scott b. bomar: press

"This is a striking new voice. His "Radio Drive" CD knocked me right on my butt. For an extraordinary listening experience and a rallying cry for honesty, roots and meaning in music, check out "I Miss Johnny Cash." Then browse your way through 12 more that ring with just as much power. The hillbilly Tom Petty. Easily the DisCovery of the Day."

"Scott is a singer/songwriter with vision and heart that transcends mere music and lyrics"

"Bomar hooked me with the tuneful and incisive 'Two Paper Town,' about corporate America's continued narrowing of the dialogue of everyday life, then he backed up the promise with strong personal statements about love—found, lost, imagined, enduring, and spiritual. Radio Drive’s tasty guitars complement the grit of his voice, and his Hollywood cowboy perspective—a southerner exiled in Los Angeles—gives him a unique outlook. Ask him and he’ll tell you he loves Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, and Buck Owens. Listen to Radio Drive and you’ll hear that he walks it like he talks it."

"'Everytime It Rains' is a gorgeous weeper."

"'Two Paper Town' is an anti-corporate mini-masterpiece of songwriting....bemoaning the death of small and local businesses."

"a heady brew of folk, country and some pop with a lyrical emphasis...edgy with some great hooks. The major record companies release hundreds of discs each year that don't come close to what this one has to offer."

"'Every Time it Rains'...exudes cool, pop-tinged atmospherics."

Following is a track by track guide to the latest CD, "Radio Drive" by Scott B. Bomar

Scott B. Bomar
Radio Drive
Cut by Cut


All I Need
Scott B. Bomar
Even though I live in Los Angeles, I regularly travel to Nashville to write songs and do whatever else it is that songwriters do in Nashville. During one of these trips I was driving around, bleary eyed, in the middle of the night and the first verse just popped into my head. I had no idea what the song was about or where it was going, but when I got back to my room I hammered out most of what later became the chorus. The original hook was “we gotta get free.” The next day I was writing with Cyndi Thomson, an artist on Capitol records, and she suggested I try “you’re all I need” instead. She was right and the rest of the song just spilled out after that.

Love Town, Pop. 2
Scott B. Bomar / Paul Marshall
Not long after moving to Los Angeles, I got connected with Paul Marshall through Wendy Waldman. Paul used to be the lead singer of the psychedelic rock group Strawberry Alarm Clock (remember 1967’s “Incense and Peppermint?”) before joining country legend Hank Thompson as a bassist and penning songs for Patty Loveless, Highway 101, and Jill Sobule. These days he’s playing with a great band called I See Hawks in L.A. “Love Town” was one of the first songs we wrote together and the record came out with a really good energy. That’s me attempting to play organ on the recording. My apologies go out to those who can actually play the thing!

Poison to Me
Scott B. Bomar / Tony Villanueva
There’s a scene in the film Tender Mercies where Robert Duvall, who plays a forgotten country singer, goes to see his estranged ex-wife. When he returns home his current wife begins making snide insinuations about his feelings for his old flame. Duvall’s character, insisting that he has no interest in his ex, explodes, “She’s poison to me!” Something about that phrase caught my attention and I took it to Tony Villanueva, a good friend who was in The Derailers at the time. We finished the song in an afternoon. Strangely enough, Tender Mercies is about a country singer who left his career and finds redemption through faith and family. In real life, Tony is a country singer who left his growing career with a great band to dedicate himself more fully to his own family and faith. This was one of the last songs Tony wrote before leaving The Derailers.

To Whom It May Concern
Scott B. Bomar / Dale Dodson
One day I was in the tape room with a fellow writer at Sony Music in Nashville where I’m on the writing staff. He was having the guys make a copy of a recording that he wanted to send over to a local record label. The guy typing up the CD label asked who the note should be directed to and my writer friend said, “Gee, I don’t know the name of the person who should get it.” I suggested he just write “To whom it may concern” on the label. I was actually waiting on him to come to lunch with me and was trying to speed up the process. Right after I said it I noted that it might be a good song title. His response? “I don’t think so.” We wound up writing a different song that day, but I kept knocking the title around in the back of my brain until Dale Dodson and I finally sat down together one day and hammered it out in that old school country style that nobody does quite as well as Dale.

Two Paper Town
Scott B. Bomar / Steve Seskin
When I was a kid there were two newspapers in my city. The morning paper was known more for its progressive views and the evening paper had a reputation for being the more conservative voice. Somewhere along the line we wound up with only one paper and I soon figured out that the same company had owned both of the original two anyway. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it doesn’t seem like there are as many choices as there used to be. Every city in America seems to have the same strip mall and Applebee’s restaurant in every neighborhood. I tried to get a bunch of different people to write this with me, but nobody was interested. After seeing Steve Seskin play a show in Los Angeles one night I knew he was the co-writer for this song. It took us two years to get together, but he was the right partner and the result is one of my favorite tracks on Radio Drive.

