EAST KINGSTON – When singer/songwriter Brian Walker was working on a song last year, titled “Call the Preacher,” he had no idea that the song would generate so much attention and help fellow musicians who have lost their livelihood of playing at bars and clubs with the COVID-19 epidemic.

Walker began writing the song last summer as part of an album that he was planning on releasing this month.

“I set the release date for May 15,” he said. “And I had looked up this fundraiser for “Pass the Hat” – my booking agent actually posted something about it – that there was somebody running this looking for songs.”

Walker released the song “Call the Preacher,” on Friday, May 15; the fundraiser, “Pass the Hat,” was set to release a massive collection of 50 songs by local artists on Saturday, May 16.

Christopher Chase, the owner of the Noise Floor LLC, a multi-studio recording facility in Dover, New Hampshire, recognized that the Coronavirus pandemic had significant impacts on the arts communities at large, but also significantly on gigging musicians. Walker is one of those musicians.

Chase created a GoFundMe page for “Pass the Hat,” a charity to help musicians along the Seacoast with some much-needed funds. So far, “Pass the Hat” has surpassed its goal of $10,000 and people are still making donations.

“I decided to give them “Call the Preacher,” said Walker. “The timing fit so well.”

Based in East Kingston, Walker began playing piano when he was five. In college he began taking vocal lessons at the University of New Hampshire.

“I started getting more into open mics,” he said. “And I began writing my own songs. After I graduated UNH, I decided to pursue music further.”

Walker attended the Berklee College of Music and studied there for three years before he “dropped out and got an internship at a recording studio in Boston.”

“Now, I gig in the area and do the internship full-time,” he said. He was gigging in New Hampshire, on the Seacoast, in the metro Boston area and had a gig in New York City before COVID struck.

“That’s the biggest thing,” he added. “All of my gigs have been cancelled for the foreseeable future. I had a lot of gigs lined up and a lot of people said they planned on rebooking me for more shows, too. So, the gigs that I lined up were cancelled and the ones that start in the summer are at restaurants and they’re all closed.”

Walker said everything came to a screeching halt, including his internship as the studio, Cyber Sound Recording, is closed.

“I’m just staying at home, writing and working on music,” he said. “I’m producing my own songs. I mainly record at home anyway. I have a pretty good set up with studio monitors, NS10 speakers, a condenser microphone and a Kaotica Eyeball, which is recording gear that keeps the sound studio quality.”

He and Chase have never met before but thanks to the link that Walker’s agent posted, Walker knew that Chase was looking for songs for the fundraiser.

“I clicked on it and read about it,” Walker shared. “It applied to me – seacoast musicians effected by COVID-19. So, I reached out to him and sent him the song. He’s actually mixing and mastering a lot of songs that are part of this project. But my song was already mixed and mastered so he said I could add it to the project.”

“Pass the Hat, Volume 1,” is a 50-track compilation, showcasing 50 different performing artists and bands that call the greater seacoast area of New Hampshire and Maine their home. Contributors of $25 or more received a digital download of the “Pass the Hat, Volume 1” compilation on May 16.

“It’s a great collaboration,” said Walker. “The fundraiser is mainly for musicians who lost gigs and give them a little more income.”

Walker has been working on a lyric video and the song itself was released on Spotify, iTunes and SoundCloud. He has four songs out now; he released, “Forever 17” three weeks ago and just released a remix of that song last week.

“I’m trying to get about a song a month this year,” he said. “I have four or five other songs that are done, but I’m just trying to work on the promotion and get them out there.”

Walker said his songwriting process involves studying the nuts and bolts of hit songs and how they’re made.

“When I got to Berklee, I studied melody writing and lyric writing,” he said. “Usually the ideas come to me pretty quick but what takes a long time is finalizing that idea and polishing it – getting the vocals right, getting the mix right.”

Walker mixes his own material and works with Prince Charles Alexander from Berklee, who provides feedback.

“There was a quote from John Mayer, about the initial idea being the easy part of writing a song,” Walker said. “Ninety percent of the work begins after that.”

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