Upon first listening to “Cocaine and Rhinestones”, the new release by the Moonlit Strays, there is no mistaking the vibe and place they take you; on tour with an indie band, driving the lonesome roads out west where there still are cowboys and jukeboxes in roadside dive bars. The Moonlit Strays are the Hamptons, NY duo of vocalist and songwriter Chloe Gifkins and songwriter/producer Mike Abiuso, in a collab with Elks DeJoule, guest vocalist and songwriter who came up with the initial idea of this lonesome story, hook, and lyrics of the song. The production has tones of Country Americana, yet takes a fresh direction from previous releases with the use of the doubled male and female vocals, with Gifkins and DeJoule each magnifying the richness of one another’s voices.
The two harmonize to tell the late-night tale of an unnamed singer and his life of “dive bars and desert nights” flush with the crackle of vinyl records and cavernous, sweeping guitars. When the chorus kicks in the track wash the listener in “neon lights” and the whiskey-soaked saloon keys of a vintage piano, “boots stomping left and right”. You know exactly where you are transported with this music, and you will want to go back to listen and dream, and you might just find yourself online on a late night buying pearl studded western shirts and a used pair of cowboy boots.
De Joule says of the track:
“This song grew from that feeling of always being on the road and living life from one day to the next, hour by hour, gig to gig. The character in the song is a musician who drives from town to town somewhere out in the desert and the only place he ever really feels at home is when he’s performing. There’s definitely something relatable about that notion for a lot of different kinds of people: that feeling of security and comfort you can only get when you are truly in the zone and fully in your element. I’d developed the melody and some initial lyrics and we grew the track from Chloe’s idea to include the phrase “piana bench” and the chorus and bridge stemmed from there. We had wanted to lean into the saloon-style piano and Morricone guitar for this West Texas kind of feeling but with a sort of desert disco type of propulsion that Mike laid down.” – EdJ
“Cocaine and Rhinestones” was recorded, mixed, mastered, and produced by Mike Abiuso in his Brooklyn-based Behind the Curtains Media studio, and will be accompanied by a neon and nicotine-tinged music video shot between Long Island’s East End and West Texas. The band will hit the road to promote the album for a string of performances at the types of venues and dive bars we might expect to bump into the song’s protagonist.
The band hopes that after you have a listen, you will find yourself craving cheap beer and sunsets, Jon Voight movies, and long drives to nowhere in particular.
