After Rudy Love & The Encore’s inaugural year, the band is eager and ready for more. Now the band is hitting the ground running in 2024 with multiple new music drops already in the works. First up is the band’s new single, “Grey.” — Hear it now!
The captivating new song is about when all the color of life seems to pale — the morose feeling of heartbreak after young love ends. While love can make life more vibrant, the loss of love can make everything seem muted and bland. The British English spelling of the title is an intentional choice by frontman Rudy Love Jr., who said it came from a Liam Neeson movie titled “The Grey.” The movie is a survival thriller, but because he found it so compelling how Neeson’s character dealt with loss in the story, Love imagined himself as the character when he began to write this song.
The song opens with an almost eery, unmoored sound before quickly flowing into a full, nuanced musical piece. Love layers moog synth lines together to create a synthesized string section effect, similar to how he’d heard Stevie Wonder use TONTO (the world’s largest, most advanced music synthesizer) decades ago. “Grey was inspired by a lot of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs,” says Love, “and my dream is that he hears it someday. My father was a big Stevie Wonder fan, and one of his first assignments for me was to study his music and the way he layered instruments, like a painter adding colors to a canvas.”
Rudy Love & The Encore has a distinct sound and flavor they bring to each original song. They always bring some neo soul & funk into their talented instrumental and vocal offerings, even though the paired styles and genres of their music varies some between songs. While some of their songs have more alt rock heavier tones to them, “Grey” treads lighter in some ways, bringing melancholy angst to the surface. 2024 is already shaping up to be another full year for the band and their music.
“Grey” is available now via Midtopia. Purchase/Stream HERE.
ABOUT RUDY LOVE & THE ENCORE
Rudy Love & The Encore is comprised of Rudy Love Jr. (vocals & keys), Marrque Nunley (drums), Rachelle Love (percussion), Mariel Jacoda (vocals), and Willy Simms (guitar).
While the band members have been playing music together for most of their lives, the band Rudy Love & The Encore wasn’t formally formed and branded until early last year. Rudy Love Jr.’s late father, renowned musician Rudy Love Sr., was a musical mentor to the band members. The band’s name is in honor of Love Sr., based on the idea that this grouping of musicians is Rudy Love Sr.’s legacy — his encore.
In 2023, they released their debut EP, The Beauty of Burdens, followed quickly by another single, “Broken Angel.” Other highlights of their first year include performing and collaborating with Elise Trouw, performing at Black & Loud Fest in Seattle, opening for notable acts like Teddy Swims and The B-52’s, and shows on both coasts and many local scenes in between thanks to their first two tours.
There was a point in time that all the band members were living in Los Angeles pursuing their individual careers in music —sometimes playing and writing music with one another, sometimes not. For all different reasons, though, one by one they all left L.A., taking various paths as they went. Now, in 2024, they’re all living in their hometown of Wichita, Kan. They traded the hyper competitive hustle of the L.A. industry scene, and instead are working together to build a dream they all hold — to make music with people they love, and to share it with the world. On one hand, they’ve been at this for a long, long time. On the other, they’re just getting started.
Website | Spotify | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Jason Price founded the mighty Icon Vs. Icon more than a decade ago. Along the way, he’s assembled an amazing group of like-minded individuals to spread the word on some of the most unique people and projects on the pop culture landscape.
