LOOKIN’ FOR A NEW SONGWRITING ‘HERO’?
THE GEORGE CAHILL BAND KEEPS PHILLY AND
BEYOND ROCKIN’ WITH STRAIGHT-SHOOTING,
‘RELEVANT’ OBSERVATIONS ABOUT OUR CRAZY MODERN
WORLD ON THEIR TWO LATEST ALBUMS
A lot of folks told George Cahill he was crazy when the successful real estate agent and long retired Philly firefighter told them he was--after many years of deferring his dream--writing and recording songs and jamming in the studio of his old friend and fellow musician Dan Michael. But the multi-talented singer and rhythm guitarist didn’t care because even deep into middle age, the world around him was going crazy and he had lot to say. The result of his wild creative run are the infectious, hard hitting full length albums Hero and Relevant, each a distinctive, witty and rocking labor of love that takes a no holds barred approach to the art of observational songwriting.
Many musicians who dust off their axes and get back in the groove after a few decades away do it simply because it’s fun and they have the time and resources they lacked earlier. Home audio technology certainly made a difference. But for Cahill, writing and recording the ten tracks of Hero and recording the six originals and three covers (including “This Land Is Your Land” and Bob Seger’s “Still The Same”) on Relevant literally saved his life.
The experience of watching his daughter (successfully) battle breast cancer had taken its emotional toll and left him devastated and depressed for over a year. Running into Dan Michael proved to be a godsend. Michael asked Cahill if he wanted to contribute a track to a compilation Christmas CD he was making. Finding the process therapeutic, the two began working together in Michael’s studio and emerged with a project that became Cahill’s debut EP, appropriately titled The Dark Christmas.
The high energy “band of brothers” that Cahill put together to take the songs on Hero and Relevant to the next level has quickly evolved into The George Cahill Band—a group that has gained a loyal, growing fan base with its numerous live gigs since late 2011. In Pennsylvania, they’ve performed at The Nail in Bryn Mawr, Yards Brewery in Philly and Chaplin’s Music Café in Spring City. They’ve also played at the Cape May Singer-Songwriter Festival in New Jersey and were recently booked for the upcoming Nikstock Festival in Upstate New York.
This summer, they will be playing a Beer Garden benefit in Philadelphia for a park named after a firefighter Cahill knew who was killed in the line of duty, a friend of the singer’s who inspired the heartfelt title track to Hero. The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and Cahill have agreed to a fundraising partnership whereby the singer will make a donation to the Foundation on each sale of the song “Hero.” The George Cahill band is also slowly building a YouTube following for its live videos as well. The most popular of these thus far is the playful tribute to self-loathing, “Sick of Myself.”
Cahill brings a rich variety of musical influences and life experiences to his songwriting and recording. He cites his musical heroes as country/folk singer/songwriter John Prine, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and The Rolling Stones circa 1968, when they released the roots rock influenced Beggars Banquet. “I love the humor Prine brought to his songs and the gritty acoustic feel of that Stones album,” says Cahill. “That’s my style of rhythm guitar.”
Fully inspired by the sociopolitical and cultural moment we find ourselves in, he dramatic songs on Hero and Relevant hit on a series of provocative topics. Hero takes a controversially sympathetic look at Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick (a friend of Cahill’s) on “MVP,” gets into the struggle and cure of addictions (“Intervention”), lost love and forgiving, revenge and the bedbug invasion on “The Bedbug Song.” Relevant launches with a powerful wake-up call inspired by the chemical disaster in Japan following last year’s earthquake and tsunami (“Nuclear Fallout”) before mocking the world’s addiction to texting (“Texting Song”), exploring the complicated rollercoaster of personal romantic relationships (“Toxic Love”), taking a hard look at the hypocrisy of the Catholic church via its child abuse scandals (“Preacher Man”) and shaking his head at teenage slackers who smoke pot (“Sucking On Weed”).
The musical mayhem for The George Cahill Band doesn’t stop here—he’s already working on his third full length collection called Solutions—which will feature ten original songs including “Bitter Pill,” “Bastard Son” and “Bless Me Father.” “My songwriting is definitely evolving, and in the wake of my daughter’s illness, it gave me a reason to go on,” Cahill says. “I put music on the back burner for years but never stopped believing I could do it. In the days when I was a firefighter, I would always bring my guitar to the firehouse, jotting down notes and writing songs. It’s exciting to finally have a chance to share what I do with the world.”
