Fraser Wayne & The Desert Eagles Introduce The Cowboy and The Spectre in two new singles
After a decade spent as a cornerstone of Montreal’s underground scene, rural Ontario native, Fraser Wayne has returned to his roots—quite literally—trading city pavement for farm life and assembling a “who’s who” of Toronto rock ‘n’ roll royalty to form The Desert Eagles.
The upcoming LP, to be released on June 13, and ambitious video series, Follow The Darkness Into The Light, isn’t just an album release; it’s a full-scale descent into a supernatural frontier. The next single, “Living On The Road,” is due May 11th, 2026, followed by a short film in October.
In their latest video series, the tracks “Painted Blue” and “Autumn Song” serve as eerie character studies, introducing us to The Cowboy and The Spectre—two archetypes that anchor the narrative of their upcoming LP.
“Painted Blue” captures that hollow ache of wandering city streets at 2 AM with nowhere to go. By introducing “The Cowboy” here, Fraser Wayne gives us a protagonist who feels just as out of place among the “lightbulbs wrapped in steel” as he does in the dirt. It’s a raw, desperate track about the thin line between freedom and total isolation, using gritty imagery of beer bottles and concrete to ground the search for a “love digger” to pull him out of the muck. The song perfectly nails that frantic need for human connection before you lose your mind, ending on a vulnerable plea that feels like a genuine gut punch.
While “Painted Blue” is about the city’s cold isolation, “Autumn Song” is where “The Spectre” starts to haunt the edges of the frame. It wrestles with that familiar seasonal dread—the heavy feeling when the days get short—but there’s a stubborn warmth buried in the lyrics. Wayne balances mundane stresses like breaking dishes with a supernatural resolve to keep the “sun in his heart” as Halloween looms. It’s the perfect introduction to The Spectre; it feels ethereal and haunting, yet grounded in a very human refusal to let the winter take his soul. If The Cowboy is the one wandering, The Spectre is the spirit holding onto the light in the dark.
After diving into these two tracks, I’m counting down the days until June. If this is just the introduction to the Cowboy and the Spectre, I can’t wait to see how the rest of the album weaves together.
We spoke with Fraser about the releases, check out what he had to say below.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I’m Fraser Wayne, your friendly non-binary cowboy with a penchant for 80’s horror films and tears in yer beers. I’ve been writing songs since before I can remember, and I find that it’s a great way to transmute pain into a collective cathartic experience. I am often told after shows that my songs and lyrics had folks in tears, and in one way or another, I think that’s actually why I’m here on earth – to hold a mirror up to the world, so we can understand our pain and have the courage to look it in the eyes. I think this is where the healing aspect of music completely takes over. I just try to write honestly about my experiences and hope that others can relate.
You’ve introduced us to the “Cowboy” and the “Spectre.” How do these two characters represent the internal or external struggles you explore in the upcoming LP?
The “Cowboy” and the “Spectre” are definitely two sides of the same coin, with the “Cowboy” representing the more wholesome nature of humankind – while the “Spectre” represents the darker feelings that lurk in the shadows of ourselves. I believe the “Cowboy” to be our “true self” – the parts of us that we understand and share with our family/friends – which gives us a sense of self and an understanding that we are good and here to help each other. On the other hand, I view the “Spectre” as the emotions, feelings, and urges that hide in the shadows of our minds – the parts of ourselves that can become angry or self deprecating – the parts of us that we generally keep hidden – which is shown through the mask and cloak that the spectre wears throughout the video series. Of course, the characters are completely up for interpretation, but masks and duelling character personas seem to have become a theme in my visual work – and I believe the subject matter to be very relatable to neurodivergent folks, such as myself, who spend a great deal of time masking and trying to fit into a society that wasn’t built for us.
The short film transitions from a shootout in a ghost town to a skeletal ceremony in a graveyard. What inspired you to blend the “Spaghetti Western” aesthetic with 80s-style horror?
I am a BIG horror movie nerd, especially for 80’s slasher films and silly supernatural stuff predating the millennium. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, zombies, goblins, and ghouls are my bread and butter. I have a huge collection of masks, figurines, DVD’s, and VHS tapes and I obsess over this stuff non-stop. Asking me about my day is a sure fire way to accidentally get the oral history of the Halloween franchise haha. That being said, I also grew up with a father and a grandfather who watched spaghetti western films religiously. These relics were always playing beneath the static of the old CRT television at my grandparent’s place – “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly” and “Once Upon A Time In The West” being early favourites of mine. Whether it be the music or the visuals that captured my attention is still unclear to me. I think it’s just a vibe that Italian directors like Sergio Leone understood at the time. The Italian films were so much more bad ass and exciting than the American counterparts, and the music is what made everything feel larger than life. All of these elements – from 80’s horror to early spaghetti westerns – have become an important part of who I am as a human, so it was only natural to combine the vibes into a visual story for the music.
