Brantford Americana Artist KC Armstrong Revisits the Past with Swampy New Single “Someone Else Tonight”
Musicians revisiting their discographies can shed light on a certain time and place. It can also be a reason to revisit old songs and see if there’s a new sonic coat of paint that might bring them back to life. For Brantford, Ontario-based Americana musician KC Armstrong, the pandemic offered up time to rediscover old gems, including “Someone Else Tonight,” the latest strikingly solid single, from his Finally Crafted album, teeming with passion and verve despite the recording process being the antithesis of the original approach.
“Someone Else Tonight” was originally recorded for Ranchsongs, an album released in the mid-80s by Armstrong’s previous band Cadillac Ranch. Armstrong says that version was “recorded live off-the-floor in about three takes with no rehearsal beforehand.” Each of the musicians simply used hand signals as cues to perform their solos as they would live in concert. For this latest version created during the pandemic, the recording process was deliberate, requiring patience as files were sent back and forth via e-mail after recording was done in each musician’s home studio.
Armstrong says he started with drum tracks, then bass, 12-string acoustic guitar, and a scratch vocal.
“Doing the recording in this fashion, you might think there would be no synergy between the musicians; each in their own cities, each at a different time – but this was not the case,” he says.
Guest musician Bobby Brioux, who plays mandolin on “Someone Else Tonight,” was given the “bare-bones backing tracks” as a guide but asked to “play away.” While editing that particular piece, Armstrong received keyboardist Steve O’Connor’s accordion and Wurlitzer parts who had only been given the request to make the music “eerie and foreboding.” Neither Brioux nor O’Connor knew what each other was playing. But what transpired was amazing!
“It was astounding,” Armstrong says. “There was only one small bar of music in the whole song where both musicians were playing simultaneously. The rest of the song fit together perfectly while also allowing guitarist Barry Haggarty places to showcase his talents. Another cosmic bit of good fortune emerged when Armstrong unknowingly left both of Haggarty’s guitar tracks in the song. When played simultaneously, they created a gorgeous “twin solos” effect on “Someone Else Tonight.”
“Someone Else Tonight” brings to mind a swampy, dark, and mysterious collage of folk, blues, “swampy-country,” and Americana similar to the late Gordon Lightfoot and particularly Steve Earle’s 2000 album Transcendental Blues. Led Zeppelin’s intro to “No Quarter” sounds like a subtle source of inspiration as well. A Celtic hue adds great results as the song has a surefire, steady pace demanding your attention. The homestretch is also fantastic as the interplay between the instruments and vocals creates music far greater than the sum of its parts. Alongside Armstrong (who sings and plays bass), Brioux, Haggarty, and Steve O’Connor, additional musicians on “Someone Else Tonight” include vocalist MaryEllen Allen, saxophonist Sean O’Connor, guitarist Scott Utting, and drummer Jake Adams.
“Someone Else Tonight” is the latest offering from KC Armstrong and the follow-up to his festival single “I Hate That Sweater.” Armstrong’s witty, whimsical style brings to mind musicians like Earle, Randy Newman, Nick Lowe, and the late Ronnie Hawkins. In fact, Armstrong’s band subbed as the Hawks for the iconic rocker back in 2003. Armstrong’s then band Cadillac Ranch were slated to back Hawkins at the legendary SARS-Stock concert at Toronto’s Downsview Park before hundreds of thousands featuring the Rolling Stones and AC/DC. Sadly, Hawkins’ health resulted in the appearance never being realized. Armstrong has also worked with and shared the stage with countless others, including the late Jeff Healey, while playing festivals across Canada and throughout North America.
Now with the spectacular and magical “Someone Else Tonight,” KC Armstrong is kicking off 2025 with a bang. It’s a track you should be telling someone else about tonight, if not sooner!
Hi KC, good to see you again – how’s your year starting so far?
Hi, thanks for asking.
My year has been going well to date. I have been busily working on my next album, which has a projected release date in July. So far, I have three songs completed and Mastered, and was mixing the fourth just this morning.
Someone Else Tonight and I Don’t Care are both currently on the CICC national charts and both are heading in the right direction – up.
