Rich Austin's new album Live To Fight Another Day is out today, and the title track is the single.
The song is a co-write with the filmmaker Chris Watney – the 2 of them were behind National Heroes Shine, which the BBC used for the NHS's 75th anniversary, and Rich also did the soundtrack for Chris's documentary Brothers in Football, which was shown on ITV and TNT Sports. That film did well in Brazil, and they were all set to go to the premiere in São Paulo in 2020, with Rich due to play to a crowd of 50,000 – then Covid happened (of course) and the trip was cut short. So they came home and started writing together instead, and that's where this album came from.
The press release calls it a pop/rock anthem about getting through the bad days, written from real life and building up to a big "keep going" chorus. It was produced by Adrian Hall, who has worked with Tori Amos, Shakira and The Black Eyed Peas. What I liked about it is the looseness of the performance, which gives the song a lot of character – it doesn't sound over-rehearsed at all, it sounds lively and natural and really quite human, which makes a nice change!
His first album, Memories Forever, was produced by Jordan Fish (Ed Sheeran, Bring Me The Horizon), and he's shared stages with Newton Faulkner, Smokey Robinson and Imelda May. Gaby Roslin apparently called his songwriting "Genius", and Badly Drawn Boy is a fan too.
The thing I like the sound of most though is his side project of squashing whole albums into 3 minutes – he's done it with Oasis' (What's The Story) Morning Glory? and The Beatles' Abbey Road, and performed the idea live on BBC local radio:
- Morning Glory in 3 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB3y5hvAhOM
- Abbey Road in 3 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWOanWOdkdA
Rich also gives a share of his gig money to Tonic Music, a music and mental health charity: https://www.tonicmusic.co.uk/
Listen to Live To Fight Another Day here: https://s.disco.ac/hfvlmsymehaq