Southern California singer/songwriter Tiger Lewis sets love ablaze on “Too Easy,” a soul-shaking eruption of his self-styled “grunge groove” whose towering vocals, smoldering guitars, and open-hearted abandon lead into a debut EP where desire becomes a testing ground for masculinity and the courage to let yourself be seen. Turns out, ‘Mr. Right Now’ sounds best when he stops trying so hard to get it right.

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Stream: “Too Easy” – Tiger Lewis

If your headphones start smoking halfway through Tiger Lewis’ “Too Easy,” don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This song is so blisteringly hot, so swollen with passion and drama, you just might burn your ears. Soul-shaking, smoldering, and breathtaking in every sense of the word, “Too Easy” is a feverish eruption of R&B, soul, and guitar-driven rock, all of it built around one of the most staggering vocal performances you’ll hear all year. Lewis doesn’t merely sing his affection; he roars it from the rafters. Stadium-sized guitars blaze behind him as his voice climbs higher and harder, the verses simmering before the chorus explodes wide open. “Baby, loving you is too easy / I’m so used to doing this the hard way,” he belts, every syllable charged with relief, disbelief, and desire. It’s intimate and enormous at once – a love song with sweat on its brow and fire in its lungs.

You don’t play the games
Give it to me straight
You’re so up front

Put your feelings on the table
You show me all your cards
Nah baby

Matter of fact, never had to question if you got my back
Always told the truth you keep it a stack
Damn you close to perfect I think it’s an act, just a little
Matter a fact, every time I’m with you I could be relaxed
You ain’t superficial how you talk straight to my heart

Released May 1 via Republic Records, “Too Easy” is too hot to handle – and far too good to resist. The song marked a major step forward for Tiger Lewis, a singer/songwriter and guitarist raised between Cape Town and Connecticut before eventually finding his footing in Los Angeles. There, Lewis first crossed paths with producer Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman while interning for him; after Lewis began posting covers online and attracting attention, the two started working together in earnest, laying the foundation for the music he’s making today.

His ascent has been remarkably quick: Debut single “Mr. Right Now” arrived in November 2025, “Leaving Me Lonely” followed three months later, and by the time “Too Easy” landed that May, Lewis had signed with Republic Records. A month later, he was headlining Baby’s All Right for his first New York City headline show. Still early in his ascent, Lewis already carries himself with the conviction of an artist who knows exactly how hard he wants a song to hit.

The song’s ease, however, is hard-won. “I think meaningful connections are few and far between,” he tells Atwood Magazine. “When you have a bunch of really shitty experiences, it can make you feel like you’re almost waiting for something to go wrong when you meet someone new. Expressing gratitude is the way to keep the good flowing. I’ve met a lot of people who made love feel complicated. I love out loud. People aren’t used to that.”

That last thought practically detonates inside “Too Easy.” Lewis is singing about the shock of meeting someone who removes the games, guesswork, and emotional gymnastics from intimacy – someone who “give[s] it to me straight,” shows all their cards, and makes trust seem almost suspiciously simple. Even relaxation becomes romantic revelation: “Every time I’m with you I could be relaxed / you ain’t superficial how you talk straight to my heart.” Yet Lewis gives that emotional safety a thrillingly physical charge. “All the pleasure with the right amount of hurt,” he sings later, folding tenderness, lust, challenge, and surrender into the same breath.

Baby
Loving you is too easy
I’m so used to doing this the hard way
Loving you is too easy

Baby
Loving you is too easy
I’m so used to going down the wrong way
Loving you is too easy

The song’s sheer force makes perfect sense within the “grunge groove” world Lewis has been building – his collision of classic soul, R&B, blues, and rough-edged rock designed to move as hard as it hits. On “Too Easy,” created with Gitelman, Theron Thomas, and Ilsey Juber, the ingredients ignite: Muscular bass, cranked guitars, bright melodic flourishes, and a live-wire performance that sounds forever one push away from combustion. “Grunge groove is rock music you can 2-step to,” Lewis explains. “It’s a mosaic of all the music I hold near and dear. James Jamerson’s bass lines. Cranked amps. Saturated guitar parts reminiscent of Spanky Alford and Kurt Cobain if they were tripping on tape echo.”

