ABOUT

Like every living human, I dream. I am a musician. My hope is to intrigue, inspire, and diffuse. It is up to your interpretation. If you like my music, you can support me by purchasing my recorded music at these locations wesspeight.bandcamp.com & 
wessp8.bandcamp.com
https://wessp8andtheapolloproxy.bandcamp.com/album/the-procession-ep

Like and Follow here https://www.facebook.com/wessp8 


Solo Bio:
Wes Speight (stylized as Sp8), a Seattle singer/songwriter originally from Tennessee, has played many of the venues in Seattle WA, and Nashville TN, and has toured to places such as Vancouver BC, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, New York, Spain, Italy and France. His music varies widely from Americana to Bluesy to Rock with a weirdo punk attitude. Speight is the front man of the Blues-Punk trio Wes Sp8 & the Apollo Proxy and is in newly formed bands WaterPenny and Aline & Wes.

Speight's first album, Please EP, was released in 2008 under an independent label. Since then he has released several EP's, singles, and Albums independently.

"The darkly romantic weeping guitars and mercurial pop noir of "Grey" by WES SP8, the solo project of Tennessee bred, Seattle based singer songwriter Wes Speight, feels like a sultry lit indie movie about a torturous love affair or lust affair. The sweeping collision of a kind of 70's tragic Americana or Western pop noir, as cinematically drawn and bruised as Lana Del Rey or Emile Haynie, Speight crafts a universe that feels steeped within lost weekends and the kind of existential dread left dripping red down your face after an ass whipping. 

"Grey" with it's heightened sense of drama punctuated by a truly gripping cool propulsion of sounds, love the bass push, the orchestral drones that feel somehow like a mix of instrumentation and ambient tones, the squealing surfy guitar sustains and the absolutely sad stacked vocals feels like an indie movie as directed by David Robert Mitchell or Rose Glass. So potently lovely." 
-Robb Donker Curtius

Album review from Glide Magazine. 

"Music provides a soundtrack to our daily lives while simultaneously helping us to transcend this mundane existence. We need its power to make it through the day. Seattle duo Aline & Wes have harnessed music’s supernatural properties to create their newest record, In Between The Middle. 

Veterans of the Emerald City scene, Aline Vida and Wes Speight pool their collective songwriting and performance abilities to make moody, introspective, and soulful music. Vida is a graduate of American Academy of Dramatic Arts in L.A., and her unique, fluttering vocal stylings add dimension and emotion to the duo’s songs. Speight is a prolific and dedicated songwriter, whose instrumental prowess is on display in every moment of music he makes. 

Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the band’s new album ahead of its August 11th release date. In Between The Middle sees these two powerful performers wrestling in a world that feels divided between a variety of perspectives. But underneath all of these swirling viewpoints, love still reigns supreme. And it’s love that gives these songs a sense of peace. Vida and Speight know how to write and deliver a convincing, catchy melody. On the second track, “To Fade,” the two sing harmonies atop Speight’s thick, palm-muted chords. They sing, “I feel your wave, I chase your tail / numbing the blow, I flow at will.” Aside from being a set of phrases that roll off the tongue, the lyrics show that love comes in all shapes and dimensions. One minute, it’s infatuation. The next it’s heartbreak. Musically, the band moves from mid-tempo rockers to heart-tugging ballads in the drop of a hat. “More Room To Climb” shows the band’s softer side, and highlights Vida’s vocal range. The care and attention she places on small, subtle changes to her voice makes for a dramatic and compelling listening experience. 

Now more than ever, we need records that can take us through the highs and lows of modern life. In Between The Middle is that record. It provides a space for us to feel everything, from joy to sorrow. We come away feeling a little more understood. And at the end of the day, isn’t that all any of us want?"


https://glidemagazine.com/294828/album-premiere-aline-wes-keep-it-moody-introspective-and-soulful-on-in-between-the-middle/#comments


Premiere from Artist Home. 

Benevolent Transformer follows up Speight’s April 2020 release, Laid Bare. The latter EP lives up to its title: It’s a spare but lovely acoustic pop record where the romanticism of Rufus Wainwright engages in an affecting slow dance with singer-songwriter folk.

The five cuts on Benevolent Transformer, in contrast, cast a wider net. “Gone But Not Forgotten,” a great cry-in-your-beer ballad, is buoyed by some gorgeous rootsy harmonies. The mini-epic, “Dreamed a Stream of Consciousness” re-imagines Bruce Springsteen’s blue-collar rock in a dream pop framework, and Speight’s gift for self-harmonizing punctuates the reflective piano melody on “A New Wrong.”

The EP’s bookended by its two strongest cuts. Speight’s luminous acoustic guitar picking and appropriately soaring voice on the EP closer, “Fly On Raven,” somehow bridge the gap between Nick Drake and Chris Cornell. And “More of the Same,” Benevolent Transformer‘s opening track , represents some of his best songwriting. The song’s protagonist stares unsparingly into the abyss of COVID-era America (“Seems to me, that the government isn’t in it for the citizens/Seems to me, that what replaces sin is when you’re in it only to win”), even as he yearns for a lover’s touch. And Speight’s cavernous, Duane Eddy-style guitar and wounded falsetto punctuate the emotional pull of the words with dusky magic. 

