Eddie Japan and Greg Hawkes rev up a cinematic-pop ‘Time Machine’
Eddie Japan and Greg Hawkes rev up a cinematic-pop ‘Time Machine’
The Boston band and Cars legend unveil new music video on April 5
UNLISTED PREVIEW: Watch the ‘Time Machine’ video on YouTube
Eddie Japan’s new album ‘Pop Fiction’ set for April 28 release on Rum Bar Records
OUT NOW: Listen to ‘Time Machine’ on Spotify
EDDIE JAPAN ASSETS FOLDER x RUM BAR RECORDS BANDCAMP
BOSTON, Mass. [April 5, 2023] – The music of Eddie Japan has always existed in the spaces in between. It’s the elegant noise and cinematic melody that thrives in the slashes that bind genres together, allowing the celebrated Boston band to elicit a spectrum of genres – new wave, pop-rock, glam, indie, art-pop, romo, that new sound that has yet to have a name – over the course of one tightly-knit pop song. So it makes sense that the septet, set to release new album Pop Fiction via Rum Bar Records on April 28, have detailed a new single and video swirling around the idea of simply being elsewhere.
In this case, it’s “Time Machine,” a collaboration with Greg Hawkes of The Cars that hits the streams Friday, March 24, ahead of the official video premiere on Wednesday, April 5. The kaleidoscopic single aches and turns with weathered urgency and sharp sophisti-pop acumen, buoyed by the unmistakably recognizable efforts of Hawkes on synthesizer. Taking The Cars’ electronic-pop backbone and applying it to Eddie Japan’s seductive style of sound is an inspired pairing, and “Time Machine,” which follows last month’s ambitious “Walk Away” single, acts as the final aural appetizer before Pop Fiction and its loose libretto arrives next month.
“The song is about trying to get back to that early stage of a relationship when everything is magical – the rush of new love,” says Eddie Japan vocalist and songwriter David Santos. “It’s sort of the flip side, thematically, to the first single ‘Walk Away,’ wherein the relationship is coming to an end. The male character in the song/relationship realizes the error of his ways and wishes he could start over via time travel, figuratively speaking. We’ve probably all wished we had a time machine for one reason or another.”
It’s easy to listen to “Time Machine” and be transported with Hawkes back to The Cars’ ‘80s heyday, and assume that this pairing is a blip and a beep on both the band’s and artist’s radar. But for Eddie Japan, who have taken the stage with Hawkes to perform the music of The Cars, with an upcoming show at Daryl's House on April 29 in the New York town of Pawling, the collaboration was the perfect tonic to enhance a career that’s already experienced highs at home and afar, from winning the 2013 Rock and Roll Rumble in Cambridge to bringing 2015 single “Albert” into homes across the globe through Rock Band 4 (allowing the single to rack up more than 1 million plays on Spotify). Hawkes produced the band’s prior album, 2017’s Golden Age, and has now essentially become part of the Eddie Japan family.
“In short, it’s been a fantastic thing for the band,” Santos says of the collaboration. “The shows we do with Greg playing the music of The Cars require quite a bit of attention to detail. On the surface, Cars songs may seem like fairly straight-ahead pop songs, but there are lots of tricky bits embedded into just about every track. There is an effortless sophistication to everything they did, and so we take getting that right very seriously. It’s made us a better band. And being able to collaborate with Greg on our own music, and then to have him appear in a video, it’s like a musical Christmas morning every time he’s in the room. He’s also just a lot of fun to be around.”
Hawkes’ personality comes shining through the screen in the “Time Machine” music video, filmed by Paul Tierney and Joan Hathaway, edited by Jon Downs, and shot at Hanover’s eXpozedTV Studios for the performance footage and at 186 Haunted Basement in Watertown for the thematic storyline. The location for the latter was designed and constructed by drummer Chuck Ferreira at his Watertown residence, a local hotspot for annual Halloween parties, and stars the Lipstick Criminals, who not only brought Santos’ idea to life in the live performance scenes (equal parts Rocky Horror, Grease, and Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” video) but also served perfectly as Hawkes’ mischievous lab assistants.
“While the idea of the time machine is figurative in the song, we thought it would be fun to make it literal in the video, and have Greg play a character,” Santos notes. “In some of The Cars videos, Greg added a bit of comic relief, and knowing that he also likes to go all-out on Halloween, we felt he would be into playing the part of the mad scientist. And speaking of Halloween, Chuck is a Halloween fanatic, and every year, he and his partner Natasha create a haunted house for the public in their basement. Last year’s theme just happened to be a spooky science lab, so with a few tweaks, Chuck was able to create an amazing set.”
Whether a literal “Time Machine” from the video or the figurative “Time Machine” in the single, both have the ability to transport. And as the viewer and listener travels from one place to the next, real or imagined, they just may encounter Eddie Japan along the way.
