Review Fix chats with Kevin Harrison about his awesome new Sleepwalker project.
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About Kevin Harrison:
Musician Kevin Harrison shifts to an experimental, blues-infused synth-pop style on his new project, Sleepwalker, with his new single “When The Lights Go Down,” out April 25th. Known for his time on the folk-rock scene with bands Broken Compass Society and Kevin Harrison & True North, the Cranford, New Jersey singer-songwriter found a sense of freedom in leaving behind the constraints of the music industry and pursuing new artistic avenues with his latest creative ventures. Sleepwalker is a self-recorded and produced experimental collection of music that he crafted in his home studio with the barest of essentials. The result is a scorching amalgamation of The Black Keys and Imagine Dragons featuring molten blues riffs, fierce solos, and searing vocals that produce a refreshing and highly individualized version of who Kevin Harrison is as a musician.
Sleepwalker’s new single, “When The Lights Go Down,” takes a deeply personal experience and elevates it with a cacophony of atmospheric sound. Originally written over ten years ago, the track didn’t fit into the soundscapes of Harrisons’ previous projects. However, he revisited it during the Sleepwalker sessions and found these new sounds gave it a brand-new life. After stripping away the guitars and allowing an echo chamber of synths, drums, and layered vocals to fill the space, that track reverberated to the heart of the mistrust and emotional turmoil that permeated the lyrical storytelling. A personal songwriter by nature, Harrison taps into dark undertones with a sound that feels like walking down a dark alley with no light at the end. Check out Sleepwalker’s new single, “When The Lights Go Down,” out April 25th, 2024.
Review Fix: What inspired When The Lights Go Down?
Kevin Harrison: A really unhealthy relationship. Thankfully one that ended a long time ago, but went on much, much longer than it should have. I wrote the lyrics more than ten years ago.
“When the Lights Go Down” expresses that awful feeling of knowing, deep down, that all of your distrust and paranoia is completely founded, and yet still struggling to walk away. Whether it’s infatuation, fear, ego, sex, drama, whatever, that’s keeping you there…
Anyone who’s held on too long to something so toxic but somehow so alluring may hear their story in this song.
Review Fix: Why did you wait so long from writing to recording?
Kevin Harrison: I always liked the concept, but the original version of the song never really found a home among my previous projects. I recently stumbled across a video of an early live performance and it’s pretty rough! Just a noisy, all-out guitar rock song from start to finish — zero dynamics or vibe. I’ll have to repost it sometime after the song is released.
When the Sleepwalker sound started to come together, Lights felt like a pretty seamless thematic fit, but a terrible musical fit. So I challenged myself to give the song a radical facelift, and it finally found its home after all this time.
Review Fix: How have you changed as a person and a musician during that time?
Kevin Harrison: For starters, I let go of that relationship. I moved to New York City to become a rockstar. That didn’t happen. But NYC gave me a hard-earned education in music and performing.
And since then, I’ve “grown up” both personally and musically. I got married (she’s way cooler than the song’s antagonist), welcomed two baby girls, stopped being so get-off-my-lawn about “real rock music,” and began exploring new influences and re-engaging old ones.
There is a definite maturation in the way I’ve approached this project. Sleepwalker is music that I wrote first and foremost because I found it fun to write, play, and listen to — not because I think it’s the right angle to keep clawing my way toward some vision of “success” in the industry.
Review Fix: What do you think makes this song special?
Kevin Harrison: As a creator, I take immense pride in this being the first song that I’m releasing under the Sleepwalker name, on which I played, recorded, and produced every bit of music. It has been a pretty incredible creative experience and I think that shows in the output.
And as a listener, this song brings together influences that often overlap in personal playlists, but not in a single track. It seems like blues is only allowed to be hyphenated with rock, but plenty of people who like blues music also like pop, electronic, alternative… “When the Lights Go Down” manages to bring those influences together without sounding like a whacky AI mash-up. It’s Electronic-Blues-Pop-Rock! Let’s create a new Grammy category!
