The Decemberists formed in Portland, Oregon, in 2000, and with their latest, have released nine full-length studio albums.
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again is the Portland, Oregon-based band’s ninth studio full-length, and their first in six years. “We’ve had a long arc of experimentation,” says supporting guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk, reflecting on how the album partially honors various mosaic fragments of the band’s past works, while also expanding on them in a wise, informed, and beautiful, if not subtle, progression. “At the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with going to a studio and making a record without a narrative. So, there’s no smoke and mirrors on this one.”
On As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, Meloy and Funk, joined by bassist Nate Query, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, and drummer John Moen, revisit the country twangs heard on The King Is Dead(2011), with “Long White Veil” and “All I Want Is You”; and even traipse back into the more worldly folk realm heard on Picaresque (2005) with the playful, chiming “Burial Ground” and folk-tango “Oh No!” Others, like the lo-fi electroacoustic, Grandaddy-esque “Born to the Morning,” build on elements from their previous release, 2018’s I’ll Be Your Girl—a record that’s pleasantly peppered with synths extracted straight from the Twin Peaks-, a-ha-, Tears for Fears-era of composition, and lyrics that could have been written by Moz himself. (“Oh, unabashedly,” says Meloy, moments after he recognizes the copy of the Smiths’ Hatful of Hollow seen mounted on the wall behind me on our Zoom call.)
“At the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with going to a studio and making a record without a narrative. So, there’s no smoke and mirrors on this one.” —Chris Funk
The album concludes with “Joan in the Garden,” a 19-minute suite inspired by the story of Joan of Arc, which shamelessly hijacks the previous 49 minutes of rhapsodic folk songs with a summoning of Pink Floyd long-form-composition aesthetic, à la “Echoes,” “Sheep,” and “Dogs.” Sixteen minutes in, the spirit of Judas Priest rears its head with a muscular metal gallop that carries the track to a sudden and satisfying halt.
On As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again,the Decemberists subtly call back to some past markers in their evolution, while still growing in their multifaceted traditional-, pop-, and prog-folk palette.
It’s been 18 years since the Decemberists’ The Crane Wife(2006), whose second track, “The Island,” rises with Keith Emerson-style synth towards the end of its 12-minute wayfaring, and 15 years since The Hazards of Love (2009), a crowning folk-rock opera in their overall discography. Yet, fans likely haven’t forgotten those earlier bold (and somewhat left-field) infusions of ’70s-prog dialect, and may welcome As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again’s final, albeit extended, punctuation. What may come as a surprise, however, is that Meloy finds “a lot of prog to be sort of unlistenable.
“But,” he continues, “I have a weird kind of intellectual love for it. Being an ardent music fan, I can say I don’t really love Bob Dylan that much, for example, but I know everything about his career. I own so many records of his. There are certain people that, even if you don’t adore them or they don’t speak to your inner heart, you know how important they are, and you can see their contribution.”
Intersecting with that perspective is the fun fact that Meloy studied English, theater, and creative writing in college, and has a separate career as a children’s book author, with seven published works. “[Stories are] where my heart is, and that’s what drew me to people like the Pogues, Robyn Hitchcock, the Smiths. There’s a story being told, one way or another, in any of their songs,” he shares. “Prog also really lends itself to telling a longer story, a more sophisticated story. It kind of started with ‘California One’ on our first record, which is toying with these sort of longer-form suite songs, which can be owed to ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’ by Billy Joel as much as anything Genesis did with Peter Gabriel. But I also think it was an opportunity to set ourselves apart from how we were being perceived [in the beginning].”
The Decemberists, from left to right: drummer John Moen, frontman Colin Meloy, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, and bassist Nate Query.
Photo by Holly Andres
Speaking of setting themselves apart, Funk says that when the band was coming up in the early ’00s, they were one of the first in the indie-folk-rock scene to bring a broader array of folk instruments into their mostly “rock band” arrangements. Starting with their 2002 debut Castaways and Cutouts, the multi-instrumentalist has recorded a variety of stringed instruments on Decemberists albums aside from standard guitars, including dobro, pedal steel, lap steel, bouzouki, banjo, tenor guitar, baritone guitar, and mandolin. Funk has also contributed performances on other odds and ends, such as theremin, hammered dulcimer, Marxophone (a hammered, fretless zither), hurdy-gurdy, and synths.
