It's been a very busy decade for performer/singer/songwriter/producer/remixer Julian Shah-Tayler (The Singularity).
Born in Leeds, England and holder of a philosophy degree at York University, the Southern California resident has been very active in the studio in additional to his solo career. His recorded work is constantly downloaded and streamed.
While the recorded catalog of Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Radiohead, Suede, The Cure, Blur, and the Beatles have helped inform his own melodic and lyrical path, Julian Shah-Tayler’s musical identity is unique and original.
He remixed Wayne Hussey of Mission UK (a childhood hero) with alt rock collective Beauty in Chaos on their remix album as well as several other remixes on their follow up female vocal album Actors on Actors, which he scored and earned two Emmys. Julian won a “Golden Trailer” award for his work with Lana Del Ray on Disney's Maleficent trailer.
Three of his songs were the “hits” for the focus band in the music movie Plush directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight), and 4 of his tunes cowritten with Siobhan Fahey (Bananarama/Shakespear's Sister) were the main songs for the Astrid Angel band in the 2012 London-based musical drama Riot On Redchurch St, directed by Trip City and Martin Amis' Money author/director Trevor Miller.
In April 2026 on Harmony Records is Easy to Love by Julian Shah-Tayler (The Singularity). All tracks written and performed by Julian, with arrangement, additional instrumentation, percussion, remixing and remastering by David Chatfield.
“It’s designed as an art piece to allow Julian’s fans to be able to peer into Julian’s variety of work,” described label owner David Chatfield.
“These are some of my favorite songs, re-arranged and reimagined in my unique way. I am mesmerized by Julian's layering of sounds. Each of these songs was hand-picked by me, with Julian's approval, I remixed (in my proprietary way) and mastered every song, even ‘Easy’ and ‘Secret’ that were originally produced by Robert Margouleff.”
Over the last decade I’ve enjoyed Shah-Tayler recordings. His dreamscape productions, now augmented and remastered by Chatfield on this Easy to Love compilation should bring new eyes and ears to Julian’s audio and sonic vision. A handful of the song titles, “Easy,” “Living in a Dream,” “Perfect,” “Turn to Stone,” “King of America,” and “End of the Line,” bring us into the open-book world of cultural creative Shah-Tayler.
I asked Chatfield about Julian’s “End of the Line,” a song and studio production that explores self-reflection, existential contemplation along with his quest and search for meaning in life.
“I rediscovered Julian's original version of the song one day going through my hard drive. He had given it to me for business purposes when I was representing him as his attorney. When I found the song, I immediately was drawn to it. It reminded me of the way David Bowie performed ‘Let's Dance’ on his Glass Spider tour.
“I had met Bowie in 1972 when I interviewed him and reviewed his live show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for the USC Daily Trojan.
“At a dinner in early 1987 when my fiancée’s roommate, Mellisa Hurley - a dancer on Fame television show) asked me about an audition she had that day with a guy named David Bowie. She basically asked me about his character and, after I explained my experience with him, she accepted the position as the main dancer in the tour...and later she became engaged to David whom I became to know when he came into town to see Mellisa at the apartment. I was given tickets to the Glass Spider tour and loved the way the instruments sounded. So, when doing the remix, I contacted Alan Childs who filled me in on how he got the drum sounds on stage during the tour. I used that information to recreate what I imagined to have heard live and applied it on this song.
“Julian Shah-Tayler composed and played all of the instruments on the original recording and mixed and produced it as well. I then remixed the song with a bit of arrangement change and, as per my remix style, I took a hook from in the middle of the song and placed it prominently throughout, replacing the former introduction with the embellished hook which included a part of the chorus and mastered the song as well.”
In April 2026, I interviewed Julian Shah-Tayler about his Harmony Records collection.
“Some of the songs had been out for years. This is important to understand that good music does not come out one year and then disappear. It sticks around. If working with David Chatfield in his various capacities can shine a light on some work that I’ve done, that is the benefit. If it can be improved by David’s addition, I’m not precious in that sense.”
Julian also explained his concepts of mixing and remixing.
“I’ve remixed many things for years. What I do is take the vocals only and re-imagine the entire song. When I do a re-mix, I don’t listen to the original. I only listen to the vocal and imagine what it will sound like with a track. So, it ends up sounding absolutely nothing like the original, reinforced Shah-Tayler.
One such remix was “Is Our Love War” by Sumthing Strange, an anti-war song that competed for the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Song for Social Change.
“For this Harmony Records release with David Chatfield it’s practically a collaboration. He’s taking work that has already been released and he basically is doing what he describes as his process with songwriter and producer Kim Fowley. Which is to take the song, recognize the hooks. That is what he is doing with all the songs.
“And I am not attached to the song because it is done and I have my version and I re-do versions all the time. It’s the song. If somebody else wants to do a cover version that’s wonderful. It’s flattery. I love it. It’s something special for someone to invest so much of their time and creativity into something that I love.
“On this Easy To Love Harmony Records album, David has put musical additions into most of these songs. It’s his version and there is a boundry around it and these are the ones we did together. It’s not exclusionary or inclusionary, it is its own iteration. And I like that.”
