The fast-rising Los Angeles-based roots rock ‘n’ roll band Janet Air announces the release of their first single, “Gone to Waste". The hard-driving, heart-wrenching track is the first in a series of singles set to be released throughout 2023.
Listen to “Gone to Waste” HERE. Watch the video HERE or below:
Crisply produced by lauded hit maker Josh Connolly (whose credits include Carlos Santana, Justin Bieber, Kendrick Lamar, Mike Posner, among others), “Gone to Waste” is a sweeping, emotionally immersive experience with lyrics torn from the pages of singer-songwriter and guitarist Paul Rampton’s own life. “It’s like a fresh glass of water to the face,” Rampton says. “I was going through a divorce. You come in with all of these expectations, but in the end it’s OK to say those days were wasted.”
Still, he stresses that his lyrics aren’t sentimental or moralistic. “It’s honest,” he says. “You can live and learn from coming to terms with hard realities. There’s solace in the realizations, and you can move on. Through the mess of divorce, I found new love, and we were able to create a home for our daughter.”
In addition to Rampton, Janet Air is comprised of lead guitarist Alex Strahle and the rhythm section of Blake Russell and Free Hallas, both of whom alternate between bass and drums. The group came together as a studio project while Rampton worked with Connolly at the producer’s Studio A facility in Las Vegas.
“Josh is an incredible producer, and I’ve been fortunate to have worked with him as a writer on many records over the past 10 years,” Rampton says. “I started coming up with a new batch of songs that were very personal and connected to my own life. Josh said, ‘You need to tell these stories yourself, and we started to form the band to bring that about.”
Enter guitarist Strahle. The son of noted studio guitarist Tom Strahle, who’s played on hundreds of film and TV sessions, along with artists such as Justin Bieber, Strahle fills “Gone to Waste” with soaring, lyrical leads. “I’ve sat in rooms with some incredible guitarists, and I can say that Alex is right there with the best of them,” Rampton says. “He gets a lot of his natural talent from his father, and he has a huge musical vocabulary – music just pours from him.”
As for the nimble yet muscular rhythm section of Blake Russell and Free Hallas, Rampton reveals that their musical intuition comes from blood. “They’re actually cousins, so they have a musicality that’s unique. It’s pretty incredible that they can switch between bass and drums."
Along with recording their debut singles, Janet Air (their moniker stems from the U.S. government plane unofficially named Janet Airlines) has been building a loyal following at gigs around Los Angeles. “What people see on stage is what we are,” Rampton says. “Everything is built from the acoustic up. We’re plug-in-and-play. What you hear us do in the studio is what you hear from us live.”
He promises that Janet Air’s forthcoming album, also produced by Connolly, will remain true to the band’s pure and unvarnished aesthetic. “I found myself while making this record with the band. They’re personal songs that were born from lived experiences. There’s not a word on the record that isn’t true. Both the writing and the recording are authentic – there’s nothing fake.”
For more information, visit: https://www.janetairmusic.com/
