Luke Wesley looks more like a linebacker than a piano rocker. With humorous song titles like “I Hope You Like This Song” and “Sorry I’m Not Hotter”, he doesn’t quite have the personality you’d expect from the genre, either. There aren’t many other self-taught pianists in the field, and we’re pretty sure he’s the only one to have fallen off of a six story building and walked away with hardly a scratch. But in spite of this unconventional background, Luke Wesley brings to the table some of the catchiest, most polished piano rock the genre has seen in a long time with his debut LP, Because We Never Talk About It.
Wesley grew up in tiny Shelby, Ohio before moving to New York in his early 20s, and credits his family and small-town upbringing with shaping his musical stylings. “Between my parents and my 3 older brothers, I had a lot of differing musical tastes coming out of the home,” he says. “A big family helps like that.” He cites influences ranging from 1950s and 60s doowop to glam rock of the 1980s, and often draws comparisons to giants like Billy Joel, Elton John, and Marc Cohn.
Wesley’s goals on Because We Never Talk About It are modest. “All we are trying to do with the album is make a really solid pop album that isn’t super-overproduced and remains true to the live shows,” he says. And through collaborations with producers Casey Shea and Peter Block, he manages to do just that. “At its heart, this album is simply a very well constructed pop album.” The album, mastered by Mark Christensen (Langhorne Slim, 50 Cent, Raekwon), was released June 1, 2010.
Luke Wesley looks more like a linebacker than a piano rocker. With humorous song titles like “I Hope You Like This Song” and “Sorry I’m Not Hotter”, he doesn’t quite have the personality you’d expect from the genre, either. There aren’t many other self-taught pianists in the field, and we’re pretty sure he’s the only one to have fallen off of a six story building and walked away with hardly a scratch. But in spite of this unconventional background, Luke Wesley brings to the table some of the catchiest, most polished piano rock the genre has seen in a long time with his debut LP, Because We Never Talk About It.
Wesley grew up in tiny Shelby, Ohio before moving to New York in his early 20s, and credits his family and small-town upbringing with shaping his musical stylings. “Between my parents and my 3 older brothers, I had a lot of differing musical tastes coming out of the home,” he says. “A big family helps like that.” He cites influences ranging from 1950s and 60s doowop to glam rock of the 1980s, and often draws comparisons to giants like Billy Joel, Elton John, and Marc Cohn.
Wesley’s goals on Because We Never Talk About It are modest. “All we are trying to do with the album is make a really solid pop album that isn’t super-overproduced and remains true to the live shows,” he says. And through collaborations with producers Casey Shea and Peter Block, he manages to do just that. “At its heart, this album is simply a very well constructed pop album.” The album, mastered by Mark Christensen (Langhorne Slim, 50 Cent, Raekwon), was released June 1, 2010.
