Garrett Young releases new single

By Katie Chicklinski-Cahill Staff reporter

Thursday, Feb 2, 2017 6:34 PM Updated Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017 6:59 PM

Garrett Young has recently released his latest single, “Do You Hear My Cries.”

Courtesy of Garrett Young

Local musician Garrett Young has just released his new single, “Do You Hear My Cries,” online. I had a chance to talk to the Bayfield resident, whom some of you may remember from the band Psychedelic Mojo.

Q: Are you from here?

A: I was born in Durango and then I moved to Bayfield when I was 5 years old, and I’ve been there ever since. I actually moved to California for four years and just came back at the beginning of winter because I couldn’t handle all the people and I needed some snow.

Q: Have you been doing this forever – did you always know music is what you wanted to do?

A: Pretty much since I was 12 years old I knew music was my calling, I guess. I started playing guitar when I was 9, so most of my life has definitely been revolving around music for sure.

Q: Does this get to be your day job?

A: It’s the day job you don’t get paid for. It’s so much work, but it’s all worth it. And actually, I’ve been doing Berklee – the music school in Boston has a crazy good online program, and so I’ve been doing that for a couple of years.

Q: Tell me about the new single – how did you hook up with Ed (Stasium)?

A: It’s so awesome. I knew about him pretty much my whole childhood; when I was 12 years old, he was living here, so I’ve known about him for a super-long time, and we tried to get in contact with him, but he was doing the Misfits and stuff, so he was super-busy. It took him moving out to San Diego and me moving out to California to really hook up with him, and we have a mutual friend who really pushed it.

Q: So do you have a full record now?

A: It’s just a single. One of the main driving forces in me moving back was to have the ability to do more recording, because living in California, it’s pretty much impossible (to record) anywhere where your neighbors aren’t going to call the cops and complain when you’re trying to record. ... So the album is going to come out probably in June, that’s what we’re shooting for.

Q: The single is really cool.

A: I wrote it probably two years ago, so I was sitting on it for a while and I sent Ed a pretty big batch of songs, which probably a majority of those will be in the upcoming record. To do the single, he kind of wanted to just get a – you know, we hadn’t worked before, so he wanted to pick a song, just get a single down, so he could focus on it, figure out how we worked together. And so out of all the songs, he picked that one.

Q: How would you describe your music?

A: Country-surf-grunge. I grew up with classic rock, I love old country, surf rock. ... I started surfing when I was 12, so it’s always been a big part.

Q: Who are your influences?

A: When I was growing up, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, that’s who I wanted to play guitar like since I was really young, which ... who doesn’t want to play guitar like them? When I was even younger, my dad pretty much grew me up on country music like Waylon Jennings, all that kind of stuff. But once I got into the rock ’n’ roll, I was like, “That stuff’s lame,” And then by the time I was 17, I was like, “All right, I guess it is pretty sweet.” Johnny Cash has to be one of my all-time favorites and Kurt Cobain, Nirvana is one of my favorites.”

Q: You played with Psychedelic Mojo?

A: I did. That was from ... I think we started when we were like 12 ... My drummer was 9 years old when we started playing the first shows in bars and stuff, which is the coolest thing about Colorado is that they’re supportive of younger musicians.

katie@durangoherald.com