Freddie Nelson harkens back to 90s alt rock

The singer/songwriter enlisted world renowned drummer Thomas Lang for the project

What you’ll get out of listening to Freddie Nelson’s Shake the Cage is how the album harkens back to 90’s alt rock, with emphasis on sweet love making music. But don’t get us wrong, there’s also plenty of heavy rock sounds in this 11 track wonder of an album.

Yes, Shake the Cage has a nice retro vibe but you’ll be too busy noticing it as you jam on with these incredible rock tracks. From “Turn You On,” the album’s lead-off rock heavy track, the ballad “Monster,” the heavy drums on “My Girl,” to the guitar heavy “For Those Who Die” you’ll get plenty of everything on Shake the Cage.

Freddie Nelson is a burgeoning Pittsburgh-based singer/songwriter who’s stock is rising. When they say rock is dead, artists like Freddie Nelson are here to remind us it’s far from it.

Nelson came to international attention in 2009 when he collaborated with Mr. Big virtuoso guitarist Paul Gilbert to co-headline the album United States. Together the pair wrote, performed and produced the recording that was released in 2010 on Mascot Records. A successful tour of Japan spawned a cluster of four live bootlegs released shortly thereafter. In 2015, Nelson began writing songs for Shake The Cage when Gilbert approached him again to help arrange and write songs for Gilbert’s latest solo album, I Can Destroy. That’s when he met world renowned drummer Thomas Lang who offered to drum on Shake The Cage.

“I met legendary drummer Thomas Lang during that session and told him, ‘Hey I am working on a solo album and I have some demos,’ and I let him hear them and he really dug them and said, ‘Hey, do you need a drummer for them?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, that’d be awesome.’ That’s how I met Thomas Lang and it brings me up to today with my album Shake The Cage,” Nelson tells us exclusively.

Nelson performed all of the other instrumentation and singing on the project from his home studio in Pittsburgh with technology allowing Lang to record from Los Angeles.

Rob Perez
Rob Perez

Rob Perez is a freelance writer who has been with The Music Universe early on. As a Correspondent for The Music Universe, you will find him writing reviews and live tweeting awards shows.