Someone Else Tonight has climbed 31 positions in just 3 weeks so far. I Don’t Care has been on the chart much longer but is poised to make the top 50 hopefully this week.
Positioning depends on email voting, so a vote from your readers would be great. (you can find details on the CICC Facebook page.)
Someone Else Tonight was originally recorded in the ’80s with your band Cadillac Ranch. What was it about this song that made you want to revisit and rework it now?
This song is one of my personal favorites because the lyrics are so raw, and real.
It was composed, in it’s entirety, on a night when I was feeling very much in the frame of mind that the lyrics capture.
I have always felt that the song was never explored thoroughly enough on Ranchsongs and could potentially have become much more than it was.
This time around I am very pleased with the results, and feel it has been represented properly.
The original recording was done live-off-the-floor in just three takes, whereas this new version was crafted piece by piece remotely. How did that shift in process influence the song’s energy and final sound?
As usual, I started by recording the acoustic 12-string part, which fills a lot of space in the mix, and then I added the drums.
After that, I spent hours crafting the bass lines using a different approach than the original, which I feel gives the song its character and feel.
The mandolin part and the keyboard part were occurring in two different cities simultaneously in real-time and I am very happy with both results.
As an instrument, the mandolin always reminds me of a hold-over from an age long ago. This feeling is further amplified when you add in the accordion. It stirs my Celtic blood I suppose.
Since the song is primarily about a human experience that so many of us have lived through over the centuries (love gone wrong/faithless lovers) this seemed an appropriate approach.
To me, the mandolin is the most melancholy of instruments when played in this style. Combine that with hard-hitting drums and the ethereal sounds of the guitar, Wurlitzer parts, and Mary’s singing, and you have an almost menacing foreboding sense that something big is about to happen. It’s a tension-build.
I believe the energy of the song comes from that feeling.
You’ve described the interplay between Bobby Brioux’s mandolin and Steve O’Connor’s keyboard parts as “astounding,” even though they recorded separately without knowing what the other was playing. What was your reaction when you first heard how well those elements came together?
On the night this occurred I can recall thinking that I was wasting my time editing the mandolin part because it would just have to be changed when the keyboard part came in. I was hoping that this wouldn’t be a huge task.
I had just wrapped it up and was thinking from time to time throughout the editing (about 2 hours) how curious it was that the song was also being worked on at the very same time elsewhere.
It just struck me as an odd way of doing things, but because of Covid, it was necessary.
Upon completion of my session, I checked the email to see if Steve had sent me his parts yet – he had.
I downloaded and imported them into the master session with no intention of doing any more work that night.
I was just simply curious and wanted to hear what I would have to work with (and estimate how long it would take for the next day’s session).
I made a couple of quick adjustments to the sound (I have a number of presets for Steve’s various keyboard sounds) and pushed play. WOW.
What I heard was almost exactly what you heard in the final mix.
Steve would play/ Bobby would drop out…
Bobby would play/ Steve would drop out…
At times they both dropped out (and at the same times – weird*) which was perfect because it allowed room for Barry or Mary’s parts to be added later. All I had to do was highlight 2 bars and delete them (in the mandolin track) and it was complete.
About 30 seconds work for me done on the spot.
As you can imagine I was flabbergasted.
You unknowingly left both of Barry Haggarty’s guitar tracks in the mix, which resulted in a stunning “twin solos” effect. Do you see moments like these as happy accidents, or do you believe there’s some kind of musical intuition at play even when artists are recording in isolation?
I would love to claim the genius’ role in this but truth be told the only genius thing I did was recognize that what I was hearing worked.
Barry always sends me a few different tracks (usually around 5 to 7) some with solos – some rhythm guitar.
My first job after importing them into the session is to get the volumes ball-park levels. I habitually leave them all unmuted and adjust the total volumes to somewhere close.
Barry had them labelled solo 1 and solo 2 which he does so that I can either select one of them or make a compilation of the best of both parts. When played together they just worked for these ears.
So – short answer… a very happy accident.
Any intuition coming into play here would be Barry’s which would have only occurred because stuck to a theme (likely, so that my comping could be smoother) and possibly his unconsciously playing to his previous part.
Connect with KC Armstrong:
Website
Bandcamp
Facebook
Instagram
TikTok