Martin Leary – It’s Time/ Be Present (2023)
Glasgow’s Martin Leary is a man of many influences, something that can be easily heard in his latest double single, ‘It’s Time/ Be Present’. As he points out in a recent interview, he grew up with his father constantly playing Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Queen, and Eagles, while his first musical loves were more brash and loud with his first true loves being Guns ‘N’ Roses and Bon Jovi. It seems though that later on he moved to direct ELO precedents, The Beatles, and one of Brit-pop favourites, Richard Ashcroft. As you might expect, you can hear all of these in this double single.
‘It’s Time’ is full of ELO, The Beatles and Queen signatures, while ‘Be Present’ starts out as a song that for some crazy reason Eagles left out of Hotel California. Yet, throughout both, you can hear that Guns N’ Roses and Bon Jovi love courtesy of Leary’s lead guitarist, Calum Doherty, and his prominent guitar sound. But what characterises them both is that Leary and his crew were able to blend all these influences so seamlessly. You can say that they’ve created something that can be dubbed Leary’s musical signature.
Leary shared his thoughts on both songs. ”The ‘It’s Time’ line on the chorus came first when just singing random stuff so the song was built around the message of time to move on. I just picture a scene from a movie for something like that when you’ve not much to go on and write what story I’m seeing in my head.” ‘Be Present’ was influenced by a James Bond film, as Leary continues: “I was just strumming away on an acoustic guitar with a sense of seeing where it takes you. Chords and melody usually come together and they did for the chorus and from that, I wrote verses to try and fit what the chorus is saying. I wrote it not long after watching Skyfall so that had an influence on the chord progression/style…”
To find out more about Martin Leary, go to his Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