The title track involves the Cowboy digging his own grave only to emerge into a “field of flowers and sunshine.” Is this meant to be a literal resurrection, or a metaphor for finding peace through darkness?
I guess in the short film, it is a literal resurrection, but metaphorically it’s more about finding peace within the journey through the darkness. It’s like… if you keep trucking through the dark – if you stay on that path and keep holding out through all the terror and pain and anguish – you will eventually find your footing again. I think it’s supposed to be a kind of internal lesson for myself and for the listener. No matter how bad things get, we must keep walking our path. It may get dark and scary, and we may feel lost (or in this case, like we are digging our own grave), but if we keep trudging through the various layers of inevitable darkness, we will find our way back home into the light. The age old cycle of shedding the past self in order to make way for something better.
You’re releasing VHS tapes with custom 80s horror artwork. As a musician in a digital age, why was it important for you to have a tactile, “retro” physical component for this project?
Having a physical component to everything I release is actually very integral to my work. I am a big collector, and I have been since I was young. Having something you can feel and hold and put on display in your house or apartment… It’s like magic! When it comes to releasing new material, the most exciting part for me has always been designing the artwork and figuring out the packaging for the record sleeve, inserts, bonus goodies etc. I enjoy coming up with creative ideas for physical media releases, and I think that after spending more than a decade locked in to the hollowness of the digital world, the internet, VR apps, and social media, people’s ideas regarding physical media are starting to change. People want something tangible that they can hold – something they can own and appreciate, which won’t disappear if their subscription conglomerate loses a license. The different textures created by different forms of media are also very interesting to me. I love the high resolution of 4k and blu-ray, but VHS does something different for me. It pulls on the nostalgia strings. It feels alive in all that warbly warmth. I love old technology, and a lot of old technology went into the recording / creation of this album. So it only seems fitting to follow suit with a VHS release to accompany the vinyl LP.
You spent a decade in Montreal’s underground scene before moving back to rural Ontario to work on a farm. How did that change in environment influence the “haunting, gothic” sound of this new record?
There is a peaceful loneliness in my life these days. When I was living in Montreal, everything felt like constant chaos. I was undiagnosed and off the rails most of the time. I was having major mental health problems and issues with addiction and relationships, and this is what eventually lead me to “follow the darkness into the light” so to speak haha. I needed to get out of the city – which had originally shaped me as a person – in order to find myself again and follow a new path. Getting back to the country was the best decision I ever made. I have a deep love for plants and animals and the natural world, so working on a farm is honesty a dream come true. The folks at Murphy’s Farm in Alliston, ON have become a 2nd family to me, and I was very fortunate to be able to shoot the music video for “Autumn Song” in the October cornfield back there. You can always hear my love for the natural world in my songs, especially the newer stuff I’ve been writing since I moved back to Ontario. The long roads, haunting sunsets, creepy cornfields… The planting, the picking, and the infinite variety of pumpkins are all there in the music. I even ended up naming my new record label, Good Gourd Records!
With the next single, “Living On The Road” dropping in May, how does that single bridge the gap between the music videos we’ve seen and the final LP?
“Living On The Road” is actually the only music video from this record that isn’t part of the video series! This one is going to be more of a road film / documentary style thing, with a bunch of collected footage from festivals, shows, and van rides over the past few years. The VHS footage is being compiled from tapes that my friends Dime, Freddie, and Sarah shot, and I’ll be editing it together in the coming weeks! The full music video for “Living On The Road” will be out at the beginning of May, just before we do a run of shows with Mike Frazier. After that, the full record will be out on June 13th, and then the short film is due for spooky season 2026!
Upcoming Shows:
02/05 – Ted’s Collision (Toronto)
03/28 – Horseshoe Tavern (Toronto)
05/12 – Dina’s Tavern (Toronto)
05/13 – TBD (Ottawa)
05/14 – The Buckle (Kingston)
05/16 – Quai des Brumes (Montreal)
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