Whitney Announce Covers Album, Share Cover of The Roches’ “Hammond Song”

News
All

Whitney Announce Covers Album, Share Cover of The Roches’ “Hammond Song”

Candid Due Out August 14 Via Secretly Canadian

Jul 16, 2020 By Samantha Small and Julian Roberts-Grmela The Roches

Last year, Whitney (Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek) released their beautiful sophomore album Forever Turned Around. Now, they’re coming back with something a little different: a covers album titled Candid. They have shared its new single, a cover of The Roches’ “Hammond Song” (from their 1979 eponymous album). The album comes out August 14 and covers artists all across the map including Kelela, David Byrne, John Denver, SWV, and more. Whitney selected the songs for Candid that were their “favorites,” but also “fell outside of their musical comfort zone” because they wanted to “challenge themselves,” according to a press release. Listen to The Roches cover below, followed by a complete track list.

The track is a gorgeous rendition of the classic song from the folk-rock sister trio, albeit it is missing a lot of quirky harmonies, but it does have some. With lax guitar, classic-Whitney trumpet solos, slide solos, and soaring melodies, the song makes you feel nostalgic for something you never had.

In a press statement, the band explains how they wanted to explore outside of their musical comfort zone. “This could’ve been as simple as saying we really love these songs and we love our bandmates and making a covers record just felt right but it truly became an exploration into how we can evolve as a band going forward,” says drummer and singer Julien Ehrlich.

Ehrlich then continues stating how he discovered the semi-obscure track.

“We both discovered ‘Hammond Song’ because Chris Coady sent it to us years ago as a reference for recording when we were making the last Smith Westerns record. It became a song that was always around for us and then we showed it to the rest of the band. This cover is the longest Whitney recording ever and pretty much everything you hear on it is totally live, save for the horns and the slide solo,” he says.

Recently, the band covered John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Road” with Waxahatchee’s Kate Crutchfield, as well as SWV’s “Rain.”

About this time last year, Whitney released Forever Turned Around. “Giving Up” was one of our Songs of the Week, as well as “Valleys (My Love)” — it was our #1 for that Songs of the Week, in fact. Not to mention “Used to Be Lonely,” was also one of our Songs of the Week. If you couldn’t tell, we seemed to like that album—just a little bit.

Forever Turned Around is Whitney’s second album, the follow-up to 2016’s debut album, Light Upon the Lake.

Read our My Favorite Album interview with the band.

Read our review of Forever Turned Around.

Read our 2016 interview with Whitney about Light Upon the Lake. Plus read our review of Light Upon the Lake.