“REIGN ON, QUEEN OF MOUNTAINS (A PRICE TO PAY)”
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Americana songsmith Prinz Grizzley’s fast, uptempo bluegrass “Reign On, Queen of Mountains (A Price To Pay)” – out Aug. 6. It sounds cheerfully hopeful, but the lyrics portend our imminent demise by our carelessness with nature. “They strip you naked, bare to the bones / Your sons and daughters / Blow up and burn their green home,” sings Comper. This protest song is a warning to teach our children how to exist with nature while the flatpicking banjo and mandolin remind us that we should be dancing to every revolution.
“I used to sing ‘leave nature be’ in this song,” says Comper. “It reminds us about what we do to nature to get our minerals, to get our gold, to get our coal, to get our oil. We destroy the environment at the cost of our quality of living here in the West.”
New album Tilda (out Oct. 9) takes elements of dark Appalachian folk and bluegrass. It’s a concept album about the life of Tilda, his grandmother, that’s occasionally bleak and intense with sparks of hope spread throughout. It’s an album that feels like a rainy day, where the fog parts just in time to watch the sunset behind the mountains.
From his Austrian Alps forest home, Chris Comper releases music under the moniker Prinz Grizzley. Comper found indie-rock success with his band Golden Reef (with a brief foray into synth-pop) before going solo as Prinz Grizzley, where he veered into the Americana lane with three critically-acclaimed albums that led to playing festivals around the world like SXSW, AmericanaFest, Folk Alliance International, Kilkenny Roots Festival and Montreux Jazz Festival. He did an entire European/UK tour with Seasick Steve. He’s recorded with Erin Rae, and shared bills with folks like Yola, Tyler Childers, Molly Tuttle, Charley Crockett and many more.