“At the time when we signed to Kill Rock Stars [in 2003] and I moved to the Pacific Northwest,” says Funk, “there weren’t really rock bands with accordions [played in the Decemberists by Jenny Conlee] and pedal steels. And we really stuck out from our peer group. I think it was just wanting to expand our palette. Historically, there’s a lot of world-building in the Decemberists, so [I was thinking], what else could live inside that world? And then with the next record, how can we tear down that world and create something new?”
“Historically, there’s a lot of world-building in the Decemberists, so [I was thinking], what else could live inside that world?” —Chris Funk
That inspiration came in part from growing up listening to ’80s groups like R.E.M., whose guitarist Peter Buck first recorded mandolin on their sixth studio album, 1988’s Green. “I don’t even think I knew what a mandolin was when [I first heard it on R.E.M.’s songs],” Funk shares. “That was sort of our gateway into it.”
“There’s also bands like Belle and Sebastian,” Meloy adds. “It’s just like, everybody grab whatever instrument you have laying around and let’s give it a shot. There was a DIY [approach of], you don’t really have to be a virtuoso at this instrument to make songs with it. That was sort of the guiding principle, too.”
Of course, accordion, pedal steel, lap steel, banjo, and the like are hardly uncommon in country and folk settings, but were in the evolving 2000s indie-folk scene, which was competing (and still is) with a hip-hop and pop zeitgeist for the ears of a youthful audience. Other indie artists like Neutral Milk Hotel and Sufjan Stevens were also a bit ahead of the Decemberists, with Neutral Milk Hotel’s use of flugelhorn and musical saw on 1998’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and Stevens’ generously broad mixture of folk instruments on his 2000 debut A Sun Came. However, along with those bands, the Decemberists rose to more popular visibility and influence circa 2005.
Colin Meloy's Gear
Frontman Colin Meloy identifies more as a songwriter than a guitarist, and focuses on storytelling through his songs.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
Guitars
- Gibson J-200 Montana Gold
- Gibson J-45 True Vintage
- Goya nylon-string
- Andrew Mowry bouzouki
- Two Guild F-512 12-strings (one is tuned down a half step)
- Reverend Buckshot
- Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins
- Effects
- MXR Dyna Comp (modified with a 1980 CA3080E chip)
- ZVEX Box of Rock
- EHX Oceans 11
- Two Boss DD-3 Digital Delays
Amps
- Phoenix Audio DRS-Q4 MkII preamp (for acoustics)
- Carr Viceroy amp (for electrics)
- Orange OR50 head through a 2x12 cabinet (for electrics)
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario Light Acoustic (.012–.053)
- D’Addario Medium Wound 3rd Electric (.011–.049)
- Tortex .73 mm picks
- Golden Gate thumbpicks
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“Can you talk about your passion for guitar? That’s to the both of you,” I quiz Meloy and Funk halfway through the interview.
Meloy pauses, smiling. (At this point, he’s already confessed that he identifies more as a songwriter than a guitarist.) “Funk, would you like to talk about your passion for guitar?” he deflects, wryly.
“I think I was just saying I don’t have much left,” laughs Funk. “It’s just endless with electric guitar, with combinations of amps and pedals and the revival, or the beginnings of, boutique pedal building. I mean, it’s kind of insane. I’ve kind of put a moratorium on buying pedals, but it’s always fun just to see what people are building and that people are still pushing it. I’m not really attracted to people building 17-string guitars or anything like that, but I’m passionate about the possibilities of making the guitar sound less and less like a guitar.
“I religiously watch Rig Rundowns,” he continues. “I literally watch them every night. I’m just fascinated with how people are doing stage setups. I love it. I’m really fascinated with all the metal players or the heavier players; it seems like everybody’s using Fractal systems now, but even that’s interesting to me. I’ll never do it. But I think that’s cool.”
