Premiere: Chris Wilcox – ‘Songs for Myself’ EP

This morning, Chris Wilcox released a new four-track EP, Songs for Myself. The EP features two new songs, and two that were previously released as singles (“Drive” and “Captiva”). Chris recorded the tracks with Matt Zutell of Coast Records here in Charleston, with whom he is also working on a full-length album that will be released in the near future. The tracks were mastered by Matthew Garber at For The Record Mastering.

The first of two new songs on Songs for Myself is “You Have Me”, which Chris had initially written a while back but couldn’t quite figure out how he wanted it to sound. The song came alive in the studio when Paul Chelmis added some keyboard magic, bringing a piano ballad feel that builds to a crescendo as the song progresses. I have to say that a good buildup is one of my favorite things in music, and “You Have Me” completely satisfies in that regard.

Next up we have “Every Time”, which is a simple song as far as lyricism goes. This lyrical simplicity allowed for some experimentation production-wise, and they ran with that during the recording process. Dries Vandenberg brought out his pedal board and gave the song an ambient feel that helps foreshadow what’s to come from the upcoming full-length.

The title for this EP comes from the mindset that Chris found himself in after meeting with several major publishers in Nashville, who mostly told him that his sound didn’t fit their “formula”. The suits told him that his songs were too long, too chordsy, and just didn’t work for them. Instead of cutting back his sound to fit inside their box, Chris used their rejection as fuel for his creative fire and came up with Songs for Myself.

Listen to the new EP below.