January Newsletter: Wooden
Happy 2020!
Your first free demo of the year is...
“Wooden”
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(Each month I send a free secret demo like this to my subscribers — you also get access to all the past songs I’ve sent out!)
(keep reading for more info on the song)
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The rest of my 2019 Japan Tour went wonderfully, and I wrapped up the year with a super fun Sofar Sounds show in Seattle. In a couple weeks I’ll kick off 2020 in the same way, with Sofar Sounds shows in New York City and Boston! My other winter plans involve releasing a new single (keep an eye out!) and devoting time to songwriting, orchestrating, and novel editing. I’ll also be figuring out dates for upcoming tours… For now, all I know is that the 2020 Japan Tour will be happening in October. (I’m already so excited!!)
“Wooden” has an impressionistic vibe to me. I had ideas and notes for a few possible songs about my grandpa. They sat in my mental fruit bowl for years. Eventually I blended it all together into a song smoothie.
One idea: a song about my grandpa’s dementia towards the end of his life. I pictured his brain as a town on a mountain, with empty caves where memories used to live. If I remember correctly, this idea came to me while daydreaming during a Language & Cognition class.
Another idea: a song about my grandpa, wood, and birds. My grandpa was a woodworker and had a bird feeder company called Crittercraft. When I was a kid, sometimes I’d ride along in his camper, delivering his bird feeders and houses to Wild Bird Center stores in Eugene and Beaverton.
Another idea: a song about the time my grandpa gave me a rock — a worry stone — engraved with the word “Always”. I asked him, “Why ‘Always’?” And he said, “Well, you’ll always be Stephan. And I think that that’s a good person to be.” Around the same time, I came out (or was outed, technically) and ended up running away from home. I went to live with my grandparents until I graduated from high school. I remember sitting in his truck and asking him whether he felt differently about me, and he told me that I was alright by him as long as I wasn’t going around hurting or killing people.
When I picked up all these pieces in 2016, I was on a songwriting roll. There ended up being some intertextuality between “Wooden” and other songs I was writing, such as “Sedentary City” and “White Appetites”. In “Sedentary City,” I had alluded vaguely to the time some strangers beat me up by the river in broad daylight while I was out on a bike ride (this was in 2012). When that happened, I couldn’t bring myself to fight back. Violence felt so illogical to me that even self-defense seemed impossible. “White Appetites” touched on themes of extinction and environmental degradation.
I thought about things being gone forever — my grandpa, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, possibly me if I refused to ever defend myself. I thought about my grandpa and whether he could have lived longer if he’d had a healthier lifestyle. I thought about deforestation, and empty holes where Ivory-billed Woodpeckers used to nest. Holes like the brain-caves where my grandpa’s memories used to nest. I thought about the wood my grandpa turned into things like bird feeders and bird houses and a case for my souvenir spoon collection. I wondered what ghosts might be lurking in those wooden things.
I took all these thoughts and more, connected the dots, and wrote a song.
This orchestrated demo is a work in progress, but I’m happy with how it’s sounding! It’s very pizzicato string-heavy. I’m still figuring out what else it needs. We’ll see!
Thank you so much for letting me share new songs with you, and the stories behind the songs. And remember, I always like hearing from you! You can email me, or reach out on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
Take care,
Stephan
Shows
January 17 - Sofar Sounds, Boston, MA
January 18 - Sofar Sounds, New York, NY
Additional winter/spring shows TBA
October - 2020 Japan Tour
PS Do you want me to come to your city? Tell me and I’ll try to make it happen! (I don’t always know where people want me to go…) Also, if you’re curious about hosting a concert, it’s easier than you might think! Especially if you're in the US or Canada. Piece of cake.