ABOUT
Since his major label debut, the groundbreaking Salesmen and Racists, Ike Reilly has been making punk/folk/blues influenced rock ’n’ roll records that lean heavily on stories of outsiders with keen details and broad strokes that insinuate a crack in the American dream. Reilly’s band, The Assassination, has been called one of the best live bands in America, and the body of recorded work they’ve turned out has been poetic, rebellious, wholly original, and critically acclaimed.
Now, the Libertyville, IL-based genre-bending singer-songwriter is set to release a new song, “Trick of the Light,” on July 30, 2021. It is the first single from his forthcoming eighth studio album, Because the Angels, which will be released later in 2021 via Rock Ridge Music. On “Trick of The Light,” a dark-pop celebration of family dysfunction, we find Reilly ironically sharing lead vocal duties with three of his own children. There is a festive innocence and a wise resignation in the vocal delivery here as Reilly and his boys trade lines and ask questions about faith, hope, family, money, and fate. Like all related singers, there is a distinctive quality in the voices of Shane, Kevin, and Mickey Reilly - similarly raspy to their father, yet not as torn up. The genetic connection is even more compelling given the seeking nature of the song.
Says Reilly of the song, “This recording shows how combustible things can get when you tear down walls and preconceptions. The wall between my family and my band has been blown to bits. We had these characters, these singers, my kids, right in front of us all the time, then this question-and-answer song about petty family sh*t shows up, and I liked the idea of different voices asking the questions. It never dawned on me that my boys would or even could sing on that track until I heard them mimicking the opening lines. It was pretty clear once we got them in the studio with the band that they belonged there and that ‘Trick of the Light’ captured something special... something that nobody else could ever capture. It’s our own f***ing thing.”
Tom Morello, also a Libertyville native says, “These homogenous Midwestern towns like Libertyville can forge rebels, and Ike Reilly is just that. He’s somebody who sees through the veil of bullsh*t.”
“Trick of the Light” drops 20 years to the day after Reilly released his debut album, Salesmen And Racists, which was released before 50% of singers on this track were born. Reilly’s long-time band, The Assassination, once again proves nimble in serving another one of his unique and brilliant songs. The single, and forthcoming album, were produced by Reilly and Phil Karnats (Secret Machines, Polyphonic Spree), and mixed by Mario McNulty (David Bowie, Prince, Julian Lennon).
The Ike Reilly Assassination is:
Ike Reilly – Vocals, Guitar, Harp • Peter Cimbalo – Bass, Percussion • David Cottini – Drums, Percussion, Vocals • Phil Karnats – Guitar • Tommy O’Donnell - Guitar • Adam Krier – Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals
IKE REILLY FAMILY Q-HOUR
Reilly is the host of the Facebook livestream series, the “Ike Reilly Family Q-Hour.” Spawned in the early days of the pandemic, it quickly became the stuff of legend. Part traditional livestream performance and part variety hour, it features family members (who might climb in through the window behind Reilly to join him “on stage” in his living room), special guests from afar, and plenty of Reilly-esque stories between songs. As Cracker’s David Lowery wrote about Reilly’s livestreams: “You and your family basically need your own variety TV show. It’s like a f***ed-up Partridge family, while remaining family-friendly. You have the best livestream going.” The Daily Herald in Chicago deemed it “eclectic,” while Good Times Santa Cruz called it “the most compelling and watchable recurring quaranstream out there.” Each episode has had up to 30,000 live views, with over 500,000 views combined among the 20 episodes to-date.
SElected press
crooked love
"...another batch of smart, literate songs... from a wordsmith who's always a few steps ahead. ...Reilly's a guy who pulls raw material from thin air and weaves it into something that speaks to and often elevates the human spirit. At his best, he transforms the mundane into the profound, the stain on the floor into the sublime metaphor." - PopMatters.com
"The album stands as a testament to our troubled times, with Reilly’s gritty, straightforward approach to rock and roll and songwriting coming across like a voice of reason. Musically, Reilly and his band aren’t afraid to take chances as they go outside of their comfort zone to whip up a groove sound that draws from blues, garage rock, and Southern boogie. At times he channels the likes of the Black Keys, while other moments it’s Bob Dylan and more of a 60s-tinged psych rock sound. There’s an honesty and a bluntness to many songs on the album, and you get the sense that the songwriter is singing from the heart as he shares everything from the deeply personal to the deeply political." - Glide Magazine
"...he’s spent his sweltering nights cultivating a cache of classics that would make most songwriters turn green with envy. For the last two decades he’s been one of the most consistent voices in rock and roll... On his latest album, Crooked Love, Ike and his band let loose and ended up making a record full of great songs that’s as much fun as anything they’ve done - Music.Defined
"Ike crafts lyrically intricate songs that demand attention, but he really just wants to blow the walls down with loud rock music. The Ike Reilly Assassination is a bluesy rock band with a folk singer's heart... with lyrics as striking as they are searing. The songs burst with personality, cynicism, big ideas and small details alike, and enough political rage to start a movement. Now more than ever, Ike's music is a much needed thing." - Paste | Daytrotter
"Turns out Ike Reilly is exactly the gravelly voice that we need in these troubled times. ... his particular style -- in turns angry, sardonic and occasionally self-flagellating -- seems custom made for the times we’re living in. Lyrically the songs are cutting and darkly hilarious, while musically they’re rollicking and alive, full of alt-rock fervor and hearty acoustic strumming set off by twangy rockabilly licks." - Quincy Patriot-Ledger
Born On Fire
"In my view, he's one of the best American songwriters of the last 10 years, both in delivery and lyrics. It's, like, part Springsteen, part Replacements. And we grew up in the same hometown, Libertyville, Illinois, where Adam Jones of Tool and Marlon Brando came from as well [laughs]. There must be something in the water there, for a suburb known principally for its Buick dealership." - Tom Morello / Rolling Stone
"The Ike Reilly Assassination is oft compared with old school outfits like Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and even Dylan, but those are your dad’s bands, and Ike frankly blows their current manifestations out of the water. If you found that too hard to swallow, then I challenge you to a Rock Off. Play a recent release from those guys, followed by BORN ON FIRE, and see which seems the most kick-ass." - Blurt Magazine (5 stars)
"To say this is exciting, unpredictable, idiosyncratic American rock and roll is not to do it justice. Established cult Reilly fans might know what to expect, but even they will be thrilled with the sheer dynamic gusto and rollicking groove he unleashes. It’s pure, unaffected and raw, adjectives that have always described Reilly and result in this explosive album, the culmination of his extensive years in the trenches." - American Songwriter (4 out of 5 stars)
"Born on Fire is an eleven track ode to a time when rock and roll was rock and roll. Actually, not “time,” but “times.” Ike Reilly has crafted an album that weaves in and out of the great epochs of rock, seamlessly weaves, I should add. And, while doing so, Born on Fire resists the urge to transcend 2015 in an “our music was better than your music” obnoxious lecturing way; Reilly manages to ground his music in the here and now – there’s a healthy bit of rustbelt gritty, grimy, realistic outlook on life to go with the grins." - No Depression
“He sounds like a slacker, but there’s a hidden ambition in Reilly’s bohemian bar-room poetry. He’s trying to wrap his arms around the whole damn thing: hope, anger, love, death, dissolution, sex; mundanity and transcendence, dreams and defeat...Reilly’s most recent influences are older than I am, and I’m closer to 30 than 20. But Christ, who cares? It all sounds really good. The songs are catchy as hell, and the lyrics are dark and funny, big-hearted and well observed, sad and sweet. That ought to be enough.” - PopMatters
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