The music started as a late-night thought in Hearn’s dwelling studio, a easy, heartfelt love music paired with a soulful piano development. Impressed by the spirit of early rock and roll and basic vocal teams like The Drifters, The Temptations, and The Fleetwoods, Hearn envisioned a monitor that captured the enjoyment and marvel of feeling love in a few of its many various varieties.
To carry that imaginative and prescient to life, Hearn invited The Persuasions to affix him in New York Metropolis, the place they recorded their vocals dwell off the ground. Their unmistakable harmonies impressed the music’s ultimate title, “Love Is The Key”. Extra contributions got here from celebrated drummer Tony “Thunder” Smith (Lou Reed), bassist Dean Dinning (Toad the Moist Sprocket), and JUNO-winning producer Eric Ratz, who helped form and blend the ultimate recording at Noble Road Studios in Toronto.
The Persuasions’ Dave Revels shared, “We felt a kinship with Kevin from the day we met so a few years in the past. It has solely strengthened by time. When he launched us to this lovely music and requested if we might sing on it, the reply was an instantaneous sure! We’re grateful to be part of his musical journey.”
A pivotal second got here when Hearn shared the monitor with Andy Kim, whose timeless basic, “Sugar, Sugar”, is referenced within the second verse. Fairly than merely providing his blessing, Kim enthusiastically joined the undertaking, lending his unmistakable voice and presence.
“I believed I ought to ship the music to Andy, and hopefully, get his blessing,” shares Hearn. “I included a observe saying ‘I hope you get a kick out of this Andy’. To my amazement, he wrote again saying he cherished the music and would like to sing it! We went again into the studio, amended the lyric, and as soon as once more, the music
was taken to a different stage. Andy singing it was really the cherry on high.”
Andy Kim provides, “Now and again you hear a music that owns you. The melody and lyrics are timeless. ‘Love is the Key’ is Kevin Hearn’s infinite journey to like’s non secular awakening. I’m perpetually grateful to sing this music with music’s everlasting energy, The Persuasions.”
Hearn just lately earned a JUNO Award nomination for “Album Art work of the Yr” for Basement Days, a group of unearthed recordings from the Nineteen Eighties, created together with his delightfully offbeat highschool band, The Glacials.
About Kevin Hearn:
A gifted composer, in-demand collaborator, and ever-active musical power with zero curiosity in inventive stagnancy, Hearn lower his tooth collaborating with the likes of Look Individuals, and revered art-rock outfit Rheostatics earlier than formally becoming a member of Barenaked Women in 1995. Because the group’s profile swelled within the ensuing years, he explored new sonic floor with a sequence of progressive and imaginative solo albums. One of the revered and sought-after Toronto musicians of the previous 30 years, Hearn’s initiatives all the time entice good collaborators together with Violent Femmes, Gord Downie, Laurie Anderson, Garth Hudson, Ron Sexsmith, Dan Hill, Michael Ray of the Solar Ra Arkestra, Carole Pope, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Alan Doyle, The Persuasions, Violent Femmes, Colin Hay and drummer Rob Kloet (the Nits).
One in all his most rewarding inventive and private relationships of all was with the legendary Lou Reed, for whom Hearn acted as musical director and keyboardist from 2007 till his passing in 2013. Hearn was inducted into the Canadian Music Corridor of Fame in 2018 as a part of Barenaked Women. He launched his ninth album, the fascinating and compelling Calm and Cents, which was nominated for Instrumental Album of the Yr on the 2020 JUNO Awards. Hearn additionally re-released his complete solo catalogue, which dates again to 1997’s debut Mothball Mint, and included a primary time digital launch of the sold-out 2019 File Retailer Day Canada undertaking Kevin Hearn & Associates Current: The Superhero Suite, nominated by the JUNO Awards for Album Art work of the Yr. Hearn’s earlier album with Hugh Marsh, Dreaming Of The 80s, is a group of the last decade’s classics hits and deep cuts reimagined in Marsh and Hearn’s uniquely atmospheric and ethereal sonic setting.
