With songs that cut deep, String Bone walks in the shoes of downtrodden vagabonds, bravely into the fray of collapsing love, with tales of criss-crossing country journeys and taking downtown back alley shortcuts.   

The newest single from String Bone, ‘Waitin’ For My Dyin’ Day’ is no exception; a mysterious character on the brink of the breaking point. Mercy is their desire in life, and in death.  

A stranger’s kind word, or a stroke of good luck is enough to reveal the power to push on, creating the euphoria of discovering renewed life force. “I’m alive!” soars the song’s chorus, as it moves from bleak darkness into bright illumination, ending with a repetitive plea for mercy.

Waitin' For My Dyin' Day

A venue promoter described this track as "Talking Heads meets Nashville….. love it. It feels like Once in a Lifetime (which is a good thing) and attempts to answer the same questions… decades later, as nothing changes." 

It's eclectic, humourous, sarcastic, fun, pessimistic, optimistic, danceable, Americana, spoken word, R&B, Disco, jazzy and kinda chaotic.

Wow! Oh Yeah!

Inspired by the Netflix series, 'Lucifer', as he deals with betrayal in his life. His mother, his father, his brother, almost everyone it seems. Can you relate?

Why Should I Try

Alternate Americana arrangement. It's all electric guitars baby!!

released September 23, 2022
written, recorded, mixed & produced
by barry james payne & nathan mckay (both are SOCAN/MAPL)
at the boneyard, stratford, ontario, canada

mastered by george leger iii at utopia parkway music,
las vegas, nevada, united states

© 2022 space cowboy music publishing socan

the band:
barry james payne: acoustic guitars, piano, vocals
nathan mckay: samples, programming, engineering, mixing
paul aitken: electric guitars, mandolin
steve wood: pedal steel
jay riehl: drums

Two Stars Collide (Alt Version)

Coping Mechanisms

Just Cry

‘The Devil Got A Hold Of Me’ is the latest single from String Bone’s anticipated 3rd full-length release ‘Coping Mechanisms’ coming soon.
 
String Bone brainchild, Canadian singer-songwriter Barry James Payne, has been releasing music under the String Bone moniker since 2008. Moving from acoustic folk to Alt.Country, Blues and Rock, Payne’s lyrics often touch on taboo subjects as in this case.

Payne gets dark again on this song about origins and the resulting perceptions, being born into poverty vs privilege, luck vs talent and the legend of Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroads. This song would fit perfectly as the intro to Orange Is The New Black or No Country For Old Men, a Robert Johnson or Blues documentary and on any Electric Slide Blues-Stomp/Rock playlist - pulsating, seductive, menacing, intense and relentless. 

With dual slide guitar slingers, Rick Taylor (Leonard Cohen, Willie P. Bennett) and Jamie Ransley duking it out for the best hooks, and a searing, vicious violin solo by Newfoundlander, Alison Corbett, that explodes into the stratosphere, Barry James Payne professes the character’s confirmations, protestations and damnations in an intense energy-infused tone of righteous self-preservation. Carried by Jay Riehl’s bombastic Rain Dogs-esque drumming a la Tom Waits, but heavier, waaaaay heavier, the song inches towards an all-out jam and stays up in a fever pitch until the end. 

Written, recorded and produced by Barry James Payne of Canada and production partner George Leger III (Nickelback, Sophie B Hawkins), a Canadian ex-pat now living in Las Vegas, their approach was, “let’s make this the sister song, production-wise, to ‘Wow! Oh Yeah!’, but with a Stomp-Blues rhythmic panic attack”. And that they did.

The cover design by graphic artist Steve Good of Good Work Design Ink.,
imagines meeting the devil at the crossroads, as legend has it.

The Devil Got A Hold Of Me

nadir

Wash Away Our Sins

Nietzche Finds A Bullfight

Technonaut Nathan McKay and folkie Barry James Payne didn’t seem to have a lot in common musically. Or did they?

McKay is an electronic musician, a Street Producer, or as he likes to call it, “a backpack producer.” He creates wherever he feels comfortable deploying the contents of his backpack—microphones, a variety of cables and cords, and a few different devices that he can attach to his DAW (recording studio in a box) on his laptop—in a restaurant, a park, a bar, a coffee shop, the cottage, the country... you get the idea.

Payne is the architect of Americana/Canadiana project String Bone and approaches things a little differently. Ever the brooding songwriter, he most often embraces solitude to craft deeply personal lyrics that tackle subjects ranging from difficult relationships to social injustice. Combining his thought provoking storytelling with classic melody and production, Payne tends to labour until a song is complete before inviting other players in. The two couldn’t be further apart: Acoustic folkie creates alone; electronic musician relies on samples and loops to create amongst a room full of strangers. And yet...

