Someone Else’s Heart by The Smith Brothers

Someone Else’s Heart by The Smith Brothers is available from Burning Sky Records on the newly released Songs of Squeeze Revisited.

Here’s the story of their recording:

US band The Smith Bros. are one of Burning Sky Records’ favorite bands. They are a great powerpop band from Ohio who write great songs themselves (check out their albums – they are fantastic!), but they also do amazing covers. Their cover of The Posies’ “Golden Blunders” was one of the real highlights on our 2008 release “Beautiful Escape: The Songs of The Posies Revisited” , which was named Top Tribute Album of 2008 by International Pop Overthrow. (You can get a copy of this awesome CD at www.burningskyrecords.com)

Their cover of Squeeze’s “Someone Else’s Heart” might even be better than “Golden Blunders.” Here’s the story behind the track in their own words – enjoy!

SOMEONE ELSE’S HEART – THE SMITH BROS.

Why be part of a tribute to Squeeze?
Squeeze has always been an influence on The Smith Bros. They write clever/quirky pop music that feels timeless – great songs have a way of lasting long past the time period they were recorded. Songs like “Up The Junction”, “Black Coffee in Bed”, “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)”, and “Hourglass” are some of the classics that we have listened to as a band while travelling and have talked at great lengths about our love for Squeeze. Squeeze/XTC/Elvis Costello all had their place in our hearts with their eccentric/clever/quirky pop style, so seeing an opportunity like this was a no-brainer…we had to jump at this opportunity.

Why the song “Someone Else’s Heart”?
We wanted to choose a song that vocally fit Mike’s range really well and capture Colin Blundstone’s influence (The Zombies) vocally on Mike. It’s already a great song, but we felt like we could use some of our influences to put our own thumbprint on the song and give it a vibe and feel of a Smith Bros. song while staying pure to the original version.

What approach did you take to the song?
The Smith Bros have been filtering through different influences while working on our next record. An album that all of us have been listening to a lot recently has been “Odyssey and Oracle” from The Zombies. Our initial approach was to have a vibe & feel like “Time Of The Season”, but Mike suggested a more up-tempo drive/less psychedelic vibe and more pop sensibility based off of Eugene Edward’s song “Congratulations, My Darling”. The band split the difference with Pat taking a backwards guitar solo to still have the psychedelic style to it but stay to the pop sensibilities that the song displayed with some of the drumming style from both The Zombies & Eugene Edwards. The Smith Bros. did wear their influences but also did approach the song in the studio like we composed the piece and added a little bit of our own bag of tricks to the song as well. This was a very rewarding experience working on this great song

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