America’s Gerry Beckley Readying Solo Album ‘Aurora,’ Due in June; Stream “Friends Are Hard to Find”

On June 17, Gerry Beckley of the band America will release a new solo album titled Aurora.

Announced this week, Aurora will be Beckley’s fourth album with Blue Élan Records, and was previewed with its lead single — a song called “Friends Are Hard to Find.”

Listen:

More about the song and Aurora, per a news release:

Recorded during the pandemic at Beckley’s two home studios in his dual bases of Sydney, Australia, and Venice, California, Aurora is an introspective album that takes stock of his life – past, present and future. The first single, “Friends are Hard to Find,” seeks to relieve the isolation all of us felt during the last nearly two years, with a hopeful, handclapping, crowd-sourced party atmosphere to provide the respite that music can offer in times of stress. Gerry acknowledges channeling the spontaneous creativity of his good friend, prolific songwriter Jimmy Webb.

“This is a time of great reflection whether we like it or not,” he says. “If we treat this pandemic as the lesson it could and should be, this could be a moment for great growth, because even with the immense challenges we face, there is still hope.

“When you hold a mirror up to your life, it’s hard to control how much of your life is in that reflection,” he added. “I don’t want to say it’s about one thing in particular, I’d rather leave it more open-ended.”

The track listing:

1. Aurora
2. I Fall Down
3. Never Know Why
4. Tickets to the Past
5. Way to Go
6. Friends are Hard to Find
7. Peace of Mind
8. Indy’s Gatho
9. Aerial
10. Superscope
11. Tears

The new record comes on the heels of Keeping the Light On: The Best of Gerry Beckley, which was released last year.

Beckley spoke with Rock Cellar’s Frank Mastropolo about that release, and offered up this insight when asked about why rock and roll, generally speaking, is “a young man’s game”:

What I meant is that the main ingredients of rock and roll are youth and rebellion. I use as an example the great Brian Wilson line, “I’m bugged at my old man.” It works beautifully when you’re young or a teenager but you wouldn’t want to be writing that when you’re 40.

I also like to add this other half of that story, which is that when we were growing up, there were famous quotes. Mick Jagger said, “I can’t be singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 40.” And what he was addressing was, I just can’t imagine being my dad’s age and still doing this. What is, of course, true is he couldn’t have been more wrong.

At that time, had anybody had foresight and had looked at Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, Chuck Berry, nobody was hanging it up. There was no, “Well, I’m 50.” The examples that we did have were still out there. They weren’t playing arenas but they were all working. I’ve gone to casinos and the Lettermen are performing. Most of these acts stay in the game.