Galen & Paul, the brand-new project from Paul Simonon and Galen Ayers, will release their debut album Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day? on 19 May.
The release marks the first full length release from Paul Simonon (bassist with The Clash, Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad and The Queen) and Galen Ayers, the singer-songwriter behind the solo album Monument.
Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day? marks a collection of bilingual duets which explores European music cultures and a cross section of life across the continent. The album features the lead single Lonely Town which is out now and accompanied by an official video filmed in Deia, Mallorca.
The concept of Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day? started to take shape in lockdown. Paul headed to a Mallorcan fishing village where he wrote songs and painted the locales, before spreading his wings, starting to work with local musicians and busk in front of cafes in Palma as restrictions eased.
It was his return to London that the idea picked up pace as he developed the ideas with Galen Ayers. Paul says, “I remember how when I was in The Clash, our manager Bernie Rhodes would tell us that Andrew Loog Oldham locked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in their kitchen. He said, ‘I’m not letting you out until you’ve written a song.’ That’s effectively what Galen and I did. We would spend every evening writing yet another song.”
Galen adds, “What I came to realise pretty early on, is that on many occasions we would finish a song but I’d be left
with a niggling feeling. I’d say to Paul: ‘I know everybody loves this, but I think it needs something more.’ And he’d say, ‘Me too.’ And we’d go back to our writing table until we were both satisfied. And that’s why I’m so confident about our collaboration, that I know we have that. So the sky is the limit.”
The 10-track album features the two artists dueting, both singing in English and Spanish, inspired by French chansons, Spanish pop and English sea shanties and more.
