Off Manny Blu’s Forthcoming EP, DEViL, Due Out August 20
(Nashville, Tenn.– Aug. 6, 2021) Manny Blu has released a new single, titled “Circle Up,” featuring singer-songwriter Blaine Holcomb lending his musical talents to the track. The new song is now available on all streaming services here and is off Blu’s upcoming EP DEViL, to be released on August 20.
Written by successful Nashville songwriters Michael Hardy, Ryan Beaver, and Craig Wiseman, “Circle Up” is a weekend anthem combining country attitudes with rockin’ electric guitar and drums. On the track, Blu and Holcomb set the tone for a memorable weekend and share a call to action for listeners to make the most of their 2-day escape and to grab friends, cash your paycheck, and circle up the truck beds. They sing,“Hop on your cell phone, call up the boys. There’s an all-night field and a big throwdown, got it all dialed in outside of town. Something to light and something to set, someone to slip into the cottonwoods with.”
Blu’s forthcoming EP DEViL features five songs written by some of Nashville’s most esteemed writers, including Jessi Alexander, JT Harding, Brinley Addington, Anthony Smith, Ryan Hurd, Aaron Eshuis, Joe Clemmons, Logan Wall, and more. DEViL centers around testaments of love and songs that describe where he is at in his life right now, both personally and professionally. In addition to “Circle Up,” other tracks on the EP are “Train” (here), “Might As Well Lead” (here), “Valet” featuring Brittany Kennell (here), and “Rusty Things,” which will debut with the EP.
Blu describes the new EP as “an ensemble of songs that have a variety of skill sets and sides of me as an artist that I haven’t shown before, and is probably the most complete project I’ve released to date. I think DEViL has elements that call back to what I’ve released before and what I have coming next.”
The former hockey player, MMA fighter, and native Canadian recently launched a live performance series Live & Turned Up on his Official YouTube page HERE. Known for his dynamic live performances, Blu and his band wanted to recreate the energy of a live show in each Live & Turned Up series, saying, “I wanted to lean into alternative content, and I thought playing our live versions of songs and recording them was a fun way to do that…we wanted to showcase how exciting our live show is.” In the series, Blu exemplified what ‘country punk’ truly is, which he explains as “country music to the core, with a punk attitude.”
Since its first launch earlier this year, the videos have been gaining momentum, leading to the continuation of the series; Live & Turned Up Vol 2, which kicked off on April 30 with a Machine Gun Kelly cover of “Kiss Kiss” (here) and concluded on July 2 with Blu’s original song “Rusty Things” (here). Live & Turned Up Vol 2 included several powerhouse performances such as Blu putting his spin on Miley Cyrus’ “Prisoner” (available here) and live performances of his other original songs, “Train,” (available here) and “Playback” (from his album Leave It Like It Is – available here). Live & Turned Up Vol 2 was filmed at the historic Exit/In in Nashville, Tenn, which has been the focus of a campaign to preserve its historical existence.
Live & Turned Up Vol. 1, available here, debuted earlier this year and put Blu and his band front and center performing some of their favorites and some of music’s most popular covers along with his original material. The video setlist includes The Pretty Reckless’ “Death By Rock and Roll,” “BLOW,” originally performed by Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, and Chris Stapleton, and Blu’s originals, “’95” (only available in series), “Old Money,” “Burnout Town” (from Blu’s 2020 sophomore EP), and “X on My Heart” from his 2019 debut.
Fans can stay up to date on news and announcements from Manny Blu by checking out his website or following along on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
DEViL Track List:
1. “Train” (Ryan Beaver, Jessi Alexander, and JT Harding)
2. “Might As Well Lead “(Aaron Eshuis, Joe Clemmons, and Logan Wall)
3. “Valet” Ft. Brittany Kennell (Aaron Eshuis, Ryan Beaver, Ryan Hurd, and Joe Clemmons)
4. “Rusty Things” (Ryan Beaver, Brinley Addington, and Anthony Smith)
5. “Circle Up” – Ft. Blaine Holcomb (Ryan Beaver, Michael Hardy, and Craig Wiseman)
About Manny Blu:
Manny Blu has recently received TikTok attention for his videos that showcase his personality and the Country Punk style – a creation of music that combines the lyrical storytelling of country music and the heavy infused beats and sounds of pop-punk. You can view his first viral TikTok, which received 600K+ views (HERE). Blu continues to develop and mold his unique vibe to country music–a sound he introduced with his debut EP Leave It Like It Is (2019) and follow-up 2020 EP release, New Ink. Today, he is gearing up to release his next EP, DEViL– a tracklist that uses his country-punk sound to express testaments of love and explain where he is at in his life right now. Blu has already released two singles along with music videos off of that EP “Train,” (HERE) and “Might As Well Lead” (HERE). Blu is also honing in on his performance skills by producing a Live & Turned Up concert series. To date, he has filmed two Live & Turned Up series, which included performance combinations of his own catalog and also covers. Despite the difficulties that all artists had to face in the past year, 2020 was a landmark year for Manny Blu as he continued to make himself seen in the country music community. The promising artist expanded his team to an international level through added representation in the US and the UK, and successfully released his EP New Ink filled with major songwriters like Josh Osborne, Ross Copperman, and Rhett Akins, and found success with his debut release from that project “Born to Ride,” reaching over 360K views on YouTube and surpassing over 1M streams worldwide.
About Blaine Holcomb:
He might come from a college town in Upstate New York, but Blaine Holcomb won’t let anyone tell him he’s not country. Growing up in a blue-collar family, Blaine learned the value of hard work, honesty, and family – as well as how to hunt and fish with the best of them. No stranger to the Nashville scene, Blaine has been playing shows around town for the past six years, currently holding residences at Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row and The Valentine. Now paired with the perfect producer, Jay Brunswick (Brantley Gilbert, Reba MacEntire, Parmalee, Josh Thompson), he is ready to hit the ground running in 2021 with new music, a new look, and more confidence than ever before.