Out on Nov. 13, Ricky Schmidt (Western Settings; Hey Chels) will release a solo debut under the simple moniker of Ricky. Titled Palm Trees, the record features 11 songs in total. Watch a lyric video for the song "Escape Artist," the fifth song on the new record, after the bump.
Speaking of the record, Ricky says:
I started writing this record with 100% focus as soon as we finished writing the last Hey, Chels LP titled Everything Goes. The oldest song dating back to 2018 is "Vietnam," a song about running away and never coming home, a fantasy that only grew stronger since the song came into fruition. The rest of the songs started during the second half of 2019 and a couple of them didn’t find their final resting places (writing-wise) until we were in the studio recording them.
Palm Trees encompasses mid-2019 to pretty much the present time for me. I leaned hard into this project to keep me sane during this crazy year and the content is very much so relevant to the year 2020. It’s nothing groundbreaking, I don’t think, but I feel like I’m not alone in feeling the way I do. I wrote this record to remedy those feelings for myself and I hope that maybe someone will be able to listen to these songs and feel good when they do.
The record was produced By Tyson "Chicken" Annicharico (Dead To Me), mixed by Scott Goodrich, and includes Shane Hendry on drums and Jax of Hey, Chels on vocals and co-songwriter. (Jax is also Ricky's partner.)
Palm Trees Track Listing:
1. Bored
2. Hot Summer
3. Spare Me
4. New Day
5. Escape Artist
6. Like a Cult
7. SickSickSix
8. Vietnam
9. Social Me
10. You're Mean
11. Names
