It’s taken me ten albums to make it from the living room to the bedroom. The trip was more circuitous than it sounds, with a couple of classic recording studios along the way. Most notably Ocean Way (formerly known as Western) where I got to set up my drums right where Hal Blaine had them for so many beautiful tracks.
The technology today allows independent artists to record at home or wherever they want and still achieve a high level of sonic quality. I am so grateful for that. On one level, I feel bad that many fine studios have gone under and the whole seismic shift in the music business but…hey you can’t hold back or deny the times. So every night that it’s possible, Nancy and I are ensconced in our bedroom studio (The Kit Factory), laying down the various components to another song. No worrying about the clock except for going too late (we live in an apartment after all).
I’d like to thank Nancy for the countless hours she’s put in to this album. Her ingenious skills and musical knowledge never cease to amaze me and I could not have done this record without her.
I also want to thank Tony Lewis who mixed these tracks. He is a major talent and literally molded all the loose ends into the finished blend you hear on this disc.
Finally a big thank you to Alex Saltz for his mastering skills. He is incredibly diligent about finding just the right EQ, compression, limiting and whatever other magic he conjures up to make the music come alive and sparkle.
RXH NYC, 9/13Veteran 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, “The Kit Factory” 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.
“When I was twelve years old,” Richard recalls, “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.”
Richard was one of the first “one man band” 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 “an undiscovered treasure.” All Music Guide called him “perhaps America’s greatest unsung hero of power pop, a songwriter of uncommon talent and intelligence and a one-man rock band without peer,” while the Hartford Courant proclaimed him to be “a true heir to [Brian] Wilson's mantle, amid an ocean of pretenders.” The Chicago Tribune observed, “Heyman creates something fresh from his influences rather than parroting them.” As Rolling Stone then-editor David Wild put it in a piece on Richard’s fourth album Basic Glee, “rock’n’roll doesn’t get any better than this.”
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 age of seven, and was proficient on guitar and piano by his teens. By then, he had already begun writing songs. He has developed a versatile singing voice, which can range from sweet crooning balladeering to balls-to-the-wall rock’n’roll wailing.
Richard was still in junior high school when he achieved his first taste of rock ’n’ roll notoriety as drummer with fabled garage band The Doughboys, whose raucous live sets won them a rabid following in the New York/New Jersey area during the second half of the 1960s. The Doughboys recorded a pair of singles for the Bell label, made multiple appearances on the local TV show Disc-O-Teen (emceed by legendary horror-show host Zacherle), shared stages with the likes of the Beach Boys, the Buckinghams, Neil Diamond and the Syndicate of Sound, and served as the house band at the Café Wha? in Greenwich Village during the summer of 1968.
By the time Richard reemerged as a solo artist in the late 1980s, he’d matured into a singularly distinctive songwriter with an uncanny ability to channel his vintage rock ’n’ roll influences into tunes that are both infectiously catchy and emotionally resonant. Those qualities were prominent on his self-released, home-recorded efforts Actual Size and Living Room!! Both generated considerable critical positive press and music-industry word of mouth, leading to a major-label deal with Cypress/A&M for the re-release of Living Room!! and then with Sire/Warner Bros., which released the widely acclaimed Hey Man! in 1991.
When he hasn’t been writing and recording his own material or working with The Doughboys, Richard has also found time to work with an array of other artists over the years, including several of his musical heroes. He’s played drums behind Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson, seminal guitar icon Link Wray, Left Banke leader Michael Brown and beloved indie troubadour Jonathan Richman. He also served as guitarist in Shangri-Las lead singer Mary Weiss’ band during her recent comeback, and played keyboards with soul legend Ben E. King.
Richard lives in New York City with his wife Nancy.