Troy Redfern discussed new album and announces Sussex concert date

Posted On 21 May 2021 at 5:56 pm

Troy Redfern (pic Haluk Gurer)

Today, the British slide guitarist and singer-songwriter, Troy Redfern, dubbed by the British press as “the king of slide guitar,” releases his new single ‘Waiting For Your Love’. The single is accompanied with an official music video which can be seen HERE.

‘Waiting For Your Love’ is the first single taken from his forthcoming album ‘The Fire Cosmic’ released by RED7 Records on Friday 6th August.

‘Waiting For Your Love’ from Troy

Described by Troy as, “a bombastic, sassy blues rock boogie,” ‘Waiting For Your Love’, is available to stream and download HERE. Pre-order the ‘The Fire Cosmic’ album HERE.

“I really wanted to try and capture the visceral vibe, atmosphere and swagger of this song,” says Troy about the music video for ‘Waiting For Your Love’. “It’s dark, moody and is chock full of rock ‘n’ roll attitude. When we recorded the track at Rockfield Studios we played it totally live to get that raw energy you can only get when you’re all playing at the same time. When we made the video, I wanted a visual representation of three guys in a room sweating it out and hitting it hard.”

Continues Troy, “What you see in the video is a true representation of this band. It’s a no-frills, honest delivery of a ballsy blues boogie. It was also great to feature my ’29 National Triolian resonator guitar used on the actual recording. That beat up old guitar has so much mojo. Darby Todd (Devin Townsend, The Darkness, Paul Gilbert) brought his vintage, acrylic Ludwig Vistalite drum kit along for the shoot. These kits were made famous by the late great John Bonham and sound massive. Darby used this drum kit for the entire album, not only does it sound huge but it looks amazing, we had to have it in the video!”

The new album cover for ‘The Fire Cosmic’

The new album follows five unprecedented albums that Troy released in 2020. It was recorded at the legendary Rockﬁeld Studios in North Wales, the same studio where Queen recorded all their early albums including ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ (1974) followed by ‘A Night At The Opera’ (1975) – the latter featuring the legendary single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

For the recording of the new album, Troy enlisted one of the best rhythm sections in the UK, including the legendary Darby Todd on drums (The Darkness, Martin Barre, Paul Gilbert), virtuoso bass guitarist Dave Marks (Hans Zimmer), and guitarist Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal (Guns ‘N Roses, Asia, Sons of Apollo), in what Troy describes as “the ultimate dream team” what is arguably the British guitarist’s most distinctive and powerful release to date.

Says Troy, “I chose Rockﬁeld Studios because so much of the music I grew up listening to was recorded at this legendary studio (Queen, Black Sabbath, Mott The Hoople). The studio is hallowed ground for every musician, and the rooms there are charged with so much magic and history of all the iconic, classic albums that have been produced there.”

“It was important for me to capture the raw energy of three guys playing live in the same place, at the same time. That’s something that you just can’t get if you’re sending ﬁles from diﬀerent locations, it doesn’t have the same vibe or feel if you do it that way.”

“As soon as we arrived at Rockﬁeld, everyone, including Darby and Dave who’ve recorded all over the world, were excited to be there,” continues Troy. “It’s that kind of place. It has that eﬀect on every musician who records there. Even before we started recording, the energy and vibe was there, which deﬁnitely set the tone for the entire album.”

Troy cut his teeth and reﬁned his style over the last few years, playing festival main stages and blazing a trail across Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia. He’s also become a well-known draw on the UK Blues Rock festival circuit, playing alongside rock luminaries including Robert Plant.

“Troy is a passionate, intense, free-spirited musician whose ferocious slide guitar style twists and turns timeless themes and ideas to his own ends. He’s a musical visionary unafraid to trample on the boundaries of restricting labels,” said Blues Matters Magazine.

The forthcoming studio album is a culmination of everything Troy has learnt so far on his musical journey, and, more importantly, brings into sharp focus a much tighter song-writing and more visceral, muscular production style.

Troy Redfern in action (pic Haluk Gurer)

For production duties, Troy enlisted the Brighton- based producer Paul ‘Win’ Winstanley, best known for his epic rock production style, and whom Troy met and had worked with previously on the 2019 RHR album, Hotel Toledo. Troy and Win bonded immediately, and shared the same musical aesthetic, no nonsense work ethic and dry sense of humour.

Rockﬁeld’s vintage mics, mixing desk, and analogue outboard gear gave Win options to capture the dynamic performances on the album. “It was like being a kid in a candy store,” says Win.

“It was important for the album to sound massive,” says Troy. “It was a much bigger sound than anything that I’ve released before. As soon as we heard the ﬁrst takes in the control, we were blown away. We knew that we captured something special. It sounded fantastic.”

“For the session, Darby Todd brought his vintage Ludwig Vistalite acrylic drums of John Bonham fame. The drums are renowned for sounding massive. Hearing them in one of the best drum rooms in the world, they sounded out of this world! Roger Taylor’s drums recorded for Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack album at Rockﬁeld are some of my favourite drum sounds ever.”

Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal states, “It all starts with the drums, if you’ve got a great drummer, great sounding room, great board, it’s going to sound phenomenal, and it does!”

“I met Ron at a festival in Poland that we were both playing at, we immediately hit it oﬀ,” recalls Troy. “He let me use his signature double neck guitar to play on Anthony Gomes encore set at the festival, that was an absolute blast. He’s such a cool, generous guy. When I returned to the UK, I emailed him to ask if he’d like to play on my new album. He was totally ﬁred up to do it.”

Troy continues, “The album really is a step up. It’s the best album I’ve made. Hiring Rockﬁeld, getting the best players, the best producer – it was a risk, but it paid oﬀ tenfold. I’ve made an album I really couldn’t be happier with.”

“With all the hard work that went into getting this album to sound as great as possible, there was only one option when it came to mastering. I decided to hire Frank Arkwright (Biﬀy Clyro, Oasis, Iggy Pop, Paul Weller, System of a Down). Frank is the senior mastering engineer at Abbey Road Studios. The mastering at Abbey Road added that ﬁnal sheen. Frank did an absolutely amazing job in bringing out every nuance of the recording.”

“When it came to the album artwork, I was originally going to get an artist from Brazil to do it for me, however, I started working on some artwork of my own in the silver age Marvel comics style, based on the four guys that were on the album. I posted a few visuals on the socials and was overwhelmed by the response!”.

“It was a huge kick getting responses from Joe Satriani, Richie Kotzen and my slide guitar hero Denny Walley of Frank Zappa fame. As a result, I created my own comic-style illustrations to package the album.”

Wille & The Bandits

Troy Redfern is heading out on tour next March and April with Wille & The Bandits. The local concert will be at The Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham-by-Sea on Saturday 23 April 2022

Purchase your tour tickets from: www.willeandthebandits.com or from The Ropetackle, but ensure you select the 23rd April 2022 concert tickets as Wille & The Bandits are also appearing at the same venue this coming Sunday 18th July at 2pm and also 7:30pm and Troy is not on the bill on those occasions.