Ferocious Designs releases cover of “Ride Like the Wind” with new original track
Ferocious Designs, the music project of Central New Jersey-based songwriter Brian Kelley, has released a cover of the Christopher Cross hit “Ride Like the Wind” along with a new track, “You Better Hold on Tight.”
Both songs can be streamed/downloaded from multiple sites and services at FerociousDesigns.com. However, Ferocious Designs will no longer use Spotify as a distribution channel.
“A few months ago, I found myself on an extended ‘yacht rock’ kick, listening to a bunch of music from that genre I grew up with and loved in my youth,” said Kelley. “Then, radio station WXPN in Philadelphia launched its 885 Greatest Cover Songs countdown and started playing a bunch of covers in the lead-up to the December countdown.
“That extended to NPR’s World Café program, produced at WXPN, and one day I heard a pretty faithful cover of ‘Ride Like the Wind’ on the show,” added Kelley. “Even though I had been listening to the original song a ton around that time, it was hearing that cover that got me thinking, ‘Hmm, that song really was my jam in third grade; I should try that.'”
Kelley also approached his take on “Ride Like the Wind” in a pretty straightforward fashion.
“I didn’t really do too much with the already immaculate vibe of the song,” said Kelley. “All I really did was synth it up a bit.
“I also played some acoustic guitar and added the slightest bit of trumpet in the bridge and outro sections,” added Kelley.
After recording “Ride Like the Wind,” Kelley didn’t quite know what to do with it.
“I wasn’t sure about releasing a cover, even though the service I use for distribution, DistroKid, makes it fairly easy to obtain a cover license,” said Kelley. “But I already have a road map for my next project and ‘Ride Like the Wind’ didn’t fit with that material.
“I didn’t want to just release a cover on its own,” he added.
That’s when Kelley remembered an idea for a song that had been rattling around in his head since that yacht rock kick he was on a few months earlier. That song became “You Better Hold on Tight.”
“Besides the classic yacht rock I had been listening to, I was also listening a lot to Young Gun Silver Fox‘s latest album, Pleasure,” said Kelley. “I was really embracing ‘the smooth’ at that point, so of course a little musical idea in that ballpark came to me.
“I kind of had that song structure worked out in my head, but never went about recording it — not even a basic piano version — and the song idea started drifting into the background of my mind,” added Kelley. “But after seeing Young Gun Silver Fox live twice in three days back in October, the song started coming back to me, and by early December, I finally took some time to record it. Again, it came together rather quickly.”
With “You Better Hold on Tight” recorded, Kelley felt it would pair well with his cover of “Ride Like the Wind” so he decided to release it as an old-school single with “Ride Like the Wind” as the A-side and “You Better Hold on Tight” as the B-side.
“In my head, ‘You Better Hold on Tight’ had a much more overt yacht rock vibe,” said Kelley. “I think it became more infused with a 1970s Todd Rundgren sound during the recording process, but it still has some yacht rock DNA tying it to ‘Ride Like the Wind.'”
Ferocious Designs will likely be rather quiet in the coming months as Kelley plans a new album that will be more in the art-rock/prog-pop camp.
“Obviously, Ferocious Designs is very genre-fluid, but I want to get back to my core sound and really take the time to make this next collection of songs the best they can be,” said Kelley.
https://youtu.be/cHHEwHyCR-k?si=POfRhlGV5OL9WlW8
“Ride Like the Wind” – Ferocious Designs
Written by Christopher Cross. Performed and recorded by Brian Kelley.
https://youtu.be/unizpjhvdKw?si=iVmYJR2-Ds9sHrWJ
“You Better Hold on Tight” – Ferocious Designs (Lyric Video)
Written, performed and recorded by Brian Kelley.
