Review Fix Exclusive: Patrick Ames Talks “Hold Me” And More

Review Fix chats with Singer/Songwriter Patrick Ames, who discusses his new single “Hold Me,” off his new album, “The Free Will in Patrick Ames,” as well as his origin in music and goals for 2016. With a 60s-inspired sound and life full of rich experiences, he’s a vocalist you don’t mind getting a story from.

Review Fix: You’ve been so successful in other ventures, why did you decide to jump back into music?

Patrick Ames: Believe me, there are some days when I ask myself that same question. But I think the music thing kind of snuck up on me, bit by bit, you know, you start to play again, and then one day you hear something again, that something professional, and you play a little more, and you hear it again, and you play more, and to be truthful, it’s still sneaking up on me. It’s like: “Oh, I’m a songwriter < long pause > that’s interesting! I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

Review Fix: What singers and songwriters did you grow up listening to?

Ames: Well, I’m the youngest of four boys, the Ames brothers, and my older brothers graduated from high school in the early-1960s, and they listened to the popular music of the day: a lot of early Motown, and rock. My brothers were pretty hip musically, so I was exposed to the Meters, Sam Cook, Otis Redding, Elvis, Johnny Cash, even stuff like Peter Paul & Mary before I became a teenager. Also, the new music was all over television at that time, from American Bandstand to Soul Train. Then, as I came of age in the late sixties and early seventies, it was full-on rock and roll during its classic years — from Dylan to Beatles to Stones, Who, Led Zeppelin, Santana, Cream, all that. I had an acoustic guitar and I was a teenager — music was everywhere. Throw in my mother’s opera singing, and my father who after a shower would dance naked in the living room to Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass — and it was an earful.

Review Fix: What inspires you the most musically?

Ames: Singing. I love those times in a music set when the torch song comes up on rotation and the hooks are built in, the tempo is softer, and everything is in musical order and just waiting for you. And you do it. And because I’ve gotten older over the years, I can get raspy whenever I want to! Man, that is great fun…

Review Fix: How was “Hold Me” written? What’s the story behind it?

Ames: It was written on the night of my son’s 21st birthday. I thought I’d be a good Dad and visit him at his college, and ended up taking him and his circle of friends out to dinner. First they ate like wolves, being free of the campus cafeteria. And then, after a fun dinner, it was, “Thanks! Bye Dad.” And I was all by myself as they went off to be together after an appreciative hug from my son. I went back to the motel room and wrote Hold Me in about an hour.

In the studio, the song was slow-paced. After spending a day experimenting with the meter and rhythm, I dreamt about it, which I often do when I’m in the studio all day in a musical stupor. In my dream, the whole thing was percussion, like Pancho Sanchez gone nuts, and it was exciting, just like how you feel when you hold some one you love. When I woke up and went into the studio, I threw all of the old crap away, and made a much faster, percussive/world beat.

If you go to my website (patrickames.com) and listen to the site’s Music Player, you can hear a slower, and solo, live version, recorded in January 2016.

Review Fix: You’ve been incredibly busy the last half decade, any idea when you’re going to slow down?

Ames: I don’t have the foggiest idea. I know I am driven. And I know that I am driven musically to express myself. But I don’t know why. Perhaps songwriters write and sing in order to figure out why they write and sing, and eventually, when they figure it out, or wear down, the songs stop. That hasn’t happened here, yet.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to influence people?

Ames: I have a strong social conscience when it comes to my music, perhaps a remnant of my early years and the violence and racial division that was so visible in the 1960s and 1970s. I’m afraid of those years returning — and I’m even more afraid of certain elements of those years returning. So I write and sing songs in hopes of preventing that mentality and ignorance from happening again. All the songs on the new LP, “The Free Will in Patrick Ames” are about this principle and that we have the free will to change who we are and prevent the hatred, racial bigotry, and war from coming back.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Ames: I like gigs that I get comfortable in, so that means playing at the same weekly venue, as like an Artist in Residence. I just finished a year’s Artist in Residence here in the San Francisco area. The regulars got tired of me but we got a whole new crowd for the place. Now, I’m looking for a new home and I’ve bee focusing on wine country and Napa Valley. How tough could that be?