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Chris Funk's Gear
Multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk has contributed a wide variety of instruments to the Decemberists’ recordings over the years, and lately, has felt a bit more detached from the guitar. He still, however, obsessively watches Rig Rundowns.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Guitars
- Weber Yellowstone Octave Mandolin
- Deering John Hartford Banjo
- Reverend Club King 290
- Gibson ES-390
- Gibson Chris Cornell Signature ES-335
- Eastwood Messenger
- Reverend Airwave 12-string
- Fylde Falstaff acoustic
- Epiphone Elitist ES-335
- Sho-Bud E9 pedal steel
Amp
- Supro 1695T Black Magick 1x12 combo (pedal steel)
- Two early Benson Monarch amps with Tall Bird reverbs
- Benson 1x12 cabs
Effects
For pedal steel:
- Boss FV-500 volume pedal
- Malekko Spring Chicken reverb
For electrics:
- Tuner
- Xotic AC Booster
- Keeley Dark Side
- Boss MT-2 Metal Zone
- Third Man Mantic Flex
- Boss SY-1 Guitar Synthesizer
- Strymon TimeLine
- Radial Twin-City ABY amp switcher
For acoustics:
- Fishman Aura Spectrum DI preamp
- Voodoo Lab Amp Selector
- Radial DIs
Modular Synth Rig:
- Busy Circuits Pamela’s Workout Master Clock
- Mutable Instruments Plaits
- Mutable Instruments Rings
- Knobula Poly Cinematic
- Strymon Magneto
- Instruo Arbhar
- Make Noise Rosie
Strings
- D’Addario Light Acoustic Guitar Strings (.012–.053)
- D’Addario Medium Wound 3rd Electric Guitar Strings (.011–.049)
Meloy and Funk were in their mid and late 20s, respectively, when they founded the Decemberists, and spent the following years of youthful adulthood developing a deeper friendship. When Meloy comments modestly on his guitar skills, Funk chimes in, “I think you’re undercutting your guitar playing. Colin’s a really great guitar player.”
“I learned a lot about guitar from Funk,” Meloy obliges. “I feel like when I started the Decemberists, I was afraid of electric guitar to a certain degree, and was much more comfortable with acoustic guitar. Funk has sort of pushed me in the direction of experimenting with guitar tones and pedals and setups and stuff like that. [I have gone] in that direction a little bit … not necessarily kicking and screaming, but just like, so intimidated by it. [He’s helped me to] open up to some ideas and approaches I don’t think I would’ve had before.”
That appreciation is mutual, as Funk shares his own perspective on what they’ve learned from one another over the years: “Colin’s always been pretty bold with some ideas that one might not do when they’ve entered a period of recording their second record on a major label—making Hazards of Love, which is a 45-minute folk-rock opera, if you will. So my takeaway is that the art comes first and it’s not always trying to find a single—it’s just being brave, to write from the heart.”
YouTube It
With Meloy on a Guild 12-string and Funk on a Reverend semi-hollowbody, the Decemberists rock their way through their 12-minute narrative folk-prog composition “The Island,” from 2006’s The Crane Wife.
Hotline TNT is helmed by Will Anderson (on the right), but the interplay between him and fellow guitarist Olivia Garner (second from right) has come to define the band’s massive, shoegaze-influenced wall of sound.
Each of the 12 tracks on Cartwheel features enormous guitar sounds from Anderson and guitarist Olivia Garner that, together, comprise a thrashing, muddy, angry, joyful, and howling slurry, as if the instruments were in the thralls of a cathartic musical bender. Above it all, Anderson’s simply written lyrics map out tart terrain—anyone who has experienced the throes of love in all of its messy stages will recognize themselves in his words.
