Henry Lees Unlocks a Summer Peace and Love Party with “Free This Love”
Over the years, we’ve heard that love is the answer, the drug, can build a bridge, lifts us up where we belong, is endless, a crazy little thing and is, of course, all you need. Most certainly, this highest of emotions is at its best when it’s shared as far and wide as possible. Award-winning Canadian Singer-Songwriter Henry Lees is aiming to spread the love far beyond his own glowing heart with his funkified, grooved-up new single “Free This Love”, available everywhere on May 1, Global Love Day.
Co-written with noteworthy, award-winning Ontario singer-songwriters Heather Hill and Matt Gerber, and produced by Vancouver-based musical wunderkind Sean Thomas (Debbie Gibson, Joey McIntyre, NKOTB, New Edition), “Free This Love” was borne out of a collective wish to uplift and inspire human reconnection during a time rife with fear, isolation, and uncertainty around the world.
“‘Free This Love’ is a song that celebrates and reminds us of the importance and power of brotherly love,” shares Lees. “Spotlighting that was one of our goals when Heather and I had our first writing session for the song. Then, Matt joined us to help hone things stylistically and lyrically.”
“We imagined love being ‘let out of the cage’ into a space of greater freedom and compassion,” adds Lees.
I want you by my side
I’ll never leave you behind
Let’s lift each other high
And free this, free this love
This passionate anthem about compassion mixes Lees’ warm, soulful tenor with syncopated guitar, playful keyboard riffs, dramatic percussion, and a four-on-the-dance-floor, total sing-along chorus. To create the sparkling pop sound that showcases the song’s powerful message, Lees turned to his friend and frequent collaborator, Vancouver producer, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sean Thomas.
“Sean and I have collaborated a number of times since we first met and clicked during the annual SongStudio Workshop in Toronto five years ago,” notes Lees. “He’s done amazing work in recent years with brilliant pop icons like Debbie Gibson and Joey McIntyre and I knew he would be able to transform our earnest demo into this big, beautiful banger that we’re so proud of!”
“When listening to the demo of ‘Free This Love’, I could hear the emotion that Henry was conveying through his beautiful vocal performance and the impactful message of the lyrics that he wrote along with Heather and Matt,” recalls Thomas. “It was a pleasure to produce and an honour to work with such amazing talent!”
This collaborative effort has already paid off with accolades from two major international songwriting competitions. “Free This Love” was selected as a Top 10 Finalist for the 2022 USA Songwriting Competition and was recently chosen as a Semi-Finalist for the 2022 International Songwriting Competition.
“When I think of the thousands and thousands of entries that are submitted each year for these competitions and it hits me that ‘Free This Love’ has been singled out by industry peers for recognition not once, but twice, I’m completely blown away and so grateful,” says Lees.
With three years of pandemic, war and conflict, increasing divisiveness, and climate crises all playing havoc with humanity, choosing to drop this joyful jam on Global Love Day was a no-brainer and an all-heart decision for Lees.
“As I was considering potential mid-spring release dates, I discovered that May 1 is Global Love Day,” he notes. “It’s a symbolic day of unconditional love that recognizes our oneness through love. ‘Free This Love’ celebrates the same idea, so it was a drop date slam dunk!”
Global Love Day was established in 2004 by The Love Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2000 by Harold W. Becker to “inspire and remind people of the simple, practical power of loving unconditionally”. Since then, it has grown to include close to fifty local coordinators in over forty countries, including three in Canada. According to thelovefoundation.com, Global Love Day has garnered 854 proclamations and greetings from governors, mayors, city councils, and other prominent elected officials over its 20-year history. In 2023, the Canadian municipalities of Oakville, Saskatoon, and Victoria have all issued proclamations honouring Global Love Day.
“I was born on the first day of summer in the Summer of Love. So, I’ve always thought that the natural belief I have in the innate goodness of humanity has been with me since day one,” Lees offers. “We all have our struggles with the darker sides of human nature but, we were also born to love one another.”
The love of making music has also been with Henry Lees since day one. Writing, recording, and performing everything from radio jingles to musical theatre has taken him to the national airwaves and to stages across Canada, including singing on two cross-Canada Huron Carole benefit tours with singer-songwriter, actor, philanthropist, and Order of Canada recipient Tom Jackson. In 2022, Lees celebrated his first number ones as a songwriter when triple Maple Blues Award nominee Chris Antonik and his album “Morningstar” hit #1 for 2 weeks on Roots Music Report’s all-genre, Top 50 Canada Albums Chart and “Back to the Good”, one of six songs Lees’ co-wrote with Antonik for the album, also hit #1 on the RMR.
Also in 2022, Lees released the single “Walking With Fear”, a very personal song of support for those dealing with anxiety disorders co-written with multi-award-winning singer-songwriter David Leask and co-produced with Leask and JUNO winner Steve Dawson. “Walking With Fear” was released in partnership with Anxiety Canada in support of Action Anxiety Day.
