A beautiful for single from The Graes comes through with a cinematic and powerful feel as acoustic guitars flows and the song is a duet of gorgeous vocals that seamlessly mend together and create a wonderous atmosphere of harmonies and lush textures.
"If You Fall" is a crisp and honest song that has a way of tugging on your heart strings and it's the performance that does it.
The two balance their singing with a dynamic control and it all makes things hit harder.
The single has a way of taking you for a ride and letting you get washed away with the sound.
The song builds in intensity towards the end, and it all becomes empowering and moving as things pick up and clam down again.
The track breathes and sways and it feels good to just get engulfed by it all.
You can clearly hear the love for their craft with every note and how much attention to detail that goes into a song like this one.
"If You Fall'' will get you feeling, thinking, wondering, and picturing whatever memories or thoughts from your own life you have. It's relatable and the emotional drive is freeing.
With such a colorful and genuine single release, we wanted to have a chat with The Graes to see where it actually came from and what may be next for them. Here's what happened.
Buzz Slayers: Let's kick things off with "If You Fall". This song has a cinematic and impactful feel to it. Where did this track come from?
-CJ wrote a version of the chorus years ago for a close friend of his who passed from suicide. He couldn’t bring himself to finish it, so it remained a demo. Then this year in April, we lost another friend to suicide. We coped by writing “If You Fall” the day after the news.
Buzz Slayers: So how did this start for you guys?
-It started off as us singing together as worship leaders in our old church and it quickly evolved to our duo & writing our own music!
Buzz Slayers: What inspires you to write a song?
-Real life. We like to express the realities of the human condition in ways that make our listeners feel known and understood. A lot of our songs are actually happy and upbeat melodies partnered with sad lyrics, which in and of itself can be reflective of life.
Buzz Slayers: This track has some great styles! Can you all give us some of your top musical influences?
-Johnnyswim, The Civil Wars, Us the Duo! We love experimenting with what folk-pop music sounds like for us!
Buzz Slayers: What are you doing when you're NOT working on music?
-Working on everything else. Sorry, we don’t understand that question lol. Cass works a 8-4 office job, CJ owns his own photography business which includes a lot of days on the road & nights spent editing. Nearly every day, our lives entail Cass coming home and doing graphic design, branding work, and planning and designing merch for The Graes. Together, we usually try to touch a song we’re working on to help it progress, keep up with emails & upcoming projects, and we usually remember to eat dinner around 10:30 PM, just enough time to acknowledge a dirty dish or load of laundry before going to bed to do it all over again.
Buzz Slayers: Who's in your headphones right now?
-Penny & Sparrow, Devan, Noah Kahan & Johnnyswim.
Buzz Slayers: Are you doing any live performances right now?
Yep, we were doing a lot of gigging around our area but we have some exciting big shows coming up. We’re playing Silobration in Waco, TX on 10/29 - we’re so excited for that. It’s definitely a dream we didn’t fully know we had until we got it. And November 18, we have our first original show in our home town in NC. We somehow convinced Jaron Strom from season 14 of The Voice to come! Just kidding, he’s a good friend of ours. And we’re so excited to finally have our full band & friends be part of this show!
Buzz Slayers: This single feels like a big undertaking, is there any advice you'd give to other up and coming bands out there?
-When, not if, everything points to “no” and like it’s easier to give up, just keep going. We’ve gotten so many more “no”s than “yes”es, but we continue because it’s our passion. It’s a really tough world but keep going.
Buzz Slayers: What can your fans expect from you in the near future?
-We’re writing a lot of new records that we’re hoping to release soon. But in all honesty, we’re really working on trying to get shows in other and bigger cities!
Buzz Slayers: Before we go, what would you like to say to fans of the music?
-We appreciate you!!! We’re very grateful you’ve chose to listen to our music, and we hope you continue to do so and share with your friends!