Singled Out: King Dream's Golden Shore

King Dream just released their new album "Glory Days V", and to celebrate we asked mastermind Jeremy Lyon to tell us about one of the track and he selected "Golden Shore". Here is the story:

It's been a seven year journey for "Golden Shore" to see the light of day. Guided by the principle that we are born loving each other before we're taught these constructs to hate one another based on socio-political differences, the song envisions a utopia where we do away with these divisions. "We weren't born with hatred / we were taught it as kids." It's also a song about second chances, be it in life or love. "All that's lost is found / the second time around." For me, back in early 2017, that was getting back together with my girlfriend, now wife, without whom, I have no idea where I'd be.

Musically, I was inspired by the rubber soul of Vulfpeck and funky alternative dance parties of "Midnite Vultures" era Beck. To pull this off, the song needed a falsetto R&B vocal approach, as well as some hip gospel and jazz influenced chord voicings. Back in 2017 I didn't have the chops for either of those techniques. It took a few years of honing my head voice and gigging out with more seasoned veteran musicians to develop the tools necessary to even attempt to pull this song off.

Fast forward to lockdown 2020 living with my wife, Caitlin, and her band, Rainbow Girls, and their partners, one of whom was my old friend Lorenzo Loera of The California Honeydrops. Lo and I had been close friends for the past decade, jamming together whenever he wasn't on tour, but had yet to collaborate on a track. He'd come over late at night, play bass and piano, and we'd lay down deep cuts from my catalog rarely broached by the psych/rock centric live outfit I perform with. Out of the four or five tracks we laid down on my Tascam 388 tape machine, "Golden Shore" was hands down the pick of the litter.

We transferred the tape to ProTools, and sent it to some of my favorite musicians and collaborators who had quickly gotten their home studios dialed during lockdown. Cody Rhodes laid down drums and congas on top of the drum loop we'd programmed, Pat TuGlynn added his signature soulful twinkling organ and Marcus Stephens of Con Brio wrote a killer 3 part sax arrangement that wove perfectly between the vocals and keys. Caitlin sweetened the track with some heavenly high harmonies.

My closeness to "Golden Shore" deepened when this song became a vehicle to learn the dark art of mixing from Jonathan Kirchner (also of Con Brio). So many musicians from our community turned to him to learn how to continue to be creative and self-sufficient in the studio whilst quarantining. I must have poured a hundred hours into mixing this track through dozens of lessons over Zoom, staying up all night working on mix revisions, thinking so many times I was done, only to find something wrong, go back, and tweak it. This song encapsulates what (hopefully) was a once in a lifetime occurrence where the world shut down, and I had all the time in the world, as an adult, to learn a craft and apply it to my own music. If I was to make this track today, it would come out totally different, even though there's nothing about it that I'd change.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here

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