Eddie Japan is:
Eric Brosius: Guitars
Emily Drohan: Vocals
Chuck Ferreira: Drums and percussion
Bart LoPiccolo: Guitars
Charles Membrino: Bass
Aaron Rosenthal: Keyboards
David Santos: Vocals
With Greg Hawkes: Synthesizer
‘Time Machine’ single artwork:
‘Time Machine’ credits:
Words and music by David Santos
Recorded, mixed, and produced by Eric Brosius at ‘A Secret Location’ in Arlington, MA
Arranged by Eddie Japan
Time Machine music video:
Cameras: Paul Tierney and Joan Hathaway
Editor: Jon Downs
Lab set design and construction: Chuck Ferreira
Greg Hawkes: Dr. Hawkes
Jane Doe: Lab assistant, dancer
Honey Pie: Lab assistant, dancer
Maggie Maraschino: Lab assistant
Eddie Japan: Themselves
Performance footage shot at eXpozedTV Studios in Hanover, MA
Lab scenes shots at 186 Haunted Basement in Watertown, MA
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Recent media praise for Eddie Japan:
“[Greg] Hawkes and Eddie Japan rocked. Yeah, they synth-rocked, too – that’s Hawkes’ forte – but there was appropriately blistering electric guitar from Eric Brosius and Bart LoPiccolo and thundering, precise rhythm from drummer Chuck Ferreira and bassist Charles Membrino. Hawkes, whose position in The Cars was to the side, stage left, was on the front line, joining singers David Santos and Emily Drohan. It’s not that this meant it was excessively synth-heavy; it meant Hawkes – yes, the name brand in the band – was in prime position to step out and reminisce and sporadically tell Cars tales.” _Rock N Roll Globe
“Leave it to Eddie Japan to come back into our lives with a single titled “Walk Away.” But the Boston band is certainly no stranger to musical juxtapositions, existing with a certain elegance and class deep within our usually grimy garage rock city.” _Vanyaland
“With The Amorous Adventures of Edward Japan, the band Eddie Japan has created an interesting bit of metafiction, crafting a musical narrative around a character with the same name as the band and using him as a lens to examine middle-aged lust and adultery, divorce and suburban malaise. Interestingly, Eddie Japan, the character, is richly realized, and manages to be simultaneously sympathetic and a little unlikable. This dichotomy gives the songs a sense of realness, and gives Eddie’s descent a sort of palpability.” _Worcester Telegram
“Greg Hawkes is the keyboard genius behind those revolution synthesizer bleeps, blips, whirs and whooshes in ‘Magic’, ‘Moving in Stereo’ and every other Cars song. Eddie Japan is Boston’s best live band (according to both the Boston Music Awards and Rock n’ Roll Rumble). Together the rock legend and local new wave/new romantic/glam rock/indie pop band do your favorite Cars classics.” _Boston Herald
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Eddie Japan bio:
Eddie Japan is perhaps the most elegant band to emerge triumphant from Boston's rough and tumble Rock n' Roll Rumble, a musical ensemble that feels as comfortable to listen to while sipping champagne at some Great Gatsby flashback party as they do while chugging a beer at a dingy rock club. The band is, at its heart, an exercise in contrasts and time travel. To listen to Eddie Japan is to be transported somewhere else entirely.
Take, for example, the band's 2015 single, “Albert,” with its smooth, plaintive vocals and big band horns scorching a desert heat-induced mirage of hearing the band play Rick's Cafe in Casablanca. It's a richly layered song that feels ripped from time, and yet sits strangely comfortably in the roster of the game Rock Band 4, alongside tracks by the likes of Rush, Soundgarden and fellow Bostonians Aerosmith and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, among numerous others. It's the band's best trick: Feeling both classic and fresh, feeling unique and yet fitting well with an eclectic combination of artists.
Perhaps this unique quality is what lends the band so well to time travel: The band has shared the stage with acts such as Midge Ure and The Fixx, and toured with Martha Davis and The Motels, but most recently has made a mark backing Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes playing the band's classic hits, such as “You Might Think,” “Moving in Stereo” and “Since You're Gone.” Seeing Eddie Japan in this mode is, on the one hand, a transformation, the band easing into the role of new wave-era rockers with a sort of naturalness, but they also remain very much themselves at the same time, riding on vintage style, gorgeous vocal harmonies and an effortless sense of rock n' roll cool, both timeless and a band out of time.
Eddie Japan’s 2019 EP The Amorous Adventures of Edward Japan, played with heat and light in ways that captured joy, lust and what's revealed in the absence of shadow, especially on songs such as “Summer Hair” and “The Dandy of Suburbia.” Those tracks, combined with a handful of new compositions, including last fall’s “Walk Away” and March’s “Time Machine,” will be featured on the band’s latest album, Pop Fiction, set for April 2023 release via Rum Bar Records.
In short, Eddie Japan is not so much a band as an adventure, one which might have you dancing under the stars in a faraway land, or leave you broken in an alleyway past midnight, but which is never, ever dull.
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