Touching you
Wanting you
Loving you
Is too easy

Holding you
Wanting you
Loving you
Is too easy

Biting you
Hold me down
Loving you
Is too easy

And then there’s that voice. Smoky one moment and absolutely volcanic the next, Lewis’ delivery is the song’s undeniable centerpiece. He cites Otis Redding and Thom Yorke as musical north stars – jokingly dubbing himself “Otis Yorke” – while pointing to Marvin Gaye’s unadulterated live performance of “What’s Going On” at Montreux as part of his personal gold standard. You can hear that hunger for abandon in “Too Easy.” Lewis keeps pushing upward until restraint disappears altogether, especially as the song barrels into its closing repetitions of “touching you / wanting you / loving you / is too easy.” His voice doesn’t decorate the emotion; it becomes the emotion – roaring, soaring proof of a man utterly consumed by what he’s singing.

That same friction between force and exposure runs through Lewis’ debut EP Mr. Right Now, released August 14 via Republic Records.

Across six songs, Lewis wrestles with the dissonance between the man he is becoming and the man he once thought he needed to be – masculinity caught somewhere between sensitivity and debauchery, self-possession and performance. The title itself names one of those performances: Lewis describes “Mr. Right Now” as “the amalgamation of every personality I would take on in order to feel worthy enough for anyone,” a version of himself built to change at a moment’s notice depending on who he thought someone wanted him to be. The confidence was paper-thin, the personas never quite fit, and beneath all the swagger was someone still figuring out how to live comfortably inside his own skin.

The rest of the EP pokes at that disconnect from different angles without turning six songs into six variations on the same crisis. The title track imagines becoming sleazy and apathetic in pursuit of admiration; “Mrs. Kisses” sits inside the panic of wondering why someone so publicly desired would choose you; and the darkly funny “USE ME” lowers the emotional stakes of a one-night stand before rejection gets the chance to bruise the ego. Different circumstances, same defensive impulse: Become whoever the moment demands before somebody else gets close enough to decide you aren’t enough. That makes “Too Easy” hit even harder. Here, Lewis stops shape-shifting. Love arrives without games, and instead of protecting himself from it, he answers openness with openness – letting vulnerability become an act of conviction rather than a crack in the armor.

“‘Too Easy’ is a reminder to love loudly,” Lewis says. “There’s no weakness in that.”

Lewis takes that directive literally. “Too Easy” doesn’t whisper affection or hold desire at arm’s length – it bellows until the walls shake.

Every guitar flare, every pounding groove, every impossible rise in his voice makes love sound less like surrender than exhilaration: raw, sweaty, scary, gorgeous, alive. By the time Lewis reaches the final chorus, “easy” hardly sounds small at all. In his hands, loving someone freely becomes the biggest, boldest thing in the room.

Atwood Magazine recently caught up with Tiger Lewis to step inside the friction powering Mr. Right Now – bruised egos, old ideas of manhood, cranked amps, and the “grunge groove” he hopes can stand the test of time. And if “Too Easy” is any indication, Lewis is already proving that vulnerability can hit every bit as hard as distortion.

Baby
Loving you is too easy
I’m so used to doing this the hard way
Loving you is too easy

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:: stream/purchase Mr. Right Now here ::

:: connect with Tiger Lewis here ::

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Stream: “Too Easy” – Tiger Lewis

A CONVERSATION WITH TIGER LEWIS

Tiger Lewis: I’m uncomfortable. There’s a dissonance between the man I’m becoming and the man I think I’m supposed to be, and that drives the music. I’m making a fool out of myself and laughing along the way.

Tiger Lewis: Otis Redding and Thom Yorke come to mind. I am Otis Yorke: The fictional love child of those two. Throw the unadulterated vocal performance at Montreux of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and the SNL performance of “Radio Radio” by Elvis Costello and The Attractions in a blender. I want THAT. That is the gold standard for me.

I don’t think anyone is talking about what I’m talking about in my music. I think masculinity exists on a spectrum between sensitivity and debauchery, and the two coexist. The chaos of figuring out what masculinity means to me is the subject matter of all my music. That’s exciting to me.

Tiger Lewis: Grunge groove is rock music you can 2-step to… Or jump to. Or however you get down, but the most important thing is dancing and without thinking. It’s got grit, but it goes down smooth. I am making something I haven’t heard before.

