INTERVIEW: The Scarlet Goodbye

Hi folks, welcome to the Tunes camp! How’s 2025 been treating you guys so far?

Cold here in Minneapolis currently, so a good day to hunker down and do interviews and listen to music!!

So about three months you released “To Feel The Sun” – a new taste of your second album, which will get in on a second. But first, can you tell us more about what the song is about?

To Feel The Sun is sort of a metaphor for contentment or bliss or inner peace. The singer in this song (Jeff & I), are on the outside looking in at this place seemingly uninvited? We find this place desirable and unattainable which is of course a terrible combination. So it is looking at a partner’s inner happiness with envy and perhaps a little contempt? “… There’s a place that you go where I can never find you – It’s where the glory goes to be the chosen one. And everything grows there’s nothing to remind you – of the ghosts you know – so it’s where you go to feel the sun.”

How is your process of choosing a single? Is it easier now that you’ve had so much experience picking up songs and whatnot?

We sort of gauge our initial reactions on the composition and subsequent performance & recording with feedback we get from Dennis and the label and friends and other people that hear the material prior to its release? For El Camino Adios, the first single was unanimous; we went with the track Speedway. And To Feel The Sun, was also an easy decision, for the third single we decided on Raylene, as we felt it to be really a unique and haunting and somewhat ambitious recording and composition. The choral singing on this by members of The See Change Treble Choir really gives it a life of its own and unique space sonically.

Oh look, a second has passed by! So why don’t we talk about your new record El Camino Adios – what’s the story behind the title? Is there any secret meaning or reasoning behind you folks going Spanish or has someone been binge watching Breaking Bad?

Too funny! The songs seem to have a thematic thread that is central to change and leaving familiarity behind; with the heartbreak and intrigue and unsure anxiety that fresh starts typically provide. So we named this mythical starting place El Camino, and the fact that we were leaving it behind is the Adios…

I read in an interview you guys went to Jeff’s attic studio where you all first collided and kicked much of the project – was this a sole nostalgic reasoning or why you guys choose to go back to square one, so to speak?

Such a great work space to write and record it is really the happy space for Jeff and I to make these recordings. No clocks, receptionists, ping pong tables or televisions to create distractions. Jeff and I have both spend many months of our lives in recording studios all over the world, and the luxury provided by having a home studio albeit somewhat humble in comparison to places we have worked in say L.A. or New York is remarkable and allows us to schedule the recording session with the band when the song initially takes form and finds it’s wings – which allows us to capture the idea and arrangement right after it first takes flight, so we bypass the idea and process of second doubting our initial song concept and writing ideas. Sort of a no filters method of recording our initial impressions and chord changes and documenting that before we have the temptation to overthink it and change the essence of the song.

The album sounds rawer and a little more emotional – was that by design? What made you guys go into this direction? Did it come up naturally?

It did come naturally, sort of organic yet ambitious is how this one played out? We spent about 18 months writing and recording these songs and did maybe 7 or 8 recordings with the full band in that time. Jeff and I and a few other musicians did all of the overdubbing and lyric writing and singing, with production and mixing by Jeff this time.

Having a deep history in the music scene – do you guys tend to approach this as a completely different beast or does your past tends to crawl back into your new project? I read somewhere you were heading for a 60s and 70s vibe, namely in “bingey” they were.

Good question, this is sort of a different beast for both of us. Jeff and I push each other past our comfort zones of what we have previously created in music. We both love harmony singing, and are both accomplished guitar players and we both dabble with other instruments. I prefer dark moody cryptic lyrics while Jeff is more of a story teller in that tradition of writing. We find when we collaborate writing that is where we Find The Sun in this instance.

What were some of the themes you were hoping to convey or get off your chest this time around?

There are many, Raylene is about having to write and give a Eulogy at a funeral for a loved one or close friend who died under tragic circumstances – and was much too soon to leave this world. The female choral chorus lines : “Learn to live, Try and try – Fade to black amplify – Make these words a lullaby -Hold them close and don’t ask why” Is a point in the song where angels appear at the funeral and attempt to offer a take away message of fortitude, hope and strength as we make our ways through the experiences of this lifetime. Speedway is a somewhat humorous attempt at telling the story of unrequited love at the old school dirt track small-town Sprint Car Motor Raceway. El Camino Adios the title track is the most literal example of leaving behind familiarity and forging ahead without regrets but with the uncertainty and anxiety that is often associated with change.

What else is there in store for you guys?

A labor of love really and a record both Jeff and I are quite happy with as we are also eager to share it with music lovers and fellow inhabitants of this space in time of 2025. We are also excited to hit the road this spring and summer and fall and are looking at a variety of show and touring options.