Keep On Drivin’
Scott B. Bomar / Tom Douglas
Do you ever imagine how dramatically different your life could be if you made one simple decision at just the right moment? This song is really just one of those dark little fantasies that most of us have but don’t ever say out loud.

The Ghost of William Tines
Scott B. Bomar
In late 1996, as the state of Tennessee was preparing to execute its first death row inmate in almost forty years, I read an article in the The Nashville Scene by Richard Urban. It chronicled the story of William Tines, the last man to have been executed in the state back in 1960. In 1957 Tines, a black inmate at the Brushy Mountain Penitentiary in East Tennessee, escaped and found his way to a home where he unexpectedly happened upon a white housekeeper. When she screamed, he panicked and brutally beat her before fleeing. He was quickly picked up and during an interrogation the following day he admitted to beating the woman, but strongly denied, as the investigators suggested, that he had raped her. Nevertheless, he signed a statement confessing to the rape despite the fact that he was illiterate and nobody read the confession to him. During the trial the doctor who examined the housekeeper stated on the witness stand that he could not tell by the examination whether the woman had been raped. Nevertheless, Tines was found guilty by an all-white jury, which deliberated for less than half an hour. He was finally executed in the electric chair at the State Penitentiary in Nashville in the presence of a small group of observers, including the prison warden. The warden’s name was Lynn Bomar and I guess that last name is what really caught my attention and drew me to the story. There’s no denying that Tines was a criminal, but I’ve never been too comfortable with the idea of killing people – whether its done by a lone maniac or the state who, in a representative government, is supposed to be acting on my behalf. Tines last words were “pray for me.”

I Sold My Soul
Scott B. Bomar
I once heard someone say that God has no desire to be a part of our lives. “God doesn’t want to be a part of your life,” he said, “he wants to be your life.” I try to live like if I’ve sold my soul to God, as if he’s the most important thing in the world. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t. The gospel tag at the end of the song was an afterthought, but it was a lot of fun. We brought in my good friend Paul Duncan, who played for a black gospel choir back in college, to play piano on the record. It was a great time.

Soon As You Get Home
Scott B. Bomar
It’s kind of funny that I followed up a gospel song with a song about sex, but I guess both things are pretty important. This track doesn’t really have a lot to do with the rest of the album, but I like the way it came out. I think my wife is completely embarrassed whenever I play it.

Relentless Pursuit of Your Heart
Scott B. Bomar / Neal Coty
Neal is a great writer/artist who put out a really cool album on Mercury Records a few years back. I used to hear him on the radio in Nashville and I became a fan. When my publisher asked me if I wanted to write with him I jumped at the chance. I really like this song for its simplicity and I think the recording captures a cool vibe.

How Many More Tomorrows
Scott B. Bomar / Tony Villanueva
Tony and I wrote this song late one night in a hotel room in Austin. We both thought it was “just OK” at first, but once we got the idea to add the mariachi horns we got a lot more excited about it. It’s kind of like the old Johnny Cash records where all of a sudden you get horns out of nowhere that have nothing to do with anything. That’s cool.

It Gets Me Every Time
Scott B. Bomar / Brian Hofeldt
Brian’s one of my favorite co-writers and an all around great guy to hang out with. His band, The Derailers, is one of the best country groups around and it’s always great to talk music with him. This song came together one day when we were in Brian’s living room in Texas. We were talking about the old school shuffles that guys like Ray Price used to do and we wrote this song hoping maybe Ray himself would want to record it. It’s about a guy who’s been married for a long time and, even though he’s not the most expressive or sensitive guy in the world, he wants his wife to know that she still does it for him. I sort of feel like maybe I need to be about 35 years older to really pull this one off, but I like what it says and I wanted to make it a part of this record.

I Miss Johnny Cash
Scott B. Bomar / Eric Church / Brian Hofeldt
Brian and I wrote this one with Eric Church, an up-and-coming singer on Capitol Records, not long after Johnny Cash died. The title pretty much says it all. Brooks & Dunn went into the studio to record this song, but weren’t happy with the results so they threw in the towel. That’s too bad because their record of it could have paid for my kids’ braces. Oh, well. I don’t have kids anyway. The thing is, it’s pretty hard to find anyone who doesn’t love and respect Johnny Cash so I still think this song will find its home someday.