New Music

SEE: Upbeat Indie Rock | Rare Americans – “Searching For Strawberries”

  • June 20, 2023
  • 3 min read
  • 187 Views
SEE: Upbeat Indie Rock | Rare Americans – “Searching For Strawberries”

Rare Americans, searching for strawberries, indie rock, indie pop

Rare Americans share their latest musical/music video with “Searching For Strawberries”. The upbeat indie pop-rock track is giving us our dose of daily fuzziness. The track will get you smiling and singing instantly. See the video below and read more about this exciting band below:

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Today, alternative rock band Rare Americans have released Act II of their most ambitious project to date, Searching For Strawberries: The Story Of Jongo Bongo. This latest installment sees five new tracks added to the album.

Combining a revolutionary 33-minute, fully animated musical feature and accompanying album to create an immersive listening experience, Searching For Strawberries tells the true story of Rare Americans multi-instrumentalist “Jongo” (real name Jan Cajka) and his transformation from corporate pawn to rock star. Take a trip with Jongo as he ditches the rat race and goes on a journey of self-discovery on the Santiago De Camino, a 900km pilgrimage through Spain.

Searching For Strawberries: The Story Of Jongo Bongo is rolling out in three parts, pairing the new music with the band’s signature animation. Act I is out now and has already garnered over 800K streams across platforms in just under two weeks with lead single “Milk & Honey” landing on Spotify’s New Music Friday Canada and Ready To Rock playlists as well as Apple Music’s New In Alternative and Shazam’s Best In New Music. Act III will be out on July 7th, when the entire album will be released, and will culminate with the release of the full animated musical film available for viewing in its entirety on 10th July. The album is available now for pre-save here.

Rare Americans’ lead vocalist James Priestner shares, “I’m really proud of what we accomplished. I think Jongo Bongo will be influential, and more artists will attempt to tell their stories in this animated album fashion in the near future. It’s so powerful for the listener and viewer to be able to see the story unfolding visually while synced perfectly with the music.”

Hot on the heels of their recent international Milk & Honey tour, Searching For Strawberries: The Story of Jongo Bongo follows the success of the band’s four previously released albums and EP, Songs That Don’t Belong, in addition to a nomination as Breakthrough Group of the Year at the 2023 JUNO Awards. Rare Americans — consisting of lead vocalist James Priestner, bassist Jan Cajka, drummer Duran Ritz, and brother and co-writer Jared Priestner — have established an identity as inventive storytellers since their debut in 2018. Their songs, paired with narrative-driven animated videos have garnered them their first Billboard 100 album, a JUNO award for their most listened track to date, “Brittle Bones Nicky,” over 500 million streams, more than 875K YouTube subscribers, and media support from the likes of Alternative Press, Clash, Under The Radar, Vancouver Sun, American Songwriter, and FLOOD among others.

Rare Americans has built a passionate fanbase with their positive message, relentless work ethic, diverse sound, and captivating visuals. The genre-bending act have gone all in on building an animated universe via their own award-winning animation company, Crooked City Studios, producing content for the likes of HBO Max, New Balance, Jessie Reyez, and Donald Glover in addition to their own releases to pair with their musical output, making their fandom unique among other contemporary artists when it comes to how they engage with the group’s catalog.

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Chris Ryan

Chris Ryan is an accomplished promoter, event planner, producer, activist, counselor, poet and blogger. Within the course of two and a half years Chris Ryan has worked with some of NYC's most established promoters/event planners, been named 2007′s GaySocialite of the year, granted a promoter of the year award from NYC's most famous gay establishment, Splash. He's worked in some of NYC's top venues including; Avalon, Capitale, Cipriani, Cielo, Pacha, Element, Le Poisson Rouge, XL, G Lounge, Plumm, Hilton Hotel, Indigo Hotel, Spirit, Myst/Quo, Splash, The Ritz, Vlada, Roseland Ballroom, Heaven, etc. In 2008, Chris Ryan has begun to unveil some of the most innovative & unique parties New York City has ever seen. The Fusion events "fuse" together all disciplines of art into an event that remains diverse yet cohesive at the same time. ChrisRyanNYC.com won best gay promotions website from NYC Event Patrons in 2008 & he was granted an award from the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, Gov. Patterson & Michelle Clunie (QAF) saluting him for his hard work in nightlife. Chris Ryan has also begun working with many renown companies, including; doctors, lawyers, physicians, modeling agencies & more. Chris Ryan has been responsible for wide-scale promotions for all these companies & generating tremendous business. Chris Ryan has even started to become National with events taking place in LA & Miami this year. In May of 2009 Chris Ryan received the very prestigious honor of being named a "40 Under 40″ Gays in America by the Advocate Magazine. He also created three successful parties that generated over 1,500 patrons each. In January of 2010 Chris Ryan was featured as one of the top promoters to look out for in Noize Magazine Chris Ryan joined forces with legendary promoter/event producer, Lee Chappell and created one of the most talked about events of all 2010, Desire @ Capitale. Chris Ryan and Lee featured one of the most outstanding artists NYC has ever seen, "Oh Land." Her performance coupled with an exquisite and unforgettable set design added to this extravagant event that held over 1,000 patrons in one of NYC's most successful PRIDE events! Chris Ryan then joined forces with legendary Pacha promoter, Rob Fernandez in addition to Jake Resnicow and Tommy Marinelli to bring one of the largest and most successful parties worldwide to NYC, MATINEE. The event on Governor's Island saw over 2,000+ attendees and one of the most ambitious productions ever. In 2011 Chris Ryan started Emerge Music Promotions with business partner Darren Melchiorre. Emerge Music promotions began signing artists with plans to develop and market the artists to the community at large. Emerge Music promotions has big events planned for 2012 and 2013. Chris Ryan debuted the IMAGE events which took place on top of two of NYC's most beautiful rooftop venues, Rare View and Indigo Hotel. The events were blogged everywhere and featured the fashion designs of several clothing designers, artists and photographers. Chris Ryan felt that fashion and art should be displayed at every event and attracted the likes of Malan Breton, Calvin Klein and even Katy Perry. Chris Ryan began an extremely successful event which incorporated the concept of a house party into a nightclub atmosphere. The event Twist'D at G Lounge has been one of the most talked about events in NYC and allows it's audience to play nearly-naked Twister, beer pong, flip cup & more with other attendees. Chris Ryan was granted an excellence in volunteering award from AVP (Anti-Violence Project) for all his efforts in supporting the organization. 2013 has a very promising landscape on the horizon and Chris Ryan is complacent in saying "you haven't seen anything yet!"

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