THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The 11-track Radio Astro is the work of rockers who are seasoned beyond their years and live up to their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lineage with a strand of that DNA they can truly call their own.
The sons of Creedence Clearwater Revival mastermind John Fogerty have been working under the Hearty Har moniker since 2012, honing their crafts as songwriters and studio hands into a fully formed enterprise. Radio Astro shows off the brothers’ wide-ranging musicality; diversity while capturing an identifiable core sound from sibling chemistry. And plenty of hard work.
“We both really like to record and be in the studio,” Tyler says. “We’ve spent a lot of time experimenting and honing and learning how to use everything. Our whole thing is ‘Let’s just make good-sounding records and songs.” Shane adds that, “I feel like we’re constantly chasing something new and something exciting, trying to find sounds and trying to expand what we’ve done so far and always trying to elevate it. I think that’s the goal and what we’re trying to follow.”
With Tyler and Shane writing on their own, and two tracks composed together, the set kicks off in the garage-rock lava-lamp shimmer of Radio Man 56 — and over the course of the album, Hearty Har run a gamut from the psychedelic blues of One For the Other to the gritty, Stax-flavored soul of Calling You Out, the Brit-pop nods of Don’t Go Looking For Me and Get Down, touches of Middle Eastern in Fare Thee Well and a sprawling instrumental, Canyon of the Banshee, that lets the group “kind of flex our muscles,” according to Tyler.
Part perfectionists and part mad scientists, Tyler and Shane acknowledge they’ve discarded more ideas than they’ve taken to completion over the years. The songs that meet those exacting standards share a timeless urgency. You can imagine hearing Can’t Keep Waiting or Don’t Go Looking For Me or Get Down or Scream and Shout! at Woodstock — or Lollapalooza. And there’s openness in many of the arrangements that would have man a remixer licking their chops over. “I just hope people love it and appreciate it,” Shane says. “I feel like the music speaks for itself, and when people hear it they’ll understand.”
