On the heels of releasing an EP and full-length album with his brother under the band name Whale Watch, 17-year-old Stoneham musician Ezra Walsh is now incorporating two of Boston’s most popular underground genres in his debut self-titled solo album, Ezra Cares.
Ezra, coming from a very music oriented family, has always found himself surrounded by music. His dad and professional musician himself, TW Walsh, raised both Ezra and his brother in a household where Ezra says, “music was a natural thing.” The Walsh home led to both siblings picking up instruments around the same time and later creating the band Whale Watch, under which they released the album Routine Love and the EP “Peculiar” together.
Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston
Ezra Cares is a trial run for what being a solo artist sounds like for Ezra. “This album was all about ‘Can I do music on my own?’ and what would that really look like,” Ezra says. “While writing this album, I took an emotion-based line or lyric that I thought had some weight to it, and wrote an entire song around it.” This entire album was written, recorded, and produced all from his bedroom for the past year, but Ezra really got to hammer down and finish it while in quarantine. “I always wished I had more time, but be careful what you wish for,” Ezra says.
“Rosie” incorporates elements of indie and rap, two genres that Boston’s underground scene is most notably known for. “I think Boston’s scene can be kind of binary in terms of how most of the scene is divided into two genres: rap and indie. I wanted to experiment with elements of both to see what I could come up with,” says Ezra. “Folding Clothes” includes 808 drums that are instrumental to rap while also incorporating the quintessential echo and reverb on the vocals that blend two seemingly different genres into a dreamy, lo-fi blend. The use of synth-guitar and powerful drums in “Semicolon” delivers a catchy song that would pair extremely well in an indie teen movie montage.
Listen to Ezra Cares below.
Also be sure to stay tuned to Ezra on Instagram for updates on new gigs and upcoming releases: @ezracares