Canadian vocalist Bobby John, twin brothers Tom and James Martin (ex-Vega, Nitrate) and Swedish bassist Dennis Butabi Borg (Cruzh) have joined forces as The Switch, whose debut album, No Way Out, is due out 5th September via Frontiers Music Srl.
“No Way Out has been a labour of love, the listeners are gonna get zapped back to the mid 80’s for a nostalgic trip back to the sound we all fell in love with!” bassist Tom Martin commented.
As evidence of that, the band offer their first single and official video, ‘Danger On The Loose’, “This song is a real summer anthem! It was written on a walk home one day… Like it was sent from above! And we have Paul Laine orchestrating and singing the backing vocals so he adds the final magic,” he continued.
The Martin brothers first heard Bobby singing a song they had written with Eddie LaValle and instantly knew they had to work with him. As keyboard player James Martin explained: “I rang Tom up one morning after hearing Bobby sing and told him that he was our guy – we knew straight away we had the right combination with him.”
The brothers then asked their long-term friend and musical collaborator Dennis Butabi Borg if he’d like to play bass on the entire album and join the group.
Tom Martin said: “It’s the best work we’ve ever been part of: James and I never had complete control of an album with writing and mix, so it’s completely to our taste”.
Butabi added: “I couldn’t agree more, after I’d heard the first demo there was no doubt that I wanted a part of this excellent cocktail of fun, retro vibes that reminds me of growing up in the 80s. It’s like steering a Testarossa in the Outrun arcade machine while chewing Juicy Fruits and cranking music on your Walkman. This is 100% the kind of feel-good album that the world needs in these times”.
Apparently, the album was written with a theme in mind. One where we’re told to imagine a movie coming out in the 1980s that gripped the world the same way 80s classics like “Back To The Future” did, but in a parallel universe. Turn that into a movie called The Switch and it’s about a band that goes on a US tour, and encounters trouble with an underworld mob. In a cruel twist of fate, the band must swap guitars for deadly weapons and end up in the ultimate fight for survival. It was the biggest movie of 1987 and spawned this huge soundtrack which you can hear on No Way Out.
That’s maybe imagination at play, the album itself features the tracks: ‘Danger On The Loose’, ‘Play The Game’, ‘Young Hearts’, ‘Search For Love’, ‘Hangin’ On To Seventeen’, ‘No Way Out’, ‘Young Gun’, ‘One Night With You’, ‘Anytime’ and ‘Strangers Eyes’ – It can be ordered here.