Anderson, who is originally from Wisconsin, launched his music career 10 years ago with the Canadian noise-pop band, Weed, before eventually launching Hotline TNT in 2021 with the project’s debut, Nineteen in Love. Anderson traversed music scenes from coast to coast—New York and North Carolina, Wisconsin and neighboring Minnesota, Vancouver and Seattle—and his DIY dedication helped grow Hotline TNT’s audience until the band caught the attention of Jack White’s Third Man Records. Thanks in part to the label’s support, Cartwheel transcends the band’s 2021 introduction, infusing more engaging, heartfelt melodies without losing any of the band’s trademark grinding urgency.
Hotline TNT - "Protocol"
Inspired by his older brother’s jazz band, Anderson started playing bass towards the end of his time in the fifth grade. Within a few years, he’d picked up the guitar, and by high school, he was playing in cover bands with his brother. His college years marked his first attempts at songwriting, a process which, for Anderson, starts with chords and melodies, then lyrics.
Up until signing with Third Man, Anderson had been supplementing his music work with substitute teaching at a public high school in New York City. One of his colleagues had been in the Scottish rock band Teenage Fanclub, and, knowing the difficulty of being a working musician, covered for Anderson at some points so he could work on Hotline TNT matters.
“Whenever I hold a pick, my wrist gets really tight, and I just think, ‘no.’” —Will Anderson
Garner, meanwhile, started playing guitar in middle school in Louisiana. Her dad’s favorite band was the Smiths, which imprinted heavily on her while growing up. But these days, she’s reaching for Neil Young and Crazy Horse, ’90s material like Red House Painters, or ’80s pop band Beat Happening—one of Kurt Cobain’s favorites, Garner notes, and “a band who every person who picks up the guitar should listen to.” (Her other band, in fact, is named Touch Girl Apple Blossom, inspired by lyrics from the Beat Happening track “Indian Summer.”) It’s a mix that makes sense for Hotline TNT’s woolly, melodic maelstrom.
Hotline TNT's Gear
Anderson and Garner aren’t very particular about their gear—Anderson didn’t know what an amp head was until a few years ago—but they favor the fuzzy balance between a Pro Co RAT and an EHX Big Muff.
Photo by Wes Knoll
Guitars
- Yamaha SG-3
- 1996 MIJ Fender Telecaster with Lollar pickups
- 2014 MIM Fender Strat with Lollar pickups
Amps
- Randall RX120RH
Effects
- Pro Co RAT
- EHX Big Muff Pi
Strings
- Ernie Ball Super Slinky Nickel Wound (.009–.042)
Garner now lives in Austin, where Hotline TNT played at SXSW this year. “Will and I run around in similar circles of music,” she says, “so when Hotline TNT was looking for a guitar player, I came to New York and rehearsed with them. It was a good fit, so I joined. It’s been a wild ride.”
Garner acquired her main guitar—a natural finish, short-scale Peavey T-30—from a former bandmate in an upgrade from her previous Squier. “It’s my baby,” she says. “What I like about it is that it’s really lightweight, so no back problems, and I appreciate the short scale.”
“Despite the fact that this particular guitar has been with me for so long, I’m actually not that precious with it.” —Will Anderson
Anderson’s primary guitar is a vintage Japanese-made Yamaha SG-3 that he bought in Vancouver when he was 19. “These days, Yamaha SG-3s go for $2,500 in the high range, but I bought my guitar for about $788 in Vancouver from a music store called Not Just Another Music Shop,” he says. “At the time, I just thought it looked cool. Because I couldn’t afford to buy it outright, I made payments on it all summer long before I could take it home.” Anderson’s SG-3-driven leads on Cartwheel, by the way, are all straight from his fingers. “I do not play with a pick—never have,” he notes. “I get a lot of comments about this at shows. Whenever I hold a pick, my wrist gets really tight, and I just think, ‘no.’”
All three Hotline TNT guitarists, Will Anderson, Olivia Garner, and Matt Berry, come together on Cartwheel to create an entrancing blend of textural distortion under Anderson’s romance-inspired lyrics.
Despite his allegiance to his Yamaha, Anderson admits that he’s actually not all that sentimental about the instrument. The thing he loves best about the SG-3 doesn’t have to do with tone or playability—it’s that it still performs after years of abuse. “Despite the fact that this particular guitar has been with me for so long, I’m actually not that precious with it,” he says. “If something happened to it, I’d be sad, sure, but I’d also think, ‘Alright, it’s time to find a new one.’”
