LIEUTENANT DAN - our first single for album #7 - is out!
First off, Lieutenant Dan is out and it’s been an incredible success. I’ve been chipping away at a visualizer for the song but it has become a huge undertaking… really more of a full music video. Not sure when I’ll be releasing it… but eventually.
Lyrically, this song is a snapshot in time. I wrote this song around the holidays in 2016… and I know this because I’m talking about the rise of Trump in American politics. New goons are creeping up the banks. The tyrant tells a better lie. You get it. It was a time of general unease and dread. Which hasn’t receded all that much, but it was especially acute in those early days.
The chorus was sort of something else though. I’ll explain.
I will never get that feeling again. But I’ll chase it till the end. If that wormhole in your soul could talk, would it tell you ‘just give up?’
I was trying to solve a puzzle in my mind. When I was 16, recording albums on my dad’s ADAT machine, I recorded a double LP called Spacey. And for some reason I’ve always felt like it was some of my best work as a musician… even though it is technically a total mess. I wouldn’t dare share it with anyone… but still, I have always felt like there was something special about that record.
That’s what the chorus was about. Like I would never connect with music as powerfully as I did at 16 ever again.
Funny enough, through the process of recording Nightmares in Technicolor and allowing myself to be vulnerable, I figured out why that old sloppy record feels like one of my strongest efforts… it was because I was expressing myself without any pretense… there was nothing except the art and the expression. I found that feeling again on this record. Even though it’s about the darkest days of my life.
ANYWAY…
Our next single Océanographie is coming out on February 28th. It’s a heavy motherfucker, lyrically and musically. It is a song about anticipatory grief, which is certainly not fun. But a common experience for us all in this thing called life.
Rehearsals continue and we’re feeling great. Excited to share more music soon!