"Your CD made me cry. Now that's what I call good!"
- Jenay Marontate (Body of Sun)
" ...one of the best sounding independent recordings I have ever heard..."
- Robert Falconer
"Emrys is the real life Cupid. His words are his arrows and his guitar is his bow."
-Greg Cipes, actor/musician
"Emrys not only has a disarmingly soulful voice with the ability to entrance his listener, his lyrics are so uniquely clever you can't wait for the next turn of phrase. He defines singer-songwriter in its greatest traditions. I'm lucky to have his songs in my film."
-Joel Silverman, writer/director
Emrys Bio
Emrys Hanley wrote his first song while working as a projectionist in a 17-screen theater. Songwriting kept him from losing his mind while in isolation threading movies. A few years, many songs, and several break-ups later, Emrys met musician and producer Dale Ockerman, who had played for ten years with the Doobie Brothers. The two worked together to record an album of Emrys's original songs. "Emrys", newly released, features vocals and guitar by Emrys, along with Ockerman on guitar and keyboards. As producer, Dale brought in nearly 20 world-class musicians to collaborate on the project including Tiran Porter (Doobie Bros.), Richard Bryant (Doobie Bros.), Vince Black (Peter Tosh, Black Uhuru), Barry Phillips (Ravi Shankar, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr), and 2009 Grammy nominee Tammi Brown (Stanley Jordan).
Categorizing Emrys's music is a personal call. Is it adult contemporary? Or perhaps Folk/Rock/Pop/Gospel/Reggae/Soul? Some have compared it to the music of Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Tracy Chapman, and other great songwriters back through Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Donovan, and Joni Mitchell.
Emrys has opened for Michael Franti and Spearhead, as well as the Indigo Girls (both at the Fillmore in San Francisco), Jaya Lakshmi of Lost at Last, and Dale Ockerman. He's performed at Topanga Earth Day (featuring Pato Banton and the Waybacks), and The Harmony Festival 30th Anniversary (featuring Damien Marley, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Paula Cole, Arrested Development).
He's recorded hip-hop songs with members of the Luminaries (J Brave, Amore One, and Freewill). Freewill and Emrys have an acoustic hip-hop group called The Love Notes with songs they wrote together. He's also nearly finished producing an electronica album along the lines of Bjork or Portishead with a female vocalist named Serenity. In addition, he's working on multiple projects with actor/musician Greg Cipes (Cipes and the People, Teen Titans, Ben 10 Alien Force, Disney's The Wild, Deadwood, Fast and the Furious 4), and he's collaborating with Toly Ramirez from platinum latin group Los Tetas.
Music from his album will be featured in Joel Silverman's upcoming comedy film, Costa Rican Summer, starring Peter Dante. Among numerous radio and TV appearances, Emrys recently appeared on academy award nominee Sally Kirkland's TV talk show as well as NBC Bay Area's "Living Well" series.