“I was listening to a lot of Dusty Springfield and a lot of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles,” says The Explorers Club’s Jason Brewer of the Nashville-via-Charleston retro-pop outfit’s new single, “One Drop of Rain,” which premieres below with a throwback lyric video.
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“I wanted to kind of capture the energy of some of those recordings—especially some of the more upbeat Smokey and Dusty moments,” Brewer tells American Songwriter. “I kind of thought how Smokey would use different little phrases, simple phrases to describe something about tears, like tracks of my tears and tears of a clown, so I felt like ‘one drop of rain’ would be kind of a cool little Smokey vibe for the song.”
The track opens with a string of sunny directives: “Pack up your rain clothes / and open your windows / go take a walk outside,” Brewer sings before the song transforms into a vibrant sunshine pop number with disco flourishes. “One drop of rain / is not gonna make her stay / so save the tears / they’re not gonna stop her this time,” Brewer belts in the final chorus over sweeping instrumentation and soothing backing vocals.
“I went to my co-writer Emeen [Zarookian] and had him kind of come up with some different ideas that we could put together for the lyric that went along with that [Smokey vibe] and we got a real simple yet effective set of lyrics,” says Brewer of the track. “It’s about no matter how much you cry and how much you bring the drama it may not bring back the result you want. You have to keep moving forward and love harder.”
“One Drop Of Rain” nods to some of Brewer’s biggest influences. “For the production I tried to blend those Motown vibes with some Buckinghams and a few other ‘60s sounds I love so much,” he explains. “It was so much fun recording this at Columbia studio A. The vibe of the studio that day brought out some great energy on the track. The piano part on the end sort of is an audio imagination of sudden rainfall. It’s like those tears are going to flow so you can move on.”
“One Drop of Rain” comes after the Explorer Club’s latest originals “Look to the Horizon” and “Ruby,” as well as covers of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight” and Frankie Valli’s “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore.” The former tracks will appear on the Nashville band’s forthcoming self-titled album, while the latter will appear on To Sing And Be Born Again — a collection of ‘60s covers that were originally written or performed by The Turtles, The Zombies, The Lovin’ Spoonful, and others. Both records arrive next month following 2016’s Together, 2012’s Grand Hotel, and 2008’s Freedom Wind.
“The album as a whole just really has this very loving and lush vibe we captured at Columbia studio A,” says Brewer of The Explorers Club. “A lot of passion and inspiration was put into the composing and arranging of the entire record and I hope the sounds translate that for the listener.”
“One Drop of Rain” is out May 29. The Explorers Club and To Sing And Be Born Again are out June 12.
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