It was when Stephen Day started playing guitar in high school that the Georgia native, and current Nashville resident, first decided he wanted to make a self-titled album. Even then, he knew that an album bearing his name would require certain demands: complete vulnerability and total honesty. The songs on his self-titled record, due out October 2, portrait in-focus snapshots of Day’s deepest emotions, and intricately weave together who he is as a songwriter, musician, storyteller, and craftsman. From top to bottom, the listener can hear why he finally felt ready to present to them his namesake.
Now over a decade since the release of his 2015 debut EP, Undergrad Romance And The Moses In Me, Day knew it was time.
“It just kind of hit me that this was the moment to do it,” he explains. “I feel like I’m stepping into this confident space of emulating my heroes versus imitating them, and I wanted to have that as a flag and a marker, to be able to say ‘What you’re hearing is Stephen Day. It’s not Stephen Day doing something else.’ If somebody wants to know what I do, this is it.”
Who, then, is Stephen Day, and what does he do? Well, the 13 songs that bear his name demonstrate he’s a formidable, uncategorizable artist who’s able to flit between decades as well as genres—soul, R&B, rock’n’roll, and pop—with effortless ease. He cites three of his main inspirations as Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, and Frank Sinatra, and there are certainly glimpses of their influence across the album. Co-produced by longtime collaborator Micah Tawlks along with multi-GRAMMY winning producer Ian Fitchuk the album begins with the dreamy, hushed contentment of “It Is What It Is,” eases into the infectious groove of “Rock Bottom Baby” before travelling back in time with the impassioned pop-rock of “Annie Breakdown” and “Yes I Do.”
Indeed, the latter two tracks in particular capture Day’s modus operandi on this album perfectly. They sound like classic songs from the ‘80s, yet they’re simultaneously contemporary and fresh. Songs you swear must already have taken their place in the pantheon of music, but they’re Day’s brand new additions. “Back In My Bed,” for instance, is a gloriously upbeat rock’n’soul lament, while “You Wouldn’t Know” is a power ballad that commands you to sing along at the top of your lungs. This album carries the very essence of who he is, both as a storyteller and a musician: timeless.
The delicate strains of “Mama, I Found Your Guitar”— gives you Day’s origin story. His father is a pastor, and his mother was a nurse practitioner who sang at church on Sundays. One afternoon, he found her guitar in a closet and asked her to teach him a few chords, which inadvertently set him on the path he’s still on. The song, which was recorded on the very same nylon six string, brings the story into the present day, embossing it with all the difficulties and uncertainties that come with being a musician while deeply romanticising it all.
“It’s made way for really beautiful things to happen, and it’s also made way for really heartbreaking things to happen,” says Day of his career to date. “Pursuing something like this feels like a very vulnerable thing to do, so that song is both admiration for my mother, while also being inspired yet confused about why I ended up on this path, how I ended up here now that I’ve been doing it for a minute, and questioning what its mean for the rest of my life. You know, am I doing the right thing? All those kinds of existential feelings.”
Those existential feelings were compounded by a deeply fraught personal time. After Day’s wife endured “some very intense medical surgeries,” the couple prepared themselves for the absolute worst. For a few months they were, as Day puts it, “living under the idea that she may not really be around that long.” Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. But the deep fear of loss is addressed and conveyed by the plaintive, searching “Don’t Leave Me Like This.”
“It was a great way for me to work through these emotions that I had about the fear of losing my partner,” he remembers, “while giving someone else a way to read the story that might not be as heavy.”
That unguarded creativity was not only a key component in feeling ready to make a self-titled full-length, but the exposed emotion aligned with the intentional mission at the core of this album: ensure it is as human as possible. And so, working with Matt Chancey on bass, David Crutcher on keys, Ian Fitchuk on drums, Kevin Daily on auxiliary guitar and Scooter Spicer on percussion, that’s exactly what they did by tracking as a band live in the studio.
“We had two separate chunks of recording days to knock out the entire album,” says Day, “and it was the most amazing experience. It was how I had always dreamed records would be made in that sort of old-fashioned way. One of the things I wrote down and kept on a piece of paper in the studio was the phrase ‘In with the old, out with the new.’ I wanted to take the old way of doing things, but with the hope and prayer that whatever came out of the speakers didn’t feel like a retro album, but like 2029 or 2030.”
He succeeded. It’s the next chapter for an artist that has already seen more than 200 million streams to date, received cultural co-signs from peers like Teddy Swims, Allen Stone, and Cory Wong, as well as a major motion sync placement in Universal Pictures’ Strays. The next stage of Stephen Day is self-titled. Vulnerable, honest, in-focus snapshots of a generational songwriter, musician and storyteller. As the album closes with the wistful and bittersweet “Picture’s Perfect,” it sounds like the closing of one door and the opening of another. A loving retrospective on the Stephen Day of old and a welcome introduction to the Stephen Day of the future.
Emily Brimlow is a pop-soul singer-songwriter known for her whimsical, beachy vocal stylings and seamless blend of world music, R&B, and soul. With a passion for storytelling and over 12 million streams, she has captivated audiences with songs like “I Fall in Love Too Easily” and “Calling Me Home.”
After years of forging her own path, Emily signed a two-album deal with Ineffable Records, one of the top reggae labels in the U.S. Her latest album, FLOWERCHILD, features standout tracks like “Flowerchild” and “LilBit” with a follow up album planned to release in 2027
She has collaborated with Ziggy Alberts, Kim Churchill, DENM, and The Elovaters and toured across North America, opening for Ruby Waters and Teddy Swims. Her music has also been featured in Grey’s Anatomy, The Shrink, and North Face documentaries.
This summer Emily has been hitting the road in the US playing festivals like Reggae Rock Relief and Oak Fest. She is a busy bee and enjoys her time on the road touring.
