Songwriter Chris Hickey Goes On Kerouac-Inspired Writing Spree

Updated:

September 14, 2009 1:14 pm

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Hickey called his new album a “simple and true reflection of who I am.”

LOS ANGELES, CA — (Marketwire) — 09/10/09 — Singer-songwriter Chris Hickey wrote and recorded a song each day for about three weeks. The result is “Razzmatazz”: 16 songs (featuring “Kerouac”, a salute to the Beat Generation writer who died 40 years ago this October 21st), just vocal and guitar, recorded in his bedroom on a hand-held voice recorder.

“I went with my daughter one day to her church and the speaker was talking about being nice to yourself, doing favors for yourself,” says Hickey. “I thought it was kind of a generic message, but I decided to take his advice, make the trip worthwhile. So, I offered myself some time each day to write and record a song.”

Hickey has been a musician most of his adult life but for the last decade he’s been busy working as a graphic designer, and taking time out for songwriting seemed like a distant luxury.

“The next day,” says Hickey, “I wrote a song, immediately recorded it on a little voice recorder and e-mailed it to my friend, Scott Seskind. I called it the ‘song of the day.’ He liked it and wondered if there would be another song the next day.” And so, with Seskind’s encouragement (“Where’s my song of the day?”), the songs came daily for the next three weeks.

Hickey has released these bedroom recordings on his own Work-Fire Recordings and on his website, www.chrishickey.net — “Razzmatazz” will also be available at Amazon.com and iTunes on September 29th.

“It’s a satisfying thing,” says Hickey. “I think this is my favorite of my records because it’s a simple and true reflection of where I am… in my bedroom, faraway from the record business, and faraway from the art of complication.”

“Escaping reality to go into simplicity is just what I do, except I regard reality as being simplicity.” — Jack Kerouac

Chris Hickey has three previous solo records, was a member of the bands Uma and Show of Hands, and has appeared on records by Joe Henry, Michael Penn, Indigo Girls, and more. He lives in South Pasadena with his wife, singer-songwriter, Sally Dworsky. He has four children. He is 50 years old.