Just a few months after the release of “Stay Warm”, George Taylor extends a rapturous invitation to listeners with “Come Follow Me Down”. Delivering his eloquent lyricism with gritty vocal delivery soaked in Daptone soul, over an epiphanic combination of ominous keys, bold guitar strokes and jolting percussion, the London-based musician presents one of his most powerful songs to date.

“Come follow me down is an invitation from one person to another to join them in their misery. It’s not a wishing of darkness upon someone else, but more of a desperate search for understanding. It’s a love song that calls on that person to feel what you feel in order to understand why you are who you are.”

It’s in the video directed by Griffin Stoddard, that Taylor’s feelings of isolation and longing is brought to life with the cinematic drama that wouldn’t look out of place in American Horror Story or A Handmaid’s Tale. Book burning, snake worshipping, unnerving silence, desperate looks are just some of the elements in this dark, transfixing music video.​

George Taylor calls on the unmatched emotion of Jeff Buckley, a deep appreciation for English forbears Pink Floyd and powerhouse vocalists like Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Peter Green. It’s this rich listening history that’s informed George’s sound that first began to stir up a buzz in 2016. With major support from Spotify, his first single “Give It Up” amassed over 2 million streams in under six months. Following this initial success, Taylor signed a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell.

Without so much as a semblance of familial musical experience and living in Bulwick, a small Midlands town removed from any major metropolis, George Taylor became obsessed with records as a child, picking up a guitar with no formal training at the age of twelve.

“I had this constant urge,” he admits. “I remember lying in bed and thinking, ‘I have to do this.’ Instruments always fascinated me, and I decided to seriously pursue music. I taught myself to play guitar by listening a lot. I never had proper music lessons. I wanted to steer clear of any tutoring or somebody telling me, ‘This is the way it should be done.’ If you teach yourself, it can lead you down other avenues you might not go down if you’re taught.”

Following this instinct, he went through a string of bands in school and university—and a few pub jobs that didn’t last more than a day.

Now, 2017 saw George introduce a string of new music to the world. We’ve already seen the releases of “I Hear Your Song, Sweetness”, “The Youth” and “Ophelia”. First of the year, “I Hear Your Song, Sweetness” is a track fueled by a robust guitar riff, delicate acoustic phrasing, and his hypnotic croon sending an assuring message “to struggling musicians everywhere.” This was swiftly followed by a clarion call to young people titled “The Youth”, which was written during a trip to Woodstock, NY and resounds with lines like, “Shine a light on the youth. Don’t deny them, soon they’ll be living here and not you.” Of course, then there was the aforementioned “Ophelia”, as George explained, “It’s about someone I got to know who had sadly been spending time in a mental hospital, but didn’t believe she should have been there. The name Ophelia comes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”

Throughout it all, it’s George Taylor’s aptitude for storytelling coupled with a singular soulful voice that truly makes George a songwriting treasure:

“It all comes down to honesty for me,” he leaves off. “I have to really believe in what I’m singing in order to sing it.”

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