The soulful voice of JOHN.k over the lush ethereal sounds from Ricky Remedy equals a winner with their new collaborative single “Gold”. Today, we have the first listen to the new track along with a couple stories from the artists themselves about the making of the song. The two even performed together recently in Nashville (pictured above), so enjoy.
Ricky Remedy: I met Johnny K through a great producer friend of mine Fvces in Orlando at Plush Studios. He was an artist Fvces was working with and he told me he had some great vocal concepts for “Gold” since I was still shopping the track at the time. One thing led to another and Johnny came through with a really dope song. I'm really excited about this track because of the size of it!
I first made the track like 3 years ago when I was in an awkward space in my early career in EDM. I knew that it was huge but I just didn't have the right writers around me at the time, to actually create the song I wanted but the time e was so huge by itself I felt like I needed to put it out. But when Johnny came up with his version I immediately took it down from my SoundCloud because I knew this was the angle the song needed to go.
It's funny because it actually took 3 sessions to hold the entire beat, since the production has so many elements and is so complex. It took a pretty long process for this song an at times it was hard because of me touring all over to get the time to set down everything else an focus on a tune I worked on 2 years ago but fvces finally came over one day an we finished all the track outs an now we have a very special song that we all believe in tremendously.
JOHN.k: Like 6 months ago, we were all discussing who would be cool to collab with and everyone kept mentioning Ricky's name. Everyone was saying, it will either be a work of art or a total disaster but either way it will definitely be interesting! I had been a fan of Ricky's for a while. I think he's one of the most talented DJs. He just has his own unique sound that I've never really heard.
I got a random text that Ricky was in the studio working on his new EP for Mad Decent. So I got in my car and just showed up to the studio unannounced.
After 3-4 hours, Ricky broke free from his own session and we ending up linking. He gave me 8 songs that he was working on but had no vocals. He asked me to topline on / do my thing on them. He had mentioned that there was one named "Gold" that was one of his all time favorite tracks that he made but he couldn't find the right vocals to pair with it because its such a big song so its been shelved for a while.
I went straight to “Gold”, set up the mic and spent 15 mins signing melodies and lyrics over it. I was in the zone so literally had zero clue if anyone was vibing with my approach on it. When i finally opened my eyes and peaked in through the glass, everyone was freaking out. So after that we knew we had something.
The song itself, although a collab is a cool follow up to my debut Runnin in terms of story telling. Basically, telling the next man up, enjoy her but she's fools gold. Appears amazing on the surface but once you examine her and learn more you'l find out she's damaged, not real, posing, acting, all for show.
Super excited to release this track. Its definitely more EDM then the stuff we are going to put out for my solo project coming soon but fun as hell to collab with someone as insanely talented as Remedy.
And about the lyrics:
"I should put you on a stage, so everyone can see you"
We've all been there. Learning more negative things about a person you're in a relationship through time and circumstance. Wanting to expose what they really are bc they are fooling everyone around you. I've been in relationships where all my friends are like "she's perfect" but they literally have no clue what she is behind closed doors. I think sometimes we put up with a lot of bullshit and make the relationship look great on instragram and Facebook when its really not. Being envied as a couple on social media definitely carries values. Sometimes we stay longer in the relationship bc of it.
"I put you on display, you don't shine the way you used to, even diamonds start to fade"
Like a lot of us can relate to, everything was great in the beginning but overtime it fades, especially when you are with someone who was faking it from the very start. It's a lot harder to continue being something you are not through time.
For more information on JOHN.k, visit facebook.com/musicbyjohnk.
For more information on Ricky Remedy, visit facebook.com/OfficialRickyRemedy.