“The whole thing is like a Trojan horse to get back into who I really am...”

Dwayne Shivers is an indie blues duo, fronted by singer-songwriter Micah Dalton. After more than 10 years of touring, six albums and critical acclaim as a genre bending soul/folk artist, Dalton felt he was increasingly resonating with certain songs and sounds hidden in his recordings. Songs with soulful biblical motifs, Bible Belt blues and more focused lyricism along with warm, uncompromising sonic tones, had become more at the heart of Dalton’s maturing as an artist. Raised a preacher’s son, Dalton says, “As a singer-songwriter I received praise for songs that spanned multiple styles, but I also felt diluted. Then I got so lost in the shadows of what I didn’t want to do, that it felt like I needed to be recreated musically in order to be myself. As an artist, my own name represented something that I didn’t want to perpetuate anymore – the whole thing is like a Trojan horse to get back into who I really am.”

Dalton met Rick Lollar through a group of musicians in Atlanta dubbed the ATL Collective (Dalton is the co-founder of the collective). Lollar, who majored in jazz studies, was reared and mentored by some of the blues kings of north Florida. Having shared the stage with Elvis Costello, Colonel Bruce Hampton and an assortment of other songwriters, Lollar was ripe to contribute to what Dalton sought stylistically. Thus, Dwayne Shivers was born.

In 2013, Dalton got married, moved to Brooklyn and continued several musical ventures while facing an critical professional crossroads. The duo eventually worked over a batch of songs and put them to tape in Athens, GA in late 2013 and early 2014 with producer Paul Reeves. “Paul had a vision of a bunch of guys who met up in a country barn and played freely into the night with the raw materials they could find around them,” says Dalton. “He used that imaginary scene as the main creative centering point throughout the recording process. It felt more like writing a film in that sense.”

The result is the debut Dwayne Shivers EP that will be released in the fall of 2014.

Failing at the music business since 2011.

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