‘Midnight Medicine’ Marks a New Era for Kaneb Andrews — And It Might Be His Best Yet

Brooklyn-based indie-Americana artist Kaneb Andrews is done whispering—on his newest single, “Midnight Medicine,” he turns up the volume and charges headfirst into reckless desire, chasing connection like it’s the only thing that matters. And in this moment, it is.

Following a string of softer, acoustic-driven releases, “Midnight Medicine” marks a sharp left turn for Andrews. The track is his first full-band release in years, and it shows. From the opening down-strummed guitar in drop-D to the pulsing, distorted energy that follows, this is the sound of an artist stepping out of his introspective shell and throwing himself into the fire.

Thematically, “Midnight Medicine” captures that universal hunger to feel something, anything, in the face of numbness. “You got a feeling the rest can’t fake / Your midnight medicine’s making me shake,” Andrews sings, teetering between lust and dependency, romance and destruction. The lyrics blur the line between drug imagery and sexual tension, creating a woozy, desperate atmosphere that’s as addictive as the person he’s chasing. This isn’t about love. It’s about adrenaline. It's about the thrill of running toward someone you know might ruin you, because that feels better than feeling nothing at all.

Musically, Andrews shows off a side we haven’t quite seen from him before. The melodies are deceptively bright, almost pop-punk in spirit, while the instrumentation leans into indie rock with hints of Americana grit. It’s an emotionally raw, yet radio-ready offering—a balance that’s hard to strike and even harder to make feel this effortless.

Andrews, who cut his teeth performing at NYC staples like Rockwood Music Hall and Mercury Lounge, has spent the last few years refining his sound, and it shows. “Midnight Medicine” isn’t just a single; it’s a statement. A reminder that artists grow, stretch, and occasionally set themselves on fire in the process.

“Midnight Medicine” feels like a big departure from your previous acoustic material—what inspired this shift toward a more electrified, full-band sound?

I honestly think I just wanted people to have more fun with my music. I don’t want people to think that they can only listen to my music when they’re alone, reading in a coffee shop, or sitting on their couch, sipping tea and thinking about heartbreak and poetry. I of course am proud of all of the soft acoustic stuff I’ve made, but I think it gives people the sense that I’m a bit of a downer, that I’m all soft slow and introspective and my music doesn’t have a place in a club or a dive bar on a night out. And that’s not really true. Yes, I make plenty of quiet, emotional, introspective music, but I also love listening to rowdier, upbeat stuff – I love the electric Dylan albums, the Rolling Stones, Springsteen, etc. And I’ve written a lot of upbeat electric stuff too, it’s just that I’ve never released it.

So it’s a big departure from my previous material, as compared with what I’ve already released, but for me as a writer, it doesn’t feel like as much of a departure because when I’m writing, I am always going back and forth between softer, acoustic material and faster, more upbeat, full-band stuff. And likewise, as a listener, I’ve always loved both the soft acoustic stuff and the harder electric stuff.

I want to show people that this full-band sound is as much a part of me and my music as the softer, acoustic stuff is. And I want to show people that I can have fun, provide some excitement, get my feet moving, that I belong in a dive bar just as much as I belong in a quiet café. Also, it took me a while to become comfortable enough with my band and with my production knowledge to be able to go into a studio and record live to get the messier kind of rock n roll sound that we have here. After a year or two of producing more acoustic music in my bedroom and playing live with my band in bars in New York, I felt like I had developed enough knowledge of the recording process and live sound so that we could go into a studio and get some good work done.

The lyrics walk a fine line between emotional vulnerability and reckless abandon. How much of the song is autobiographical, and how much is character-driven?

I think the feel or emotional core of the song is very autobiographical – loneliness, wanting to break out of it, wanting to make a connection, willing to take great risks to do so, that is all very real and true to me now, and it was true to me when I was writing it last year as well. In terms of the actual plot events of the song, most of those are character-driven. That’s me imagining a night out where I run into someone, or something, that could actually wake me up, and change up the monotony of my life, and I just choose to go along with them regardless of what happens. That’s usually how it goes for a lot of my songs – a mixture of real feeling and autobiographical events with some embellishment and imagination.

You mentioned initially struggling with this track creatively—what ultimately helped you unlock the version we hear today?

I think I sort of stopped trying and just allowed my natural musical preferences and

inclinations to take control over the song’s direction. I don’t mean that I stopped trying to write the song; I just mean that I stopped trying to force it to sound a certain way. I

stopped trying to push it intentionally one way or another. I had been trying to make it all

bluesy and dark. But I don’t really write bluesy music, and my harmonic and melodic

choices tend to be brighter, more major, mostly due to subconscious preference. So it

was totally forced, and I just hated it. I remember telling my roommate, as I went back

into my bedroom to keep working on the song, how bad I thought it was. Eventually, I

just decided to let myself go and stop trying to make something that wasn’t really

true to how I like to sound.

So, for instance, I stopped trying to force these bluesy chords into it, because I don’t really use bluesy chords, it’s just not me, and instead I started playing the kinds of chords that I naturally gravitate towards. And I started singing a melody that was more natural to me, rather than forcing myself to find some harsher, darker melody that seemed more rock ‘n roll. And then pretty soon I realized that all of these lyrics that I had written and told myself were terrible, sounded much better when I was singing them to a tune I liked over chords that I liked. And then I started having a lot more fun.

There’s an emotional duality to the track—pleasure and pain, thrill and regret. What do you hope listeners take away from that tension?

Obviously, the song is more concerned with short-term pleasure at the price of longer-term pain tomorrow, or at some later point, wanting to feel good now, not worried about what that means for the future. So there’s a risk there – will this be worth the potential pain? Will this actually make me feel good? How much will this hurt tomorrow? The song’s answer to those questions is, ‘I don’t care,’ and I think we should all think a little more like that. I think we all should take more risks. Nothing good happens if you don’t take any chances, personally, romantically, professionally, whatever. That’s where the fun is. We’re all being babies because we’re afraid of regretting something, and I’m sick of it. Be brave and make a mistake! It’s not the end of the world.

As you roll out more full-band singles this year, how do you see your sound evolving, and where do you want to take listeners next?

I just want to keep developing the electric sound! The next single I release will be from

this same session, so the sound will be generally similar, with some slight differences in sonic palette and instrumentation. We’ve already got another date booked at the same studio for two more singles, so we’ll keep moving in this direction. The sound on this track is pretty vintage, pretty classic 60s/70s rock with a few alterations – as I move forward, it would

be cool to start adding some more modern elements like synthesizers to that rock and roll foundation. So maybe that! But who knows? Depends on what happens on the day that we record. That’s why I love playing with a live band.