GOD SAVE THE CITY: Pre Sale orders are available NOW!

What can I say other than the time has finally come to get this music out to the world and NOW is the operative word. “God Save The City” is ready to be ordered, danced to, screamed with, and streamed if you must. Purchasing it is the most helpful form to any artist especially during these insane times. Bandcamp is where all physical copies can be purchased and CD’s are currently available NOW with the vinyl to come later in the month!

Heartbreak Of Fools: Single out now!

Thank you to V-13 Magazine for the premier and review. “Brad Brooks emerges honest & uninhibited with his new single “Heartbreak Of Fools…….”

To say that the release of Brad Brooks’ new studio album, God Save The City, is a massive milestone would be an understatement. This wasn’t exactly an album created under typical circumstances with Brooks facing some daunting personal challenges just as the creative process began to take shape. The Bay Area artist is pleased to be previewing more of what’s to come with the release of  “Heartbreak of Fools,” the third single off of God Save The City which will be officially released on October 23rd.

Towards the beginning of the writing and recording process for the album, Brooks took what he thought was a routine trip to the dentist where it was discovered that he had a cancerous lump in his throat. If that wasn’t frightening enough, the treatment for the tumour had the very real potential of depriving him of his voice. Terrified but determined, Brooks soldiered on and eventually made a full recovery, but the experience certainly left a mark on him both as a person and as an artist.

It all started with watching the classic old movie “Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte” which is a 1964 psychological horror film and It follows a middle-aged Southern woman suspected in the unsolved murder of her lover from decades before, who is plagued by bizarre occurrences after summoning her cousin to help challenge the local government’s impending demolition of her home. In it there’s a line that the legendary Bette Davis says in the movie, “I’m nothing but ruined finery” which just hit me like a lightning bolt. Sometimes songs just need a little spark of a line to set the process on fire, and this one did it for me and was the first song written for the new album “God Save The City.”  I’m always looking to do something that I’ve never done before, and although I have used strings, this time it was done in a more countrified Americana type of song with a beautiful arrangement by Laela Peterson-Stolen. It’s a song that’s like a train that you can see from a mile away that you know is coming but you can’t stop it, but this train has an ear to ear grin on it as it runs you over on purpose, and you think “why didn’t I see this coming?”

This was the first song that I wrote for the record & features an exquisite string part written by Laela Peterson-Stolen (Viola) and features Patty Espeseth (Cello), Pie Fiorentino (Violin, Guitar), Adam Rossi (Producer, Mixer & Keys), Erik Schramm  (Guitar), Andrew Griffin (Drums, Acoustic guitar) & Joey Dibono (Bass). Timothy Galida also helped engineer it and there’s an incredible photo by photographer extraordinaire Mark Kitaoka that captures it all.

So much going on!

God Save Video: The video for the first single “God Save The City” is in the can and will be officially released to the public on 10/23, but if you’ve read through this far then you can actually check it out here in the link above. Edited and put together by the genius of Chris Carlone, this one took some time and effort to not only get everyone together because of Covid, but also to tell the story of gentrification, homelessness, the economic racial divide that exists in the Bay Area, voter suppression, the George Floyd protests, and what we can try and do. It stars all the amazing colors and diversity of the Bay Area and I can’t thank the band enough for their participation, along with special guests Ralph Carney, Dr Grady Lethermon-Bey, Tony Pebbles and the explosion of art that now inhabits downtown Oakland. A big thank you to Jay Siegan for some of his footage along with some from Chris Carlone in Brooklyn NY. We actually started filming some of this 2 years ago and It was inspired by the graffiti wall dedicated to Mike “Dream” Francisco at the 23rd yard “Oakland Wall Of Fame” the TDK crew and all the artists who have transformed downtown Oakland into a world of color and activism after the George Floyd protests. A big thank you to Caleb Aero for his “Aerosol Moses” mural and how it spoke to me. 

American Highways: (Hard Road Premier) 10/19: The documentary video about my year of throat cancer “The Hard Road” is going to be premiered on “American Highways” and I’m very honored that they’re going to be getting that out to a wider audience and hopefully getting the word out about HPV related head & neck cancer. Thank you again to Tommy Rickard, Kari Zanotto, Brian Zalewski, Scott Limanek, Steve Knox & Steve Krespel.

Vents Magazine premiers “Strange Fruit Numb” 10/20 and this is song that needs to be heard and more on this later.

Billboard release date Oct 23rd: These things are kinda fun and turns out that its on between the Boss & Me! It’s the “Bruce & Brad show”

Bob Cesca list of songs:  Also a big thank you to Bob Cesca for playing “God Save The City” and also for all that he does on the podcast. Clockin in at #2!

“All of the songs by the independent recording artists we featured on the  Bob Cesca Show during September 2020 and played here in the same order  they premiered on our Tuesday, Thursday and Friday podcasts”

Sad Bastards club Makeout room: Spent some good time at the Makeout Room last week shooting a small virtual acoustic show for Tom Heyman’s “Sad Bastards Club” along with Tom & Justin Frahm. It will be airing within the next month and you can check out the first one with Peter Case & Paula Frazer!

Cactus Rock Radio: Thank you to the magnificent Holger Schubert for playing “God Save The City” in Germany on his Arizona influenced show!

Rarity Rock Radio: and I’m just extremely excited that on the day of the release on 10/23 that Rarity Rock Radio in Tucson are going to be spending the whole day digging into the record and playing an interview that we did a few weeks ago. Thank you Michael & Cass and can’t wait for that!

Thank you all so much for listening and look forward to the day when we can all go to shows and celebrate life!