Renowned musician Steve Conte, known for his work with the New York Dolls and Michael Monroe, has revealed information about his forthcoming album, The Concrete Jangle, which serves as the successor to his 2021 opus, Bronx Cheer.
Scheduled for launch on Record Store Day (April 20th), this 10-track album features collaborations with XTC's Andy Partridge, who co-wrote five of the songs with Conte, including the newly released single "Shoot Out The Stars". To learn more about the vinyl release of The Concrete Jangle for Record Store Day, head here.
"My new single 'Shoot Out The Stars’ is another co-write with my songwriting hero, Andy Partridge of XTC," explains Conte. "When Andy & I got together on Zoom to have our writing sessions I threw out a bunch of titles - and among them was 'Shoot Out The Stars'.
He liked it and said, “Oh yeah, we can do something with that,” and then immediately started banging out those opening guitar chords and singing that verse melody. I then came up with the chorus and knew how that title should be sung.
We made the song about nihilism - bored teens in Hollywood out looking for thrills. Andy & I had a strong synergy going on…we got into a real groove when writing these songs.
For example, I had a line in the first verse where the kids say, “Let’s drive out to the Hills and climb up on our cars…” and then in the second verse Andy added, “The grown-ups are to blame for all the hurt we got - under the hood.” He may have meant it as the hurt kids have hidden inside, but I also see it another way. We never spoke about tying it in with their cars and I didn’t notice it until recently, but there it was. An Easter egg, the Partridge gift that keeps giving. There are a lot of these kinds of things in the songs.
And the song is in one of my favorite rock 'n roll guitar keys, the key of B - really great for power pop. I went a bit psychedelic with it; using fuzz & backwards guitars as well as playing Mellotron (and my mandolin made an appearance!)
I hope you dig it baby!!"
Stream "Shoot Out The Stars" now at this location.
The Concrete Jangle artwork and tracklisting:
"Fourth Of July"
"Hey Hey Hey (Aren’t You The One?)"
"We Like It"
"Shoot Out The Stars"
"One Last Bell"
"Motor City Love Machine"
"All Tied Up"
"Decomposing A Song For You"
"Girl With No Name"
"I Dream Her"
For further details, visit Steve Conte on Facebook.
(Photo by Rob Armstrong, album cover art by Rich Jones)
