The Tell Alls, Studio Red and the Room in the Recording of Comin' On Strong
Ken Buono Cut This Power Pop Single with Adam Lasus at Studio Red
The room for Comin’ On Strong was Studio Red in North Hollywood. There, Adam Lasus recorded the single and co-produced it with Ken Buono, the songwriter behind The Tell Alls. Buono’s own Journeyman Records released it on June 19, 2026. It is the second single from Keeping a Secret, an album due on October 23, 2026.
The Tell Alls’ Comin’ On Strong sits in the playlist below, among other acoustic-rooted rock. The full run of coverage is on The Tell Alls profile. The single came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play, then read on for how it was recorded.
Twenty Years After Feeding Frenzy, The Tell Alls Bring a Nashville Song Back to Adam Lasus
Studio Red is the latest room in a long working relationship. Lasus opened the first Studio Red in Philadelphia in 1990. His production credits since then run through Yo La Tengo, Helium and Juliana Hatfield. In 2006 he co-produced the first album by The Tell Alls, Feeding Frenzy. Buono recorded it in a converted firehouse in the Red Hook district of Brooklyn. Two decades later, the pair are working together again in Los Angeles.
Still, the gap between those sessions explains a good deal about the new record. Buono is a Philadelphia native who came up through bands in that city. Along the way he opened for Joe Strummer, Lucinda Williams, Squeeze and the Goo Goo Dolls. He later moved to Nashville and found his way into its songwriting community through writers’ nights and co-writes. A 2025 profile by the Nashville station Lightning 100 tells that story in more detail. Then, in 2020, he revived The Tell Alls with the singles Won’t Come Down and Modern Day Mother Theresa.
The first single from the new album, Road Gets Rough, arrived on June 20, 2025 as a duet with Lilly Hiatt. Lightning 100 made it a DJ pick of the week. Comin’ On Strong follows it as the louder sibling, and the band’s own biography pitches it at listeners who favour a more amped-up sound.
Who Plays What in the Room
The credits are short and specific. Buono wrote the words and the music. He also co-produced with Lasus, who recorded the track. Kirk Swan, a guitarist who worked with Lasus on a Studio Red session as far back as 1998, played rhythm and lead electric guitar. In addition, Swan sang the harmony vocals and mastered the single.
His role carries over from the previous release. Swan played the electric guitars on Road Gets Rough and mastered it as well. As a result, the two singles share a finishing hand as well as a producer. For a project that Buono largely runs on his own, that continuity is the closest thing to a band sound.
A Love Song Built for Electric Guitar Keeps the Acoustic Writing Underneath Comin’ On Strong
The official video files Comin’ On Strong under power pop and love songs, with new love and connection as its subject. The title says the same thing in three words. It is a phrase for falling quickly, and the single moves at that speed. It runs 3:43 on a full electric band arrangement.
Underneath, it remains a songwriter’s song. One writer finished the words and the melody, and then a small team gave it volume. That order matters for how a record plays. After all, a song that arrives complete tends to keep its shape when the guitars are added. Here the chorus carries the weight, which is why the single fits a folk-rock playlist as easily as a power pop one.
The arrangement also explains the split in its identity. The writing belongs to the acoustic tradition of Nashville writers’ rooms, where a song has to work with one voice and one guitar. The recording, however, belongs to the electric rooms Lasus has run since 1990.
Who Comin’ On Strong Is For
The Tell Alls point listeners toward The Lumineers and The Head and the Heart, and both comparisons hold on this single. For example, The Lumineers built their early sound on acoustic guitar and shouted group refrains. That is a model for songs that start small and open wide at the chorus. The Head and the Heart, meanwhile, lean on stacked harmony vocals, which is where Swan’s harmony part sits.
Lightning 100 reached for the Traveling Wilburys when it heard Road Gets Rough. The new single keeps that classic-rock lineage while turning the amplifiers up. So Comin’ On Strong suits listeners who like folk-rock with the electric guitars switched on. It also suits anyone following Nashville songwriters who rebuilt their careers in the city’s writers’ rooms. The full album, Keeping a Secret, arrives on October 23, 2026.
From the AcousticMusic.News curator team: “Comin’ On Strong is a reunion record in the best sense. The producer who cut The Tell Alls’ first album in a Brooklyn firehouse is back behind the desk twenty years on, and Kirk Swan’s harmony line gives Ken Buono’s chorus a second voice to lean on.”
Where to Hear The Tell Alls and Follow Ken Buono’s Project Across Streaming and Social Platforms
Stream Comin’ On Strong on Spotify and Apple Music. There is more from The Tell Alls on SoundCloud and Bandcamp.
Follow The Tell Alls across platforms: the band’s YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X and Linktree. The official site carries the album news and a free download of the single for mailing-list subscribers.
About The Author
