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Zach Pietrini isn't exactly Bruce Springsteen's vocal doppelgänger. So it’s to Pietrini’s credit that within the first couple seconds of his new single, “Seventeen,” the Boss-ness of it all just sort of washes over you.
Maybe it’s the acoustic guitar strumming over a synth backdrop. Maybe it’s the earnestness in Pietrini’s delivery. Maybe it’s the automobile-centric, “Anywhere, USA” lyrics:
Seventeen
Red-blooded boy sitting in the front seat
Didn’t know I didn’t know a damn thing
Just wanted to drive
Push down the pedal and feel alive
So much I couldn’t see
It turns out it’s all of that.
The track is part of Pietrini’s new album, Rock & Roll Is Dead, out Sept. 23. And the song is emblematic of the “let’s not rush this” approach of the entire project, which took about two years to complete.
“This definitely ended up being the most ambitious record I have ever made,” Pietrini explained. “A lot of time was spent making sure we hit our sonic goals — meaning, were we true to the reference points we chose? In this case, Springsteen's Born in the USA, Petty's Full Moon Fever and David Ramirez’s We’re Not Going Anywhere.”
You can hear (and watch) Pietrini’s time well spent below, as well as on the new — and ironically titled, it should be noted — album, which he’ll celebrate with a record-release show at Anodyne Coffee’s Walker’s Point Roastery on Sept. 30.
