Chris Wilcox Premieres Charleston Infused Single “Captiva”

When Chris Wilcox first wrote the opening lines to his new single, “Captiva”, he had in mind a family vacation spot on Florida’s North Captiva Island (featured in his “Drive” music video). As he continued writing the song, he realized the song was more about Charleston than it ever was about North Captiva Island. Charleston is the place where Chris first learned who he was as a person, where he formed roots and learned how to be a man.

In “Captiva”, Wilcox explores a common theme in his music: growing up, or at least trying to, without allowing yourself to forget about where you came from. The difference with “Captiva” is not only a continued maturation in the Chris Wilcox sound, but also some sheer production value that sets this song apart from anything that he’s recorded in the past.

The first time Chris hit the studio with “Captiva” was back in January, when Matt Zutell of Coast Records was still working out of a storage unit. While Chris and Matt were in the studio getting ready to record the first few takes of “Captiva”, SUSTO was rehearsing in another storage unit a few doors down, and he could hear them through the walls. Chris waited for SUSTO to finish running through a song, and then came in with “Captiva”. They repeated this process a few times until they had an early demo ready.

Later that same weekend, Thomas Kenney of Terraphonics came through to record some electric guitar, and all of Human Resources came in to play their respective parts. Then Chris took the song back to Nashville with him, where he recruited Steve Dawson to lay down a bit more electric guitar and some pedal steel. This gave “Captiva” some of that Nashville sound.

To finalize the song, Chris returned to Charleston for one last run at the vocals and a bit more guitar from Dries Vandenberg. When “Captiva” was finally wrapped up, it marked the most studio sessions that Chris had put into recording a song to date. He cites Zutell’s input as crucial during this whole process, because Matt made sure the song was done up just right, without too much going on at one time.

As of this morning, “Captiva” is available for your streaming pleasure. Listen below, and look out for Chris Wilcox causing a ruckus out in Charleston this weekend into early next week, because he’s coming through to put some more time into his upcoming album in Matt’s new Coast Records Studio.