Review Fix: How did your time with Broken Compass Society and your band Kevin Harrison & True North influence you?
Kevin Harrison: I often, self-deprecatingly but mostly honestly, referred to myself as the worst musician in both of those bands. I’ve had the privilege of playing with incredible musicians and friends who opened my eyes to new styles and challenged me to grow as a songwriter, singer, and guitarist.
Those experiences also helped refine the vision of what I did not want Sleepwalker to be. I already had a creative outlet for my bluesy folk-rock songs. And I had access to a hard-hitting rock drummer, a smooth bassist, and one of the best rock n’ roll guitarists I’ve ever heard. So if I wanted to make music like that, I’d call them.
Instead, Sleepwalker allowed me to lean into sounds that would have felt wildly out of step with those bands — or where just the nature of being in a band would have required compromise that I didn’t want to make on this project.
Review Fix: I hear a lot of Imagine Dragons in your sound, but what are some other acts that influence your sound?
Kevin Harrison: OK, so I’m not going to go full Greta Van Fleet, “We don’t listen to Led Zeppelin,” here. But… I honestly haven’t dug into Imagine Dragons’ catalog beyond the inescapable singles.
That said, their blend of electronic and rock music is certainly front and center on this song. MGMT and Nine Inch Nails also fall into that category of influence by osmosis. And Muse would probably be the band in that synth-infused rock landscape that I’ve spent the most time with.
Synths aside, I listened to a lot of Ariel Posen while developing Sleepwalker — he has an incredible knack for balancing restrained rhythm sections with fuzzed-out guitar glory.
Harry Styles’ Harry’s House restored a bit of my faith in pop music (and nudged me back into a Peter Gabriel deep dive).
Tame Impala showed me that one dude alone in a room can make some pretty cool music.
Rayland Baxter reminded me it’s okay to get a little weird while still sounding like yourself.
And Goose’s Dripfield album showed me that focus and some subtle production tricks can transform a cool live song into a great record.
Review Fix: How do you want this track to be remembered?
Kevin Harrison: I hope it’s the start of something special and not, “Hey remember when that folk-rock guy called himself Sleepwalker and put out a weird synth-pop song?”
But part of that maturation in approach I mentioned earlier is recognizing that how — and if — people respond to this music is entirely out of my control.
True North put a ton of time, money, and energy into creating and promoting our 2018 EP, Howl, and the lack of response was, honestly, heartbreaking.
The Sleepwalker stuff is weirder, made on minimal budget, and swaps pro-level musicians for me tapping away on a drum machine and doing my best impression of a bass player and keyboardist. Setting any sort of expectations for a response feels borderline insane.
That said, I think it’s really cool. And I hope others do, too. I’ll settle for folks appreciating it as a bold step out of my comfort zone in pursuit of something new, interesting, and authentic.
Review Fix:What’s next?
Kevin Harrison: More music! Another Sleepwalker single is on the way, with an EP to follow this summer.
In the meantime, I’m already working on the next batch of songs and starting to scheme possibilities for turning this studio project into a live act.
Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?
Kevin Harrison: I’m sure there are thousands of other musicians with genre-bending-and-blending, self-recorded tracks on their hard drives.
My PSA to them: If you have something you’re proud of, release it!
Your song will never feel “done,” your mix will never be perfect, and people may not be clamoring for your AC/DC meets Beyonce vibe. But if you’ve put in the work to make the track as good as it can be, why leave it to languish on your computer?
I’ve been there, and I hope “When the Lights Go Down” inspires you to take the leap.
Review Fix: Where can people find out more?
Kevin Harrison: You can check out www.sleepwalkersounds.com and sign up for my email list to stay in the loop.
And I’m most active on Instagram – @sleepwalkersounds – but you can find me on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, all that good stuff by searching for Sleepwalker Sounds.
Thank you so much for listening!
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