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It’s closing time. Everyone’s leaving the bar, and through the smoky haze Hudson Thames sits at the piano where he raises a glass in the name of comradery. A few friends stay behind for one last drink and the night’s final song. “Golden days may have changed, but the boys down in the valley always stay the same,” they sing.
A line from Hudson’s latest “Last Call,” the lead single from his forthcoming debut album, the song is a nostalgic hymn for youth - the perfect introduction for an artist who prefers the title “storyteller” to any one genre label.
Growing up in Los Angeles among a family of creatives, Hudson learned to sing, act, and play piano at a young age and spent his adolescent years adventuring in the eccentric comings and goings of the California Valley.
“It was never a choice but for life to be a grand adventure,” said Hudson. “I grew up running around the valley with no supervision, like Lords of Dogtown, just a different aesthetic where we’d sneak into bars to play the guitar and piano.”
Along the way he formed a close knit group of friends people called The Hounds. “We’re a kind of mix between Odd Future and the Rat Pack,” says Hudson. A group of young artists who grew up together in an environment often too intense for their adolescence. “Last Call” is a song to celebrate their deep friendship and loyalty. “When everyone’s left the bar, it’s about who’s left,” says Hudson. “I always searched for the family I found in The Hounds. We’re all these misfit toys who saved each other’s lives.”
It is this idea of family that drives the underlying inspiration in Hudson’s music. Teaming up with renowned composer Stephan Moccio (The Weeknd, Miley Cyrus), Hudson spent the last two years meticulously crafting his debut record, a collection of deeply personal songs in which Hudson presents a unique style of piano driven soul with pop polish.
“Stephan has become a brother and an honorary Hound for sure. He’s a keys guy as well. We basically spent a year just hanging out before even touching any instruments,” says Hudson about working with the Grammy-award winning producer. “Stephan has really really believed in me and none of this would be possible without him.”
Besides The Hounds, Stephan, and musical influences such as Billy Joel, Bill Withers, and Jack White, Hudson's greatest influences remain his father and his grandmother Connie Stevens.
His father, a native of Mississippi, played the blues piano and taught Hudson to do the same. When Hudson was eight, he jumped out of the bathtub to run tell his dad he had an idea for his first song. His dad’s response? “That’s awesome buddy! Should we put it to piano?”
“Tupelo,” one of three lead singles, serves as an homage to his dad and as a nod to the Mississippi blues. Sporting a funk bass line, recorded by Nathan East (the most recorded bass player in the history of music), Elvis references, and Hudson’s energized rock’n’roll style vocal it serves as a drinking song while it’s narrative still carries sentimental value. “That word, Tupelo, has always had this weird weight for me and always felt like home. I grew up on Tupelo Street in LA, and the South brought such fun energy into my life,” says Hudson.
Hudson’s grandmother singer/actress Connie Stevens, who was part of a large Italian family and married to crooner Eddie Fisher, also played an important role in the record’s conception. Hudson says he spent hours talking with her hearing about Hollywood’s more glamorous days. “She hung out with Sinatra, and dated Elvis for while. She has all these wild stories,” says Hudson. “And the sort of Mafia mentality, for lack of a better word, that strong emphasis on fighting for family has had a large impact on me.”
And though the imagery of colorful stories and places create a filter for Hudson songs, he isn’t afraid to write about more vulnerable subject matter in records like “Bigger Than Us.”
“Bigger Than Us” is a piercing ballad of love lost - a song Hudson wrote about losing his first love not because it was anyone’s fault, but because of having different dreams and future plans. The song’s instrumentation is accompanied by a 16 piece orchestral arrangement recorded in London’s historic Air Lyndhurst Studios. “It was like a giant church,” says Hudson. “Probably the most religious experience I’ve ever had.”
Whether it’s the grit of the Mississippi Blues, tall tales of the Italian Mafia in old Hollywood, the class of London’s historic recording studios, or his teenage adventures in the California Valley, Hudson Thames presents a multilayered piece of art in the form of his first formal record having attended to every inch of the music with intention and artistic integrity.
“I want this album to feel like I’m sitting at an upright piano in the corner of a smoky bar narrating an evening or narrating a year,” says Hudson. He then quotes Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” - “Son, can you play me a memory; I’m not sure how it goes.”
