Georgia-based Americana/indie rocker Tedo Stone has announced the release of his third full-length LP Summer Sun and has shared the lead single at PopMatters, who praised the song as "a sunbathed, nostalgic, and folkish rock sound evocative of acts like Okkervil River or Neutral Milk Hotel." Stone has also announced two sets at the 2018 Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, Ga.--May 3rd supporting the Whigs at Terminal West for the festival's kickoff party, and May 6th on the festival grounds proper.
Summer Sun is out May 25th on Laser Brains Records.
Tedo Stone (Noisey, Paste, PureVolume) was born to play rock and roll. Growing up in a household with a musical father and where brothers handed down bass guitars to younger siblings like old sweatshirts, Stone was fronting a band and playing in motorcycle bars around his hometown of Covington, Georgia, when he was 12 years old.
Having since returned to his hometown 30 miles east of Atlanta and with a searing new album, Summer Sun (out May 25 via Athens, Ga. label Laser Brains), Stone is making a name for himself with an enthralling fusion of throwback southern vibes, indie rock hooks and a wall-of-sound resonance.
Ranging from jangly, sunny-day pop (“Summer Sun”) to Drive-by-Truckers-esque rockers (“How Do You Know When It Goes Bad?”) to reverb-laden, festival-ready anthems (“Right (Again)”), the third full-length LP from Tedo Stone showcases a road-savvy musician who has come into his own as a songwriter.
A lifetime of listening to classic country and soul artists like Patsy Cline and Otis Redding imbued the young songwriter with a retro pop and strong vocal appreciation from a young age, though finding his own voice has been an ongoing process. His 2013 debut album, Good Go Bad, saw Tedo delving into glam jams and alt-country rock, though Stone admits he wasn’t fully assured of his sound yet.
While hanging out in Athens, Georgia, and playing with the endless array of talented young musicians there, Stone realized his songs were sounding different live, evolving into a mixture of Dinosaur Jr’s wailing guitars and Neil Young’s raw emotion; and he liked it. Taking that new energy into the studio in 2014, Stone recorded Marshes straight to tape, live in a room with a core group of friends. Under the guidance of producer and engineer Drew Vandenberg (Deerhunter, of Montreal, Drive-by Truckers), Stone established himself as a pure rock and roll songwriter, with invigorating rhythms, addictive hooks and keenly layered guitars.
Stone once again enlisted Vandenberg for Summer Sun, and the follow-up to 2015’s Marshes displays a further honing of the songwriter’s chops, seamlessly blending timeless Americana undertones with indie-tinged hooks.
