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Singled Out: The Novogratz' Family

12/15/2014
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Today award-winning songwriter/producer Chris Keup tells us about the song "Family" which he wrote and produced for The Novogratz. The song has been picked up by Old Navy. Here is the story:

I've known the Novogratz's since we grew up together in northern Virginia and I know how important family is to them. For one thing they have a lot of it - including two sets of twins among their 7 kids! They reached out to me about helping them with a song in the vein of Jason Mraz - whom I had just worked with on his most recent single.

We went back and forth with a couple of ideas but this one seemed to resonate the most with everyone. It's fun and breezy and hints a bit at their new California lifestyle - they had moved to Los Angeles from NYC a few months earlier.

The song had its inception just strumming a guitar in my Virginia studio. Then my collaborator Colin Killalea really nailed the basic arrangement working more at Lauren Hill's old guitarist's studio in a basement in Brooklyn. Finally, led by family multi-instrumentalist, Breaker, the four youngest boys headed into LA's legendary Village Recorder studios where the whole track came to realization.

It's always fun to work there but I think particularly fun for Breaker to be working where many of his favorite albums were made by artists like Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

We laid down the track over two days featuring Breaker on lead vocals, Holly on additional vocals and keyboards, Five on drums, and youngest brother Major making a beatboxing cameo.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself as you watch the video here and learn more about the band here and also Chris Keup and his White Star Sound studio right here!

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