Kandle had asked her producer, Michael Rendall, if he wanted to try and write a Bond theme song and they wrote Lock & Load together in about 15 minutes, sending voice notes back and forth. The song is unapologetically daring and grandiose, and is highlighted by Kandle’s Shirley Bassey-like vocals. The single is the first taste of new music from her forthcoming full-length, which will be dropping in the new year. It was recorded in Vancouver’s Hipposonic Studios (along with the rest of the album), and was completed under rather extraordinary circumstances: while under lockdown due to the COVID pandemic. Tracking for the new music began on March 7th, just days before the JUNOs were cancelled and everything was turned on its head.
“The actual recording process was magical. We approached it with a very old-school 60s mindset, capturing the band in the room with plenty of spill and imperfection. Lots of first takes and not too many overdubs.” – Kandle
The new music follows Kandle’s Stick Around and Find Out EP, which came out this past summer and marked her first release as a totally independent artist. The EP also featured the single, How Can You Hurt Me, which hit #1 on Radio 3’s Top 30, and charted in the top 10 for three weeks.
About the video:
A visually stunning love letter to the Bond legacy, the video for Lock & Load was directed by Brandon William Fletcher and is the perfect companion to the song’s unapologetically daring and grandiose timbre, punctuated by Kandle’s Shirley Bassey-like vocals.
“Your typical Bond title sequence will tease locations, themes, and plot points from the story. It was important to feel like there was a bigger story at play here, so I actually roughed out a whole film plot and character backgrounds to try and influence the visuals. We also have a lot of homages to previous title sequences. Like, a lot of them. We didn’t have two hours to tell a story so relying on the visual short-hand established in previous Bond films helped give the sense of a larger world.” – Brandon William Fletcher
