Debuts new band, AshenMoon, with outstanding album The Tide is Changing.
“Need You Tonight,” “Devil Inside,” “New Sensation,” “The One Thing,” “What You Need.”
All feature surging, urgent bass lines—each taut and funky, inventively driving the songs, which easily shot up the charts in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, when Australia’s INXS ruled not only at radio and on the world’s biggest concert stages, but also on the most popular platform of the day, the ubiquitous MTV.
Garry Gary Beers played those thumping grooves.
Bottle fed on Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, Beers, 63, understands deeply the kinetic power of classic rock and the timeless essence of a great melodic hook.
His new Los Angeles-based band, AshenMoon, is built on those principles and on fire with new ideas.
The supergroup of sorts—featuring Rock Star: Supernova finalist Toby Rand, top session/touring guitarist Jimmy Khoury and actor/drummer/guitarist Sebastian Gregory—actually grew out of a high-octane cover act appropriately dubbed Stadium, which, in addition to rolling out tunes by Jeff Buckley, Simple Minds and Radiohead at corporate gigs, performed a number of major animal rescue benefits, important events for Beers, who rescues and fosters dogs dumped in Southern California desert lands.
Outside of Stadium, Beers, who co-wrote INXS favorites “Don’t Change” and “Listen Like Thieves,” was more than ready to create new material and launched AshenMoon, which quickly signed to Golden Robot Records for its debut 13-track album, The Tide is Changing.
The pandemic had other ideas.
“We just happened to be lucky enough to have our record completely done, mixed and mastered, with all of the artwork ready, just as the pandemic was shutting everything down.”
So far, AshenMoon has released a pair of stellar songs—”Mosquito” and “Dustbowl”—from the hotly-anticipated disc.
The latter, which neatly summarizes the band’s trademark sweet and salty sound, is featured in two distinctive “lockdown videos” that display different, yet similar, aspects of the country’s current health mess.
The first, with the quartet rocking a rooftop a la the Beatles legendary 1969 London popup, is backdropped by an eerily empty City of Angels. In one scene, Rand, an Aussie like Gregory and Beers, takes an afternoon strut down an unpopulated thoroughfare, looking like the sole survivor in a postapocalyptic landscape.
“It’s L.A., deserted and us just running around Staples Center and Sunset Boulevard and no one’s out,” Beers says. “It captures a very interesting point in time.”
A newly offered, socially distanced acoustic take finds each member filming themselves at their own homes and studios.
Due to the country’s relative isolation, Beers, who credits much of INXS’ stateside success to its MTV appeal, muses that “In Australia, we really learned to make great videos.”
In the latter clip, Khoury is seen pushing the tune along with a Breedlove Premier Concertina Copper E. Rand has his trusty Legacy Concerto CE on a stand to his side. Beers, who began as a guitarist in an acoustic duo before switching to bass in the late ‘70s, says the group owns a brace of Breedloves, including his own nylon string Atlas N250-CRe, and that much of the writing for the album was done with acoustic instruments (with Gregory pitching in on his Organic Collection Signature Concertina Copper E).
At the moment, Beers’ beloved acoustic bass guitar, handcrafted by New South Wales luthier Gerard Gilet, is at the Breedlove shop in Bend, Oregon. It’s in for more than just maintenance. It’s also being measured, tested and fully researched because, well, you just never know.
“We’re just feeling that one out,” says the artist, who has his own line of GGB electric basses styled on his treasured 1958 Fender Precision.
Beers is sanguine about the business of making music—or trying to—in the midst of COVID precautions.
He’s less happy for his children, fraternal twins who will soon turn nine.
“They’ve pretty much lost a year of their lives, as far as education and social learning. I’m sure it’s the same for a lot of adults out there. It must be very lonely for people that are just stuck, and not able to interact.”
Beers, who appreciates Breedlove’s continued pioneering efforts towards sustainability, says the current crisis was long looming.
“I think this whole situation is waking everybody up to what the alternatives are. We’ve all been tiptoeing around the environment and the planet and global warming for so long. It’s like, what’s it going to take?”
He’s especially fond of Breedlove’s commitment to using no clear cut-woods and to verifying the chain of custody in all Made in Bend and Organic Collection models.
“I love the new Organics. They’re just brilliant and they look great. I think companies that make pretty much handmade guitars and beautiful custom-made instruments should lead the way and show the path with sustainability. I’m really proud of Breedlove for doing that.”
On a more intuitive level, Beers says the band just loves the sound, feel and playability of Breedlove guitars.
“Jimmy’s been using his little Concertina for recording all our new acoustic tracks and we’ll continue doing that. Toby picked this beautiful, deep guitar that he wants to use for live shows—lots of fancy inlay and such. I’m still waiting for my new one, but that’s okay, I’ve got my two old ones. Breedlove has been looking after us beautifully. It’s such a great company, with great people.
“I’m not much of an acoustic player, to be honest,” Beers grins. “I’m a bass player. But 12 years ago, I went into a store intent on buying a Gibson or a Martin, and I ended up walking out with two Breedloves that I still have and love—a custom shop Revival DM and a Kim Breedlove-built Voice Revival 000-M. They just felt great, and they had soul. They made me a better player, and I didn’t want to put them down.”