It’s a mosaic of all the music I hold near and dear. James Jamerson’s bass lines. Cranked amps. Saturated guitar parts reminiscent of Spanky Alford and Kurt Cobain if they were tripping on tape echo. Lots of tape echo feedback and tape noise. I have the privilege of working with Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman and Theron Thomas who have encyclopedias worth of genius that I get to tap into while we make these records.

Tiger Lewis: The genesis of this project was “Otis Yorke,” the fictional lovechild of Otis Redding and Thom Yorke. The grunge, for me, is pulled from the early ‘90s grunge outfits: STP, Cornell, and Nirvana. It went from Otis Yorke to G&B (Grunge and R&B), and found its place in Grunge Groove. I am trying (emphasis on trying) to emulate the vocal performances coming out of Motown over the spirit of those records coming from Sound City with Nirvana. I’ve worked closely with music producer, Gitty, to execute it at a high level. We get in the weeds with all different kinds of gear, but always running everything through tape.

What you see is what you get when we play live. The standard I set for myself is Elvis Costello getting kicked off of SNL for playing “Radio, Radio.” Costello had The Attractions and I have the tom g3rls. We are bringing that mod-punk energy to every show. I will never play with auto-tune, or tracks, or click. Hahaha it sounds so pretentious, but I don’t care. I really, really, really care about this. I really want everything to stand the test of time.

Tiger Lewis: I think meaningful connections are few and far between. When you have a bunch of really shitty experiences, it can make you feel like you’re almost waiting for something to go wrong when you meet someone new. Expressing gratitude is the way to keep the good flowing. I’ve met a lot of people who made love feel complicated. I love out loud. People aren’t used to that.

I was lucky enough that it came to life with Theron, Ilsey Juber, and Gitty. I couldn’t have asked for a better dream team. They’re beyond legends.

Tiger Lewis: The right person is kind of a mirror – they challenge you. I think a relationship becomes something where you can’t avoid yourself. And it’s painful to lower your ego, acknowledge wrongdoing of any kind, and then undo those knots. All the while, that person makes life feel really worthwhile. You feel lucky every day that the universe carved both of you into each other‘s path. Everything feels a little bit sweeter and the world feels a little bit lighter. It’s also an innuendo.

Tiger Lewis: Having conviction in being vulnerable as a man is at the heart of it. A lot of “Too Easy” is about being vulnerable with someone you don’t fully understand or know yet. It’s scary to pour yourself into something that could dissolve. Being open about it is the only way to not f*** everything up, over and over again.

Tiger Lewis: The cognitive dissonance of what I am and who I think I need to be is the throughline behind my EP: “Mr. Right Now” describes someone willing to become sleazy and apathetic to become admirable, “Mrs. Kisses” delves into the quiet panic of not feeling enough for someone that’s publicly admired when they choose to be with you, “USE ME” is a sarcastic conversation to set low expectations for a one-night stand so when they inevitably never reach out again, your ego isn’t too bruised. I can only speak on my experience. I started seeing masculinity as a spectrum that included sensitivity and that’s where I am today. Running away from a lot of the ideas I once held as the truth. It helped me feel a little more comfy in my skin.

Tiger Lewis: Mr. Right Now is the amalgamation of every personality I would take on in order to feel worthy enough for anyone. I was quite lost and I had a lot of fun being everyone and no one at the same time. I was changing at a moment’s notice to be what I thought someone wanted me to be. It’s an ode to all of the fruitless paths I walked down with seemingly solid (but in reality paper-thin) confidence. It was the man I hoped and needed to be that I could never become. There were moments where I felt like I was pulling it off, but I always ended up spiraling or doing something dumb. Being Mr. Right Now never sat right.

Tiger Lewis: I think it’s important to get lost in the weeds of the expectations placed on you and who you feel you are at your core. The disillusionment makes me laugh at how many mistakes I’m making in the process. I’m still learning from them. “Too Easy” is a reminder to love loudly. There’s no weakness in that.

Tiger Lewis: For something that has come out recently, Wandering Star is an amazing album by Haylie Davis – it feels like the Laurel Canyon sound is being reborn across the country.

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:: stream/purchase Mr. Right Now here ::

:: connect with Tiger Lewis here ::

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Stream: “Too Easy” – Tiger Lewis

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 © Caity Krone

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