Still, when it comes to travel, Anderson doesn’t take many chances with his guitar. “Overseas, I usually put my guitar on a gig bag that I carry on my back when I board the plane,” he says. “I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.”
“I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.” —Will Anderson
Anderson’s love for his main axe is about as far as his gear passion goes. Though he feels an increasing sense of responsibility to improve his gear knowledge base, he confesses to being happily clueless. A few years back, he bought a solid-state Randall half-stack, which is still his go-to amp, and it provided an unexpected learning experience. “To show you how little I know about gear, two or three years ago somebody said to me, ‘Can I borrow your amp head for our set?’ I was like, ‘You can. Is it onstage now? Because I don’t know. What is that thing?’ I didn’t know what a head was until recently.”
While Anderson plucks out finer lead parts, Garner says her role is to create a “giant wall of sound” with open chords and thick distortion.
Photo by Jade Amey
Effects-wise, Anderson and Garner strike a warm balance between a Pro Co RAT, a Boss DS-1, and a Big Muff Pi that Anderson bought in high school. The interplay between the three is all over Cartwheel, but is especially prominent on “Protocol” and “BMX,” which both utilize the pedals’ respective distortions as percussive and resonant elements. The blend creates a sort of halo: It extends outward like its own multi-layered cloud strata, enveloping the lyrics in “I Thought You’d Change,” and creating an uplifting effect that counters the descending melodies in “Stump” and “Son in Law.”
The goal, says Garner, is to create “a giant wall of sound with big, giant chords.” “I hold down the big chords while Will will do his leads,” she says. One of Anderson’s oldest friends, Matt Berry, recently joined the band, completing a triple-guitar threat. (Berry serves as de facto guitar tech for the band, even changing Anderson’s strings.)
“I pretty much talk my way into things and out of things when it comes to dealing with travel.” —Will Anderson
Hotline TNT isn’t Anderson’s only outlet. He’s morphed his extracurricular interests into a hydra-esque presence online, which includes hosting both a Twitch stream and an Instagram talk show, and publishing a basketball zine. “It’s all about feeding the same vision and aesthetic,” says Anderson. “People seem to be rocking with it, so that’s cool.”
Will Anderson was teaching at a New York high school before Jack White’s Third Man Records signed Hotline TNT.
Photo by Jade Amey
But his other endeavors might have to be set on the backburner this year, as Hotline TNT’s stock is rising. They spent much of 2023 on the road, but this time out, they had a better van and sleeping accommodations. Even if they didn’t, though, Anderson wouldn’t mind. Touring feels like home—especially if he gets to see the midwest in the fall. Early this year, Hotline TNT is ripping through mainland Europe—including Italy, France, and Germany—and later, they’ll hit Japan, a personal highlight for Anderson. In line with their laissez-faire approach to gear, Anderson says they plan to leave their gear at home, and pick up fill-ins overseas to make sure they don’t run into international voltage variance issues.
Anderson currently has six demos in the hopper toward his next album. Usually, he says he’d already have another record ready to go, but Hotline TNT’s explosion in popularity has kept them busy on the road, and working with Third Man has flooded the band with exciting opportunities. But Anderson does have a shortlist of people to work with for the next release, and a rough sketch of the collection’s themes: relationships, heartbreak, and family.
But don’t expect to learn what the band’s name means any time soon. “It does stand for something, but I cannot reveal publicly what it is because me and the original members of the band from four years ago came up with it,” says Anderson. “It’s our sacred vow to keep that a secret.”
YouTube It
Bathe in colored stage lights and sweet, thick distortion with Hotline TNT’s live performance in Toronto in March 2023.
