The latest single from Brandon Howard Roy, “Here Now,” is not a quarantine song, the timing and circumstances just make it feel that way. As Brandon describes it, it’s “a nostalgic love letter to the friends you can’t see every day.” Thankfully, the perennial theme of wanting to spend time with friends and can be enjoyed with, or without, the looming context of social isolation.
Despite the melancholy subject of being physically distanced from the people we love, “Here Now” manages a cheery pop vibe and the sort of big vocals you’d expect to hear in a musical. It’s almost as if Brandon Howard Roy wrote this song with the intention of everyone singing along to it with their friends.
Fortunately for him, Prince Edward Island, along with much of Atlantic Canada, has dodged the worst of it, and so Brandon Howard Roy was still able to work with his whole band. The song includes Logan Richard (Guitar), Evan McCosham (Bass), Josh Langill (Drums), Ben Aitken (Keys) and was produced by Colin Buchanan at The Hill Sound Studio.
“I’ve spent the majority of my life living in big cities. I grew up in Montreal, went to university in Toronto and because of the nature of the entertainment industry, have big personal networks across the country,” explains Roy. “I’ve decided to make a life in Charlottetown because here I found a unique ability to focus and be supported, but the truth is I’m always missing somebody, somewhere.
“Though I started writing this song before the pandemic, the lockdown made it ring truer every day. I’m so grateful that public health here in the Maritimes has largely kept us safe, but I haven’t been able to see my friends and family in central Canada since last year and that’s pretty tough. I’ve realized that long-distance friendships can be hard to maintain, and sometimes you slip up or just naturally grow apart, but that doesn’t make them any less worthwhile.”
That sentiment is further echoed by artist Ashley Anne Clarke within the release’s artwork. Incorporating a childhood photo of Brandon Howard Roy along with his lifelong best friend, the two are nested in a layer of forget-me-nots (for those of you who didn’t spend their quarantine brushing up on plant identification).
“We talked about how a memory isn’t beautiful because you can remember it as it was,” says Roy, “it’s beautiful because you can remember how it felt, and it’s that kind of nostalgia listeners will find in ‘Here Now’.”