VaterSon Enter the Rock Rotation with 75%, a Father and Son Reckoning at 61
5 min read
VaterSon Enter the Rock Rotation with 75%, a Father and Son Reckoning at 61
A Swedish Father and Son Answer the Fear of Ageing with Loud, Defiant Rock
75% is the newest entry in the BestMusic.News rock rotation, and the figure in its title is a piece of arithmetic. It comes from VaterSon, a Swedish rock duo made up of a father and his son. The father, Jimmy Drexler, wrote it at 61, suspecting he has already lived three quarters of his life. The single came out on 6 October, and it meets that sum with volume rather than regret.
VaterSon’s new single is in the playlist below, and the full run of coverage sits on the VaterSon profile. 75% reached BestMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Listen in first, then keep reading for the rest of the story.
75% Is for Hard Rock Listeners Who Want VaterSon’s Father and Son Duo to Sound Like Five Players
First, 75% is for the listener who likes rock built from very few parts. VaterSon are a two-piece. The credits on the single list André Drexler on drums and give his father the music, the words and the production. On stage, meanwhile, Jimmy covers guitar and bass. Live looping fills the space a third or fourth musician would take, so the duo plays like a five-piece.
Royal Blood is the reference point, and it is the band’s own choice. Jimmy Drexler counts Royal Blood’s self-titled debut among his three favourite records. In fact, he credits it with making VaterSon a duo. Royal Blood took that album to number one in the UK in 2014 with only a bassist and a drummer. Another record on his list also explains the weight. Limp Bizkit‘s Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water sold more than a million copies in its first US week. As a producer, Jimmy set himself the job of getting that kind of punch into VaterSon’s records.
The second audience, however, is older. 75% speaks to anyone in their fifties or sixties who still plays loud and has started to count the years. Jimmy is one of them. He still listens to City Boy’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire at least once a year, 45 years after a friend first played it to him. The same friend later led him on to the Ramones. The song asks how much time is left, admits that nobody knows, and settles on making noise with whatever remains. Its subject is ageing; its mood, though, is defiance.
Early Signals for 75% Start With a Video, a Playlist Slot and a Run of Rock Reviews
The video came first. VaterSon posted the official clip for 75% on their YouTube channel a day ahead of the streaming release. The duo describe it as a song about giving what you have and pushing on. An imperfect life, it argues, is still worth all of it. Three weeks later, the single sits in the BestMusic.News rock playlist beside Foo Fighters and Imagine Dragons.
VaterSon arrive at this single with a short but useful record. When These City Streets came out last year, Songscope heard it as a protest against the toll of war. Cheers to the Vikings filed Shameless under 90s hard rock. Iggy Magazine, writing in French, set the Malmö duo beside Royal Blood, the comparison the band would make themselves. Those reviews predate 75%. Still, they show that rock writers in several countries already know the band’s name.
BestMusic.News’s curator team: “Most rock songs about getting older look backwards. 75% does the sum instead and spends the remaining quarter at full volume. That is why it earned a slot in our rock playlist.”
VaterSon Aim 75% at Rock Listeners and Radio Across the Americas From Malmö
The community around VaterSon starts at home, with a father and son who have played together for 25 years. The band’s name puts the relationship up front, joining the German word for father to the English son. Their YouTube channel, VaterSon 666, introduces them simply as a new rock duo. AudioSpot Studio handles their press.
Meanwhile, the circle has already crossed the Atlantic. VaterSon had three New York State dates on the calendar from 23 to 25 October. The run opened at Rec Room in Buffalo, on a bill headed by Texas Hippie Coalition. It then continued at The Song & Dance in Syracuse and Empire Underground in Albany. The duo’s tour shirt for the run lists all three.
The catalogue behind 75% is longer than a new name suggests. It runs to ten singles since March 2023, 75% among them, plus a 16-track collection, The Lost Songs. On the day the single came out, the duo also released Usa, Vol. 1. The ten-track set places 75% seventh, after These City Streets, and closes on I Am Who I Am.
Father and son are also taking 75% well beyond VaterSon’s home city, to rock listeners and radio programmers across North and Central America and the Caribbean. In total, that push covers sixteen markets, from Canada to Trinidad and Tobago. For a station it is an English-language rock single with a clear subject. It runs three and a half minutes.
Follow VaterSon, the Father and Son Rock Duo Behind 75%
Stream 75% on Spotify and find the full catalogue on Apple Music. Follow VaterSon on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and their YouTube channel.
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