Yoke Lore performs 'Dead Ringer' for EW's In The Basement

Musician Adrian Galvin, better known as Yoke Lore, tends to find himself burning fast and bright through life, telling EW, “I feel very strongly about progress over perfection.”

With his new single “Dead Ringer,” Yoke Lore unpacks that tendency, noting how the song comes from the worry of “if I’m moving too fast, then I will miss things that are important for me to see, and hear, and smell, and feel.”

This is especially true of relationships, with Lore singing, “Try to find change but I run like a river. I never knew love but you’re a dead ringer.”

The former Walk The Moon band member considers himself an introvert, which he finds incongruent with the life of a touring musician. In order to get in the songwriting mindset, Lore will find places to venture alone, isolating himself with his work.

“Dead Ringer” was written on one of these trips to Big Bear Lake in California. “I had just been on tour, and I had been moving so fast, and just moving through people and situations and cities,” the singer tells EW, “and when I had time to smell the roses for a second I was like, yikes that was just like a blur. . . Maybe I could have missed something.”

The songwriting process for “Dead Ringer” was a bit unordinary, if only because Lore says his song ideas often come from reading books, or from melodic epiphanies striking him right before he falls asleep. As a self-described drummer by trade, Lore often finds the foundation of a song in rhythms as well.

Currently headlining his first national tour, Yoke Lore is appreciative of how “the ante is getting upped,” with higher production values and a bigger crew, but says “it also completely terrifies me and makes me want to like go back to Big Bear and just sit in that house alone and write music.”

Much to the core of “Dead Ringer,” Lore’s newest journey is toward balancing his “introvert instinct” with his success as a touring musician.

Watch the video above for more of Yoke Lore (who also has new music out), and check EW’s past In the Basement performances from Slenderbodies, CNCO, and Alec Benjamin.

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