When Payne and McKay found themselves working together in 2012 on the music lineup for a community festival in their hometown of Stratford, Ontario, they quickly developed a mutual respect for each other’s tastes, which ranged from folk, punk and rock to dance, electronic and drum&bass. Many conversations ensued over meals and meetings as they bonded over a combined 60-plus years of making, distributing and promoting music. Naturally, the topic of collaboration came up occasionally, but it took until now for that proposition to finally bear fruit.

They both say that their first session together was magic. Feeding off each other, the energy in the room was dynamic, light, fun, energetic and freeing. Within three hours they had given birth to their first song, “Two Stars Collide,” best described as a folk dance epic. 

The success of the first session quickly spawned another that was equalling compelling culminating in a Lana Del Rey-inspired dark ballad. 

More sessions followed and they realized they were closing in on something special - exploring this musical concept: “what if an alt.country artist went to a rave?”, yielding their own take on a Folk-Pop-Electronic hybrid. To that end the duo are releasing three different mixes of Two Stars Collide, the first release with a focus on Folk-Pop, the second will be an electronic-dance mix and the third a guitar driven Alt.country jam. 

Can they all live in the same space? The way people are listening to all kinds of music today, Payne and McKay think they can. Enjoy the first single.

Two Stars Collide feat. Nathan McKay

With his band String Bone, Americana/Canadiana singer-songwriter Barry James Payne kicks off 2021 with a positive approach looking to the future.  The song harkens back to easier times and continuing efforts toward better days ahead.  'A Lot More Better' has an upbeat country feel with a nod to early rock and roll and blues as listeners dance into a new and better year. With a 'Tulsa Time', 'Mercury Blues', Rodney Crowell vibe going on, this is Payne's ode to what he hopes will be a much better year ahead. 

The inspiration for “A Lot More Better” was sparked in 2017 at a favourite, local drinking hole, Foster’s Inn, a small pub in small-town Stratford, Ontario, Canada where Payne was having a drink with friends.  The conversation turned to the National Hockey League playoffs. Knowing his friend's favourite team had fallen behind, Payne in true friend-form, goaded him by asking how his Penguins were doing - to which his friend blurted out “they gotta do a lot more better!”. Friends laughed and Payne snickered knowingly, sneaking the lyrical nugget into his list of ideas.  A few weeks later he wrote the main lyrics to the song, but never finished it until a writing session with Stratford, Ontario musician Jay Riehl in early November 2020.  

Payne flipped through his notebook of lyrics at the session and laughed discovering the almost-finished lyrics from three years earlier.  Riehl and Payne were in hysterics while crafting the song, which took shape in less than three hours. Guitarist Carey Blackwell joined in the fun, adding the classic rock and roll/blues sounds, and then it was off to Utopia Parkway Studios in Las Vegas and engineer George Leger III for mastering.

A Lot More Better

Southern Ontario songwriter Barry James Payne is the architect of String Bone, the artistic vehicle for his solo songwriting. In the new release ‘Wow! Oh Yeah!’, Payne explodes into electric grunge & funk guitars, screaming Wow! Oh Yeahs, while a female chorus urges hope, amidst his nonchalant testimony of the times we are living in with a sarcastic Bukowski-like narrative going for the jugular of the world’s leaders who continue to do little despite the seeming urgency of our approaching doom. 

The song culminates in a frenzied chaotic finish in a heaping hot mess, before which Payne wonders what could happen if we looked at the world a little differently, claiming that things probably won’t change, but they could. They have to. There is hope. There is always hope. With backing vocals by Ariel Ryder of Chicago, IL, USA, Lea Keeley of Montreal, QC and Anaïs Ysabel of Waterloo, ON.

Folk-Americana artist String Bone, has been stepping into the fray beyond the edges of his genre envelope as of late. Whether it be exploring Drum & Bass with collaborator Nathan McKay on 2020’s ‘Two Stars Collide’s’ series of mixes, or getting stomping dark and electric in his more recent collaboration with Las Vegas Producer, George Leger III on the mercurial ‘Waitin’ For My Dyin’ Day’, he has kept the reins still somewhat close to that Folk-Americana bucket. Until now. Wow! Oh Yeah! is a mash-up of grunge, funk, Americana, Folk, rock, disco, spoken word, R&B/soul and gospel coherently woven together by Payne & Leger to create a bombastic, uptempo, fun, sarcastic, yet reflective anthem for the ages. If it doesn’t make you chuckle, it’ll make you cry. Or at least think about the planet's future.

StringBone

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