In 2021, Lees was honoured with a Top Ten Finalist Award from the International Acoustic Music Awards and a Second Place Award from the Indie International Songwriting Awards for his song “Nothing Left to Lose”, co-written and co-produced with Sean Thomas.
These recent accomplishments have led to plans to release another digital single and an EP later this year. Until then, Lees hopes “Free This Love” will spread the love groove everywhere this summer from nightclubs to backyard barbecues.
Listen to “Free This Love” below and learn more about Henry Lees via our mini-interview.
Hi Henry! You’ve been in this space before, so what’s been going on since your last single?
Hi CB! Thank you very much for the opportunity to catch you up. Since releasing “Walking with Fear” last year and now, releasing my new single “Free This Love”, I’ve been writing, recording, participating in songwriting workshops, and thoroughly enjoying getting back on to the stage again to perform often. What an amazing and exciting year it’s been for my music! I submitted “Free This Love” to a few of the major songwriting competitions and I’m so stoked that it was recognized by industry peers twice! “Free This Love” was awarded a Top 10 Finalist honour in the AAA category for the 2022 USA Songwriting Competition and then, became a Semi-Finalist in the 2022 International Songwriting Competition. I’m so thrilled and grateful for this recognition. It’s some great fuel to keep on keepin’ on with.
I also celebrated my first ‘#1s”’ as a songwriter in the past 12 months. I co-wrote six songs with my good friend, blues/roots singer-songwriter, guitarist, and triple Maple Blues Award nominee Chris Antonik, for his 4th album Morningstar, released last summer. Morningstar reached #1 for 2 weeks on Roots Music Report’s all-genre, Top 50 Canada Albums Chart, and “Back to the Good”, one of the songs I co-wrote for the album, also hit #1 on the RMR all-genre singles chart. “Back to the Good” also became my first co-write to be included on one of Spotify’s major editorial playlists, Modern Blues Rock.
Tell us about the process of writing “Free This Love.”
It was late 2021 and we’d all suffered through nearly two years of Covid and the isolation, loss of connection, fear, and uncertainty that our global pandemic brought with it. Heather Hill, a wonderful, Ontario-based singer-songwriter and friend whom I collaborate with often, reached out about co-writing a new song that could uplift and celebrate love and community at a time when those things seemed to be seriously lacking. The song got started with us imagining love perhaps being let out of a cage to reach a higher place of freedom and compassion. A first draft of the song was born with just Heather and I and her piano and a while later, we revisited it with our talented friend and fellow songwriter Matt Gerber to help hone the lyrics and settle on a stylistic approach. Upbeat, poppy, and full of joy were the ultimate directives.
From writing the song to producing it, some magic really came into play. An acoustic guitar and vocal demo that Matt and I put together was shared with our friend and former classmate in the annual SongStudio Songwriting Workshop, Sean Thomas. An honours Berklee College of Music grad who has worked with music icons like Debbie Gibson, NKOTB’s Joey McIntyre, and New Edition in recent years, Sean loved “Free This Love” in its demo form and transformed it into an absolutely bangin’, joyful jam that we’re all so proud of! I recorded vocals for Sean and a few months later we had a finished mix that blew us all off our chairs.
In the spirit of unforgettable classics like “Get Together”, “Peace Train” and “What the World Needs Now is Love” that share a commonality of promoting and fostering love for all humanity, Heather, Matt, Sean and I hope “Free This Love” will reach many hearts, inspire many souls and bring people together along its journey too.
What’s one record by a Canadian artist in your collection or playlist that would surprise us?
One Canadian record in my collection that I think maybe surprising is “Superior Cackling Hen” by the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir. I have other albums of theirs in my collection too like “Shy Folk”. BTC was a collective of amazing Ontario artists including Chris Brown, Kate Fenner, David Wall, and Jason Mercer who made super soulful, thoughtful, and totally funky music in the ‘90s. I was in college in Calgary when they came to my attention and I fell totally in love with their music – the rhythms, instrumentation, and the sweet, rich, and masterful male/female combo vocals. When they came through town to play at the Republik nightclub, I was sooo there. I sang my ass off along with them and wanted to be an honorary band member!
What are your plans for the Spring and Summer?
I have some great stage time coming up singing and playing percussion with a number of artist friends I perform with like David Storey, Evelynne Ross, and my writing and performing partner in the Soul Maître D’s, Lawrie Ingles, mostly in and around Toronto/GTA area and a few sojourns into other parts of Southern Ontario. I’m working on some new music with various songwriter and producer pals like Sean Thomas and look forward to creating new music and sending it out to everyone’s ears in the months to come.
Glad you see you’ve made it past COVID, what did you learn about yourself since then?
Thank you! It’s been quite the ride for all of us, hasn’t it? Over the past three years, I believe I’ve learned to be more resilient, to be a better friend to myself, and to believe more in the innate goodness in all of us. We’ve faced a huge challenge as a world community that each of us also had to deal with individually and I feel like I’ve grown stronger and more centered internally through it all. My love and passion for music and other creative pursuits has also deepened greatly with more time to have been able to devote to their development. Onward and upward!