Rock and blues guitarist and singer Garret T. Willie is thrilled to release his title track off his debut album Same Pain to be released on September 15th.
The title track has Johnny Cash vibes that draw the listeners in. Previously to “Same Pain” Garret released his first yearning blues-rock single “Love Hangover” and then his deep-meaning ballad “What It Means To Me.”
Garret says, “I wrote that while I was in Vancouver and it’s actually the first song that Parker and I wrote together. I was going through a breakup at the time and I thought I was fine and ‘It is what it is’ and all that, but I remember sitting on the edge of the bed and starting to well up a little bit and reaching back to where she used to be when she was with me and feeling that empty space and thinking about her, so I picked up the guitar and started coming up with this chord progression, writing these lyrics to that progression while thinking ‘Well, I’ve had this pain before. This is the same pain with a different face.’
In support of his new music he will be touring all year around. See all tour dates below.
Garret T. Willie is an old soul masquerading as an uncommonly wise, weathered, witty and world-weary 23-year-old and he’s about to give rock ‘n’ roll a formidable 21st -century kick in the ass. Garret T. Willie hails from Kingcome Inlet, off the coast of British Columbia but while Willie’s back story also gives him more right than most to sing the blues – and at heart, Garret T. Willie is a rock ‘n’ roller – he’d rather that not be the whole story.
Willie is the personification of an open book in the lyric sheet to his upcoming debut record Same Pain. What he offers the world is something it has genuinely been missing for awhile: a contemporary take on hardscrabble blues and the purest and rawest rock ‘n’ roll to follow its teachings thereafter.
He’s studiously schooled in all the right source material, from Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King and Muddy Waters to Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to The Rolling Stones, Ten Years After, AC/DC, Stevie Ray Vaughan, George Thorogood and everyone else who’s carried the torch into the present, with a little Johnny Cash and Hank Williams thrown in for some outlaw-country flavour on the side.
And that’s why, on Same Pain, Garret T. Willie can not only really rip it up on the guitar, but also with the gut-busting honesty of someone who understands that if you ain’t lived it, you shouldn’t sing it. At least that’s the way it is for him.
Garret T. Willie has absolutely no interest in emulating the musical past, emulating his heroes. His interest is only in channeling every ounce of the classic blues and rock ‘n’ roll he venerates so deeply into something new. Bringing it into the now, hustling it towards the future and maybe leaving his signature on the wall for a few of the bored kids to follow in his footsteps.
Tour Dates
August 18 – Chetwynd, BC – Sakawinow Music Festival
August 26 – Victoria, BC – Harbour Blues’n Roots Fest
September 15 – Rossland, BC @ Between the Peaks Festival