Angela Perley has been tracking sales of 4:30 like a proud parent monitors a newborn’s growth, curious whether the 70% male audience so far for the album will hold, whether the sale demographics will translate into tour audiences, and eager to glean whatever other information she can. She says she feels she’s been working on the album “for years,” but in a good way. It’s clearly been a labor of love.
Perley says that Angela Perley & the Howlin’ Moons had fulfilled their two-record deal with Vital Companies with 2014’s Hey Kid and 2016’s Homemade Vision, and she knew it was time to put what she had learned to work. Perley had been watching the recording process closely, taking detailed notes, and felt she “knew how to do it to keep costs as low as possible” while “maki[ng] it in a way to be true to her.” Perley and former Howlin’ Moon guitarist Chris Connor co-produced 4:30, named for her bedtime. Perley says she feels most creative once the world quiets down. She wrote the songs late at night and would bring them to Chris to lay down an electronic drum track. She and Chris would then try them out live with Jake Levy on drums.
Perley and Connor poured their own funds into 4:30 and that got them close, but not quite to the finish line. Perley realized she was approximately $13,000 short of what was needed to complete the final production and post-production work on the album and made the decision to crowd-source the remainder through Kickstarter. The all or nothing approach of Kickstarter’s funding platform made her “nervous” but she did her research and ended up exceeding her goal, raising more than $15,500.
Perley’s careful research and attention to detail can be seen in the amazing musicians she found to bring out the richness of her songs. Friend Patrick Sweany had raved about Nashville keyboardist Robbie Crowell (Kesha, Diamond Rugs) and it “just happened to work out” that the “one time” Crowell had free in January Perley, Connor and Levy were able to travel to Nashville to record. Perley also convinced Andy Carlson (R.E.M., Billy Bragg) to add strings and took the suggestion of Mike Landolt (Maroon 5, O.A.R.) - who mixed the record - to have Dave Collins (D’Angelo, Bruce Springsteen) do the mastering.
4:30, released August 2nd, appears to be getting the praise it deserves. Perley graciously accepts congratulations for the write- up and video premiere of single “Let Go” on Billboard. That article appeared under the tag “Country” and the author Gary Graff described her music variously as “psychedelic garage pop to melodic pop and heartfelt country and Americana.” When asked how she would describe her sound, Perley says she mostly thinks of her music as “rock and roll,” but acknowledges that “it has country elements in there.” She says that she and Connor played at the AmericanaFest the past couple of years in Nashville and “she identifies with that term, too – somewhere in between.”
Perley is less willing to define her songs. When asked about the story behind “Don’t Look Back Mary,” a slow, sad, achingly beautiful poem of a song, Perley will accede only that while there’s “a little of herself in it,” it was “inspired off of a couple of people” and that she “knows a lot of Mary’s”; women who are “a bit broken by some sorts of abuse over the years but still have a beauty and a strength.”
Photo by Mitchell Multimedia
A video for “Don’t Look Back Mary” by Columbus local Amber Thompson will soon be out. That video will join the existing video for the upbeat, rocking song “Let Go,” which Perley admits is her “favorite of the moment” – a “mental check for her to let go of some of the expectations of the music industry and her career.” That video by Dawn Aquarius uses full-on 70’s era Scooby-Doo style psychedelic animation to depict, in a wild tumbling visual feast, a girl listening to the song spin on vinyl, Perley and Connor playing guitars, rabbits spinning, butterflies emerging from chrysalises, and the lyrics “what a wonderful feeling, what a wonderful feeling” spiraling.
With the album’s successful release in the rearview mirror and these promotional efforts underway, it certainly must be a wonderful feeling!