Louis York talk about their new single ‘Headphones’ and inspirations

Louis York. Photo Credit: Travis Commeau

The band Louis York chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about their new single “Headphones,” and their musical inspirations. It is comprised of members Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony.

“The song ‘Headphones’ started with a conversation about the healing power of music,” they said. “We wanted to express that sentiment in a thoughtful and unique way by focusing on the intimate moments of introspection between the listener, the listening device, and the music.”

Regarding their music inspirations, they said, “Our music is inspired by life, and our desire to tell stories. If you listen closely to our music, you will hear three stories. The story that the lyrics tell, the story that music tells, and the story that the music and lyrics tell together. Our intention is always to tell a valuable story.”

Louis York’s future plans include touring extensively through our partnership with UTA. “We plan on exploring synch opportunities for every single song on our album ‘Healing Feeling.’ We are also super focused on breaking a new genre of music that we are establishing called ‘New American Soul’,” they explained.

“We are also in the process of breaking a Female Vocal Group that we put together named ‘The Shindellas’ – they are up next. We also have some exciting collaborations coming up with some established artists and new artists that will further the Louis York brand,” they said. 

“Lastly, we recently partnered with the Nashville Tourism and the National Museum of African American Music, to launch our new podcast “State of Black Music” along with our co-hosts and friends Phil Thornton and Tamone Bacon… so far, our guests have included Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Hudson, Bobby Brown and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis,” they added.

On being artists in the digital age, they said, “It can be extremely confusing sometimes… it seems that when it comes to music, technology responds to numbers, and while numbers don’t lie, they can be bought, which leaves very little room for excellence and genius to drive the conversation about the value of music., so basically technology devalues music which makes musicians less valuable to society… that’s a travesty that Louis York is hell-bent on fixing.”