LA-based singer, songwriter, dancer, and model Stewart Taylor releases his new single and music video, “Dark Summer,” today. An industrial-Pop confessional about heartbreak in Los Angeles, the track pairs Taylor’s darkest sound to date with a cinematic, horror-tinged visual — and offers fans another taste of his long-awaited debut album.
The idea for “Dark Summer” was born out of a conversation about Summer, men, and a bartender’s dark nail polish. The concept instantly clicked into place, and Taylor wrote the song with his co-writer the very next day.
“I wrote ‘Dark Summer’ about all of the men who have let me down in my life, specifically the ones I’ve dated in LA,” Taylor reveals. “Dating in Los Angeles has been Hell. It’s definitely not an easy city to find a long-term relationship in; lots of broken promises and lies and heartbreak resulted in the song.”
He wrote the song with longtime co-writer and producer Stevie Beerkens — of Australian Rock band The Faim — drawing on real memories from his years of dating in LA, including an ex who once left him crying behind his sunglasses on a club dance floor.
The title’s push and pull between light and dark reflects ten years of highs and lows since Taylor moved to Los Angeles.
“I’m a pretty upbeat and happy person, and I had to fight very hard for the light in my life,” he says. “This song and album were my way of exercising my demons and bringing them out of the darkness.”
Sonically, “Dark Summer” marks a sharp turn for Taylor, who describes the track as “Industrial-Pop” and “a lot darker than anything I’ve done in the past.” The song draws on Lady Gaga’s recent album Mayhem and Nine Inch Nails, alongside the moodier influence of David Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” and Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness.” Taylor says he imagined himself as “a male Lana Del Rey” while writing the track, which started life as a piano ballad before Beerkens’ production pushed it into darker, synth-heavy territory. A happy accident shaped its signature moment: baritone vocals Taylor recorded as a backing layer were pushed to the front of the chorus after the pair heard shades of Billy Idol in the playback.
“I hope listeners tap into their own inner Billy Idol when they hear ‘Dark Summer’,” Taylor says.
The accompanying music video, which Taylor co-directed with longtime collaborator Benjamin Farren, imagines the singer as a “walking-dead James Dean” — clad in a red jacket and animatronic angel wings — in a story inspired by classic horror films and 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause.
In it, James Dean (Taylor) falls from Heaven to haunt Hollywood for a day, visiting old vices, movie sets, and his former stomping grounds at the haunted Roosevelt Hotel. Before meeting his tragic end in a car accident in the fifties, the real-life James Dean had his own dark past in and out of the entertainment industry; a fact that fuels Stewart’s lifelong kinship with him.
“I wrote the song about feeling beat up and scarred by love, or lack thereof, and the music video was a way of exploring my connection to him,” Taylor says.
Choreographer Julie Vegliante Knight, a longtime friend and collaborator, developed the video’s dance sequences with inspiration from Lady Gaga’s Tim Burton-directed “Dead Dance” video, aiming for an “evil-dead,” zombie-coded physicality. Taylor’s horror-movie makeup look was created by Emmy-nominated makeup artist Kályd Odeh.
Taylor also credits an earlier on-camera experience — dancing drenched in fake blood in Justin Timberlake’s “No Angels” video — with pushing him to explore darker themes in his own work.
“Dark Summer” continues the rollout for Stewart Taylor’s debut album, which he has been previewing single by single over the years. Now complete, the twelve-song project moves fluidly between Pop, Rock, and RnB and has become what Taylor calls his “magnum opus” after several rounds of refinement.
“Evolving as an artist has always been very important to me, and ‘Dark Summer’ is definitely a new chapter for me musically,” Taylor says. “I’m not just the fun, twenty-something pop singer who released ‘Mess Your Hair Up’ in 2019. I have so many layers as a person and as an artist, and ‘Dark Summer’ really explores and embraces my dark side.”
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References
Project Publicity (2026). Stewart Taylor Unveils “Dark Summer” A Haunting New Single and Cinematic Music Video. Retrieved from [Email communication].
Hi, I’m Erick Ycaza — a music blogger with a BA in Advertising & Graphic Design. I created this blog to keep you updated with daily music news. Surprisingly, I’ve been writing about music since 2007. If you’re an artist and would like to be featured, feel free to reach out: info@electrowow.net
