The coronavirus has obviously hit everyone pretty hard, and solo alternative rocker Mark Winters is no exception. Mark, like many artists, was all ready to embark on a tour right before the virus hit, specifically a ten date tour of Texas promoting his single “Find My Love.” The virus shutdown all borders, causing tour cancellations across the board. Winters is obviously an optimist though, and a survivor. On his latest single, he’s decided to trade his old stitches for new ones: “”Red. represents my journey to reconnect with my passions, my edginess (my love of the colour red as a kid!). Life has forced me into many compromises (nothing but blues and grey in my closet), to fit in a standard box. Red reminds me to let my true colours out and experience the joys and passions life has to offer.”
“Red” sounds very much like a track in the classic blues/rock vein, with a heavy yet catchy guitar riff carrying the tune along. Production is stellar, with hidden guitar lines surprising the listener with tapping, smooth noodling, and other ear candy. As Winters moans, “I should be red,” during each chorus, there seems to be an interesting contradiction with the backbeat, which is fighting to keep him anchored, and that actually adds to the depth of the track. There’s lots of cool sound design stuff to check for the geeks out there, like the cool types of reverb on the vocals and the just-right amount of compression on the rhythm instruments.
It’s still not looking clear as to when live performances will kick back into full gear, considering we’re still not out of the woods when it comes to corona. In the meantime, Mark Winters has taken to the online stage, joining just about every other musician out there who needs to satisfy their urge for playing their music live. We like this guy’s positive attitude in taking lemons and making lemonade (which is definitely not a cure for the virus). We wish him, and all other musicians during this time all the luck in the world, and we’re sure they’re hard work will pay off in some form or another. We should all be Red!
Follow Mark Winters on Instagram, SoundCloud, and Spotify.
