Jeff’s fourth solo album, The Last Day of Summer, featuring Dave Stewart, Duff McKagan, Earl Slick, members of Paul Weller’s band and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, is due May 17th via Schnitzel Records. The photo shoot for the album was done by none other than famed rock photographer Bob Gruen.
The lead single "(Broken) Without You" from the new LP will be released on all DSPs on Valentine's Day (February 14th). Click here to purchase/stream.
Jeff shares some insight into this track, "'(Broken) Without You’ was one of the last songs written for my new album, The Last Day Of Summer. Toward the end of the writing sessions, at my kitchen table, with a pen and paper and an acoustic guitar, very old school, I came up with the repeating verse pattern. It felt very Smiths-y at the time. Jangly and summery and hopeful. But the words that came were quite the opposite, which felt somehow appropriate, actually.
For ages the song had a placeholder name: "Folk." We built on it in the studio, and the musicians -- most especially Earl Slick and Jody Bagley on the keys -- really help lift it from simple, acoustic ballad to something else entirely. Then Todd Morse added his great counterpoint backing vocals, and Ysee did her thing, as only she can do – in French, no less – and it was finished. Well, almost.
At just the right moment, the inimitable Dave Stewart came along and asked, 'What are you working on? Would you like me to take a crack?’ Working from his studio 'on a small island in the Atlantic,' Dave's ethereal flourishes on the guitar and his mix, which only someone who has topped the charts knows just how to achieve, were the icing on the cake."