Jeff Linden (Guitar, vocals) are primed to over bigger and better this year and beyond.
A raw and exciting Irish American band, they temper bluesy rock with a soul-driven vibe, complimented by husky and cutting-edge vocals.
Nightbird Motel is available to pre-order by clicking here.
The band also has a new single out, ‘Dream Of You And Me’ that’s available here. You can watch the video for it right here at RAMzine.
If you like what you heard, here’s a track by track rundown of the whole Nightbird Motel album by Connor Bracken himself:
WHEN THE WORLD STOPS TURNING: “We wrote this song with the intention of kicking things off for the record. While waiting on the band for the first rehearsal for the album the riff came into my head and felt like a summation of what had been coming out at the time. It makes for a great first kick in the head for Nightbird Motel.”
READ ON YOU: “This is one of the more important songs I have ever written. After writing, ’Read On You’, I knew where I could take the band on this record. I wanted to capture the sound of celebration with a small narrative inside of it. I owe this song a lot.”
DARKNESS: “My attempt at some stream of consciousness or trance writing. This is what came out immediately after writing, ‘Read On You’. The Ying to its Yang. It’s surprising what can come out when you pivot perspectives and let whatever needs to come out onto the paper.”
PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOHNNY CASH: “I wrote this song after getting home after a special night out in Asbury Park, New Jersey. It takes place where I was that night, Danny Clinch’s Gallery on Kingsley. The room was filled with familiar faces and I was really inspired by the town I’ve seen change around me in the past several years. This song is a feeling as well as a story. If the story is true or not, I’ll never tell.”
BLAME ON ME: “Written after a desert trip in Las Vegas. I wanted the album to take a darker turn here. To me Nightbird Motel is the soundtrack to the greatest night you’ll ever remember. This is where the night gets weird and a little dangerous.”
LIQUORSTORE: “Before putting down roots in Asbury Park the band played mostly in the city of New Brunswick,
New Jersey. Most of the music clubs have closed and music has gone underground surviving and thriving in the wild basements of the city’s youth. Liquorstore was the name of a house we played at and while loading in I heard the owner tell a couple of local kids trying to get into the show to ‘Go on back to the liquor store and maybe I’ll let you in.’ I liked that line. After the show, the song wrote itself in about five minutes. It’s a song about having an adventure, fun, ticking together, and finding friendship in that dark and strange night.”
VOICE ON THE RADIO: “While not on the road in a rock and roll band I sometimes moonlight for a late-night talk radio show. If you thought being in a band could be weird, I assure you being on the other end of a radio call-in line is stranger. From stories of alien abductions to the true location of Jimmy Hoffa, I have heard it all, and it got me thinking. There are a lot of people out there in the night driving, thinking, and creating this strange relationship with the disembodied voice coming from their car’s stereo. This is the strangest part of the journey on Nightbird Motel.”
NIGHTBIRD: “Nightbird is one of the songs I am most proud of. It is something completely new for the band and I, and yet it feels like everything we’ve done till now was leading up to it. When I said this album was a journey, I also meant that for myself. I knew there was somewhere we needed to go but I didn’t know where. Nightbird’s the place, and I am happy we found it.”
DREAM OF YOU AND ME: “After finding where we needed to be, and the path we needed to take to get there, we had the album but it needed one last song – the big finale that the band has come to be known for. We reached where we wanted to go, and it was time to put it to bed. ‘Dream Of You And Me’ is a look back on the whole thing and places a big period on the adventure.”
REPRISE: “This is a little reminder of where we started. The first song I wrote for the record. It’s the post credits scene to our movie, and a reminder that we’ll be back real soon.”
