Gary Dranow is a Utah-based artist who fronts the bluesy rock band, Gary Dranow and the Manic Emotions. I had the chance to listen to his single, Something About You, and I really loved it. If you like your rock and roll with a hint of Americana and folk music, then you ought to check it out!
By Jane Howkins
You released a single titled Something About You. What can you tell us about the track? You also have a new album coming out in May titled Destiny Road. What can you tell us about the album?
I had a very vivid dream in 1995 and it was still vivid when I woke up the next morning and I wrote the song Destiny Road, the title track of my album dropping on May 12th. In the dream and song, I would meet a world traveller and fall in love and get married. From that part of the dream, I wrote Something About You, a prescient song about that person in my future. As 6 or so years went by while skiing in the slopes of Park City I met her, now my wife of 18 years. It’s uncanny how she resembles in every way the person I had envisioned all those years before.
How has the reception to Something About You been so far, and where can the song be purchased?
The song has had a great response – especially on Spotify. It’s my number two song behind Destiny Road. It has also made it onto many playlists.
The track also features Jerry Manfredi. How did the collaboration come about? Do you plan to release any more singles in the near future?
I met Jerry when I was looking for a bass player/music director in the early ‘90s. One of my music friends referred me to him. At the time I just had a bunch of songs on four track tape, kind of half-baked ideas except for Destiny Road. Over the next several years Jerry would help me flesh out these musical ideas into finished songs. He hooked me up with Jethro Defries on drums and Tommy Mars on keys (Frank Zappa Band) and we started playing live all over the LA and Southern California music scene. We played out for a year and all decided to go into Jerry’s studio and record the Destiny Road Album.
Shortly thereafter I moved from LA to Park City, Utah and literally left my music behind, I stopped playing for around ten years concentrating on my ski racing and coaching career, which is how I met Elizabeth. I had a stroke in 1998 which severely impacted my musicianship. Finally in 2008 when the markets crashed, I started collecting and playing guitars again. 12 years later, after a lot of hard work I had recovered most of my chops and reformed Gary Dranow and The Manic Emotions with a great group of local musicians and we started to play out in the Park City and Salt Lake City areas. Then Jerry came back into my musical life when he sent me this mysterious sixty pound box. It contained the six Ampex tape reels that was the Destiny Road album. Just through serendipity, I had found a recording engineer around the same time, Tim Wilson.
As soon as Tim learned about the cache of analogue tapes he referred me to Deep Signal Studio of Lakewood, California. They specialize in taking all manner of old analog tapes restoring them by ‘baking’ them and then transferring every track to a digital .wav stem. About a month later, I got a USB key with hundreds of tracks on it. Tim got right to work and started mixing and mastering the songs. Six months later we had the newly mastered Destiny Road album completed. That brings me to today – I have released my first six singles, with Something About You being the 5th release and the first single in 2023. Just as a note – I have had a writing partner for several years – Chris Zoupa from Melbourne, Australia. Together we have written over twenty new songs and adding one every seven days or so. The band and I are going into my studio in the next two weeks and are recording our first song, Never Give Up. My second album is set for release in the winter of this year.
Your music has a folk-rock sound. What/who influences you most as an artist? What have you been listening to recently?
I’m mostly influenced by ‘60’s groups like The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream with Eric Clapton, The Blues Breakers, Led Zeppelin and so on. I’ve been listening to blues harp music like Little Walter.
What is the writing and recording process like for you?
Now I will come up with a lick or phrase and sometimes the guitar structure for the hook, verses, chorus and bridge. Then Chris Zoupa (Teramaze) and I will flesh out the song structure. Chris will make sure it all makes sense and then I will write the content, lyrics and subjec, then finally we will both work on the vocal melody and phrasing and edit the lyrics to fit the different sections of the song. We have written over twenty new songs in a Guitar Pro file demo that my other band mates can use to learn each song and perfect their parts for recording and performing.
You’re based in Utah. How is the local music scene faring at the moment?
Hard. It’s hard to continually get booked at any of the better venues. I’ve recently thrown in the towel and I am building a local following with mostly targeted Facebook ads until I’ve got a reliable street team of 200 fans that I can count on coming out to see us perform. Then we will be able to call the shots of where and when we want to play, I’ve got fifty so far. My real emphasis is recording new material and doing livestreams every other Tuesday night to build a much wider audience.
Do you have any tour dates lined up for the UK?
No and I am too old to tour internationally., Next year, after my third release, I plan on touring regionally across the western eleven states, including 2,500 to 5,000 people venues like the Eccles Theater in Salt Lake, Red Rock in Colorado and the like, fans permitting. I just went over 17,500 listeners on Spotify. Four months ago I had none, so my promotion company is earning my business – that’s Ariel Hyatt and the team at Cyber PR.
Any last words for the fans?
Whatever your dreams are – NEVER GIVE UP!