-Tony Kay http://artisthome.org/artist-home-premiere-benevolent-transformer-ep-by-wes-speight/

"Aside from sharing the vocal duties, Wes Sp8 was responsible for guitars, piano, synth, drums and bass and created a delicious retro vibe on Lavender Lemonade but not in a dated way. It sounds familiar but you can’t quite put your finger on what it reminds you of. On “The Constructs of Time” they bring to life an R & B influenced blues-rock sound that is sure to get the blood pumping and will keep you warm over the winter. Check out a sample below and be on the lookout for the EP on November 15."
https://www.northwestmusicscene.net/100-bands-in-100-days-presented-by-verity-credit-union-day-46-aline-wes/

"Speight is an impressive multi-instrumentalist, playing keys, guitar, and harmonica and combining them with a highly-listenable vocals."
-
Wes Speight has deep roots in the Seattle music scene. And he’s awesome. When he plays a keyboard, it stays played.
http://www.eastportlandblog.com/2019/11/27/aline-and-wes-place-to-belong/?fbclid=IwAR0hrEGWcPTm_W2ujgBBxKUvTRblYuxFWbsEc0a21I7CA1lqAHLE4SyC7Ic
"Displaying a wide array of tools in the musical chest, today’s artist Wes Sp8 & The Apollo Proxy is clearly on top of their game. Whether they are ripping on some down and dirty blues rock, like they do on “Sugar Mama” from their latest EP or the haunting, heart-wrenching ballad like “Sunny Day Lament(I Miss the Rain)” they have developed a unique blend, using a lot of what is good in music. They have a sound that is timeless, that could have easily fit in garage rock The Sonic’s era as displayed ferociously on “Southern Bastard” which also appears on the latest release".
http://www.northwestmusicscene.net/100-bands-in-100-days-presented-by-verity-credit-union-day-91-wes-sp8-the-apollo-proxy/

Show review
http://www.seattlemusicnews.com/2015/10/18/41for2015-nadamucho-substation/
Latest interviews
http://www.nadamucho.com/premiere-wes-sp8s-southern-bastard/

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlearts/2015/02/20/interview-music-art-life-and-how-destiny-wont-get-the-best-of-amazing-musician-wes-speight/
Write up from MUSIC TREE FESTIVAL 2014

"this no holds barred unorthodox singer/songwriter dumps his strange rock trance on the stage with loops that never go flat, transfixing pop structure intertwined with an elastic vocal from falsetto to baritone"

Here's some press about Wes
"The usual mix of adjectives is a little inadequate for describing Wes Speight's music, since it encapsulates so many different elements from radically different styles of music.  Folkish acoustic influences blend seamlessly with heavily distorted guitars, tribal-like chants, and effects that lean heavily into the experimental side of things. Each track is wildly different from the others, but with enough similarities that they can be clearly defined as this particular musician".

 "Wes Speight's use of just enough repetition keeps the tracks listenable. Often, an artist this unique fails to keep the listener's desire to hear the hook again in mind. Speight however, borrows just enough lyrical and melodic repetition from the popular end of the musical spectrum, without overdoing it."
-Westside Review
http://www.westsidereview.com/featured/featured-artist-wes-speight

 http://www.nadamucho.com/41-seattle-bands-were-watching-in-2015/

"Without Wes Speight Seattle was 1/2 as cool. As a community of friends and musicians his return from Nashville was like the second coming of Christ…if Christ was a brilliant songwriter with impeccable hair."
http://www.nadamucho.com/tblfas-58-shades-of-static-brad-yaeger-wes-speight/


"WES SP8 creeped into my mind over time and I’m happy for it. His music gets better and better as the days go on and we’re excited for his new Rejection Letter EP. It’s reflective, stripped down, classic and bold. Any of the four songs are worth highlighting here, but we’ll bring to light “From us formed us” which has drops of Leonard Cohen tones, “Karma Police” tones and something all his own"


 “There are a great many blues-rock bands in Seattle these days, but the one led by songwriter Wes Speight (often stylized "Sp8") is notable for its particularly gritty and gutty take on the genre”
-Seattle Weekly 

“The swagger... of a Jim Morrison, the chilly command of an Ian Curtis, the rough, masculine soul of a Greg Dulli. As a singer, Speight possesses a soulful voice, which he bends and distorts to fit whatever effect he's going for.” - Rev. Adam McKinney, The New Frontier Lounge, Tacoma WA

“This one man band had some help from his friends and these 13 songs are among the catchiest I have heard this year. No genre can hold Mr. Speight down as he jumps from one to the other from track to track, or even within a single song. "True Blues" is my 2nd favorite song this year. Wes you definitely "put the tools to use." ”

—  TBASA, Best of 2012: TBASA's Durgey Dozen


“The common feature of Speight's languid, arty alt-rock songs is darkness; he often sounds like a male version of Chan Marshall. Despite its title, the singer/songwriter's latest is ambitious enough to be more interesting than much of what Seattle has to offer”



—  Seattle Weekly

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