Julien also reiterated the purpose and mission behind the songs housed in Easy To Love.
“I want people to find joy in what I do. I want people to delve deeply but I want them to find joy, especially in Easy To Love, because I want people to be happy. It is difficult to see a way out and the way out has always been in. There is definitely no rage in this album, just acceptance and beauty.
“In fact, the song ‘Beautiful World’ was influenced by TM [Transcendental Meditation] and the attitude of TM and cosmic consciousness. Because the original version of ‘Beautiful World’ I wrote before I discovered that ability and it was about something very different. Now that song, reappraised and re-lyricized as it is on this record. It’s the influence of George Harrison and David Lynch that had on me for TM.”
The impact of Transcendental Meditation permeates Shah-Tayler’s endeavors around his stage shows and the layered sounds concocted in his home studio.
“TM is wonderful. A reset. A screen saver for the brain. If you go into a meditation, and have a question, quote often you will come out of the meditation with the answer. And the answer won’t be directly to this question you asked it will be what is necessary for you. TM helps understanding that the waves of life can flow and they can crash. And, the ocean of consciousness prevails throughout humanity and the universe. And life throws us a lot of curve balls and we have to see them in the context of an ocean of cosmic consciousness, or otherwise we can drown by each little thing tossed at us and duck.
“If you can have peace in yourself you don’t have to seek it elsewhere,” he emphasized. “It has impacted my songwriting, and always wrote songs, given peace in moments. When there is anger in a song, I can contain the anger so it is beautifully contained within the song and it doesn’t stretch.
“About ten years ago I did a whole album An Emptiness Inside, which is primarily about experiencing the Beatles, and the initial solo albums by John Lennon and George Harrison. All Things Must Pass and the first two Plastic Ono Band albums. ‘Imagine’ is one of the greatest songs ever, and ‘Hear Comes the Sun’ is currently the most streamed recording.”
Julian is very active in social media but also feels there is a need for musicians and artists to connect with fans beyond music delivery systems and their social media profile.
“It’s the personal connection. That is the only way to go,” he suggests. “Because I don’t think people are entirely satisfied with TikTok.”
Julian recently collaborated with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in Ohio as their lead vocalist performing an authorized Changes: A Symphonic to the Music of David Bowie, conducted by Andrew Kim.
A week later he thrilled a large audience with the same show with the Gulf Coast Symphany Orchestra in Florida.
Around his own songwriting, recording and producing endeavors, Julian will be doing two more Bowie repertoire symphony orchestra evenings on August 7th in Clearwater, Florida, and August 8th in Jacksonville, Florida.
“They were looking for someone they could put in front of the orchestra and several people suggested me. They took me on. The band itself were one of the best bands you can get. They are all session musicians. Playing David Bowie songs is a great honor.
“This is gonna sound a little strange, but I think his death actually gave people a re-appraisal opportunity to look through the impact culturally, because it wasn’t just musical, it was cultural. I’ve realized and have been touring for ten years with mostly tribute bands and I realize that isn’t for me, that is service for fans. And in some ways, being a musician and being somebody who performs music live, but if people want a David Bowie tribute and I can give them joy in that respect, it would be kind of selfish to me not to do it,” he underscores.
“A lot of people who come to see me doing Bowie shows will also be fans of my own material, which is significantly different to Bowie music, but because it comes from the same intention. I think there is a musical intention to be both intellectually, artistically and sentimentally invested in a very strong way. None of my music is throw away or intended to be nice background music. None of Bowie’s music was that. In that sense they come from the same intention although they’re not the same iteration. Nothing else in my entire career has willfully imitated David Bowie in anyway.”
In early May, Julian Shah-Tayler (The Singularity) will be doing three Bowie Station to Station tribute club shows in the Los Angeles and Hollywood region and a solo gig exclusively featuring his own catalog on May 14th at The Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa, Ca.
Julian is currently working with legendary singer Claudia Linnear, who has sung on a couple of tracks on his next album along with his daughter Phoebe, a light and significant figure in his life and musical offerings.
“Claudia has arranged for me to do an art exhibition,” adds Shah-Tayler, “with an original music show on June 11th at the Claremont Heritage venue in Claremont, Ca.”
Chatfield adds that “One of the displayed art pieces will be the debut of the Easy To Love 12 inch LP package, featuring curated liner notes, artful photos, and comments by Julian on each song, designed to harken back to the days when the package was as inspirational as the music.”
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 21 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.
Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they collaborated on Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) was published in February 2026 by BearManor Media.
Harvey spoke at the special hearings in 2006 initiated by the Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation.
In 2017, he appeared at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in its Distinguished Speakers Series and as a panelist discussing the forty-fifth anniversary of The Last Waltz at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2023.
Harvey was an interview subject with Iggy Pop, the Beach Boys’ Bruce Johnston, Love’s Johnny Echols, the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs, Victoria and Debbi Peterson, and members of the Seeds for director/producer Neil Norman’s documentary The Seeds: Pushin' Too Hard. In summer 2026, GNP Crescendo plans a release for the film on DVD/Blu-ray). Author Miss Pamela Des Barres narrates).
