Song of the Day: Fly Moon Royalty - Grown Man

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Grown Man” by Fly Moon Royalty from their 2016 self-released album, Delicious Trouble.

Grown Man - Fly Moon Royalty (MP3)

Referencing the recent soul revival may incite some purists to shout that soul never left, but there's no doubt we are very much in the midst of a new wave of delicious soul and funk. Household names like Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, and the late, great Amy Winehouse have opened the door for a slew of other bands, many of which are KEXP favorites: The Suffers, Grace Love & The True Loves, and today's Song of the Day artist, Fly Moon Royalty. The Seattle duo were coming off a a successful debut album, a handful of EPs, and had a full sophomore album written when they made a risky decision: trash half of what they'd written and go right back to the drawing board. It's impossible to know what that lost half sounded like, but after an additional six months of writing and recording under their own microscope, they released the powerful Delicious Trouble this last April to immediate critical acclaim.

"Grown Man" is a vindictive, gender-bending blues wailer about a man wrongly (maybe) accused of infidelity, perfectly sung by Adra Boo in a growling, assertive soul shout. She abandons traditional rhyme patterns, instead choosing a more conversational vocal approach that comes across as particularly angry and biting, and the production of Mike Illvester hits harder than your typical soul song. Illvester eschews much of the soft, woofer-friendly vintage production styling that's so prevalent in the modern soul scene, using heavier knocking drums in shades of bass-heavy boom bap hip-hop, complete with a lushly funky bridge. It's an electronically tinted soul track, appropriate for a band that's only borrowing from the past, not emulating it.

You'll have plenty of opportunities to catch Fly Moon Royalty in the days and months ahead, as they're playing all around Washington, including a July 10th appearance at the Ballard Seafood Fest and a late-September set at Macefield Music Festival. Look for more dates on their website and Facebook page. We were lucky enough to have Fly Moon Royalty grace the our public gathering space on KEXP Soul Day last month, and they burned it down with a rendition of "Grown Man", featuring two backing vocalists and some slinky, sexy guitar work.