Better known as Sir Canyon, Los Angeles artist Noah Lamberth offers his alternative take on country music with more of a psychedelic twist than most. Accentuated by radiant pedal steel, shimmering vocal reverb, and a steady, dreamy vibe from beginning to end, the Americana presented in “Ventura Skies” could rightly be labeled as a sort of “cosmic country”. It’s all about kicking back and realizing one’s dream to move out to California shores for a life of relaxation, and Lamberth’s way of delivering the song sells it with the seemingly effortless confidence that one would come to expect of a songwriter of his caliber.
Landing on the “Sir Canyon” moniker purely because it “sounded cool”, Lamberth captures the ethereal California lifestyle depicted in “Ventura Skies” to a tee. It wasn’t always clear skies for Lamberth, who only settled on developing this unusual yet homey style of re-working roots music following a romantic breakup and the loss of his father to cancer. With “Ventura Skies” and its incoming album of the same name (2 March), Lamberth is setting out to renew himself and start fresh with a new and exciting musical pathway that’s past his years of joining a band and sharing stages with the likes of Willie Nelson, Brad Paisley, and Katy Perry. With Sir Canyon, Lamberth owns something that’s all his own.
What is “Ventura Skies” about?
The song is more about an idea rather than talking about a place. It’s about moving forward, heading West and starting over again. I used to live above Ventura Blvd and a lot of life happened in that house, mostly good memories but life evolves and we move on. We used to have the best sunsets up there and the skies always looked so amazing as you looked West to the ocean over Ventura Blvd and Ventura the city was about an hour away.
Who or what were some of the influences when it came to writing “Ventura Skies”?
I wrote Ventura Skies with Andy Davis, the producer, in a loft in downtown LA. It was in a grungy area of downtown and the whole building was just concrete and very sterile. That area of town seemed like it was just a concrete canyon and that’s a line we came up with and used in the 3rd verse of the song. We used lots of city/nature references in the song to evoke the “getting out of town” idea and starting over.
Do you have any stories from writing “Ventura Skies” that you would like to share?
We did some overdubs for a few of the songs at Switchfoot’s studio in San Diego with Drew Shirley who plays guitar for them and produced those sessions for us. We had our friend Aaron Redfield come in to do some percussion and I wanted him to play some stuff on “Ventura Skies” and at first, Aaron thought the song didn’t need it because we started playing it during the middle of the tune. We started the song from the beginning and when he heard the line “Tumbleweeds on the 405” he loved it and was all about it! I would’ve made him play on it anyway, ha, but his percussion is spot on for the song!