X

Veteran singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and DIY recording pioneer Richard X Heyman will be releasing X, his 10th solo album this fall. As on past efforts Richard performs all vocals and instrumental tracks and produced himself. Recording took place in his home studio, quot;The Kit Factoryquot; in New York City, with his wife Nancy Leigh engineering, excepting drum tracks which were recorded at Eastside Sound and engineered by Eric Elterman. The new album will be released in September 2013 on Turn-Up Records. On X Richard once more proves himself a world-class artist whose effortless mastery of popular music idioms is matched by his uncanny knack for infusing classic styles with timeless emotional truths. For example, on the new album, the track The Difference Between Us is a conversation between two parties; one has already made up their mind about this relationship and the other is still trying to rationalize it. quot;The funny thing is,quot; notes Richard, quot;the name of this album is 'X' which is my middle name (for real); it's also the Roman numeral 10 (it's my tenth album), while 'ex' is what we call past partners and lovers. The music on Difference is slightly inspired by Little Feat, with a nod to Bill Payne's piano style and Richie Hayward's drumming.quot; When Denny Dropped Out of the Scene is about the phenomenon known as FFS - i.e., Fading Friend Syndrome...that person who was part of your peer group whom you'd see whenever the gang got together, then gradually they show up less and less, then they're gone - no falling out or explanation: friendship terminated. quot;The song was written on piano,quot; Richard states, quot;but it's played on guitar. OK, many guitars.quot; quot;When I was twelve years old,quot; Richard recalls, quot;I formed a band with my friend Mike Caruso. We started out playing instrumentals by the Ventures and, as the British Invasion hit our shores, we evolved into what is now referred to as a garage band called the Doughboys. We covered songs by the Stones, Kinks, Animals and Yardbirds, among others. Like many young bands, we simply couldn't pull off the Beatles songs! I now tend to write more toward the melodic pop side of rock, but I recently wrote a more garage-y song for myself called Compass. As on most of the songs on this album, the subject matter is a bit on the dark side. I think a lot of us are feeling a little lost these days for a variety of reasons.quot; Richard was one of the first quot;one man bandquot; recording artists, following in the grand tradition of Paul McCartney, Emitt Rhodes and Todd Rundgren. His abilities have won him a fiercely loyal grass-roots fan base and reams of acclaim over the past two and a half decades. Critical praise began with the release of Richard's first album Living Room!! which Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed quot;an undiscovered treasure.quot; All Music Guide called him quot;perhaps America's greatest unsung hero of power pop, a songwriter of uncommon talent and intelligence and a one-man rock band without peer,quot; while the Hartford Courant proclaimed him to be quot;a true heir to [Brian] Wilson's mantle, amid an ocean of pretenders.quot; The Chicago Tribune observed, quot;Heyman creates something fresh from his influences rather than parroting them.quot; As Rolling Stone then-editor David Wild put it in a piece on Richard's fourth album Basic Glee, quot;rock'n'roll doesn't get any better than this.quot; The lifelong passion for music is what's driven Richard since his days growing up in Plainfield, New Jersey. He began playing drums at the ag