Joy Oladokun was driven to pick up the guitar when she was 10 years old after seeing a video of Tracy Chapman performing “Fast Car” solo at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
Proof of Life, too, is a balancing act, swaying expertly between subdued acoustic ballads, plush, swooning electronics, and heady electric guitar churns. It’s clear about the state of the world: “Newspaper says the world’s on fire / People yelling and the water’s rising,” Oladokun sings in cool harmony over calming acoustics on track two, “Changes,” before submitting at the chorus’ end, “I’m trying to keep up with the changes.” But opener “Keeping The Light On” is a breezy, textured mission statement to always make one’s way back out of the darkness. The third track, “Taking Things For Granted,” is a humming, light-footed indie-rock jam that recounts Oladokun’s lonely 8th birthday, when no one from school came to her party. It’s a real-life, heartbreaking memory, relayed over a beachy-road-trip arrangement. These are the huge, existential places Oladokun takes us with her voice and her guitar just in that trio of opening songs.
“This record is as autobiographical as anything I’ve ever made,” says Oladokun. “It’s actually me this time, it’s not a bunch of songs about ideas. Are people gonna like me?”
Joy Oladokun - "We’re All Gonna Die"
Oladokun admits it’s frightening to be this vulnerable, especially when, at this stage in her career, she has voices around her telling her how she ought to create her art. But the specificity is paying off. On tour, people are expressing how meaningfully her songs capture and validate even their own experiences. “That’s the ultimate goal for me,” Oladokun says.
Oladokun’s artistic path has taken her across North America, on stages with John Mayer and My Morning Jacket, but the road can be traced back to one turning point when she was growing up in Casa Grande, Arizona. She was only allowed to watch TV on weekends, when her father would go to Blockbuster to rent a video. When Oladokun was 10, he screened a DVD of Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday celebration at Wembley Stadium, and at a point during the festivities, Tracy Chapman walked onstage and performed “Fast Car,” with just her and her guitar in front of tens of thousands of people.
“It’s actually me this time, it’s not a bunch of songs about ideas. Are people gonna like me?”
To this day, the performance is arresting and gut-turning in the best ways, crackling with tension and desperation. It was the first time Oladokun remembers seeing a Black queer woman on television, and not only that, but Chapman was alone, vulnerable, and changing entire worlds with her song. “I had a feeling that I belonged / I had a feeling I could be someone,” Chapman belts in the chorus. For many listeners, it was simply a great pop song. For Oladokun, it was liberating.
That clip was “the gateway drug” for Oladokun, who begged her parents for a guitar that Christmas. They bought her an acoustic, and she went from a socially anxious kid who didn’t show interest in much to a committed guitar student. In small-town Arizona, guitar was one of the few things that lit Oladokun’s candle. “They couldn’t get me to do my homework to save their lives,” she says. “But I would sit in my room and play guitar for four or five hours every night.”
Joy Oladokun's Gear
For her new record, Joy Oladokun took a more autobiographical approach to lyricism, crafting songs that share different intimate, personal portraits of her life.
Photo by Lauren Schorr
Effects
- Jam Pedals Wahcko
- Mesa/Boogie Grid Slammer
- JAM Pedals RetroVibe
- Chase Bliss Audio Automatone CXM 1978
- Gamechanger Audio Third Man Records Plasma Coil
Strings
- D'Addario NYXL (.009–.046)
First up, she learned the riff to Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” and stretched her fingers so she could play power chords more clearly. Her parents’ great music tastes nudged her toward Nigerian guitarists like King Sunny Adé, whose music imparted deep appreciations for rhythm and syncopation alongside technical skill. Simon and Garfunkel, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, and even Genesis were played around the house, but perhaps the most significant influence came from the church, and the gospel music Oladokun heard and sang there.
“I grew up listening to a lot of music that was purpose-driven,” she says. “Everything that I listened to and my parents listened to, they were talking about the world and revolutions and stuff.”
“They couldn’t get me to do my homework to save their lives. But I would sit in my room and play guitar for four or five hours every night.”
Oladokun self-released her first EP in 2015, followed the next year by a full-length. Her 2020 followup, in defense of my own happiness (the beginnings), yielded syncs on This Is Us, Grey’s Anatomy, and The L Word: Generation Q, all of which laid the groundwork for her to sign with Amigo Records and Verve Forecast Records for her 2021 breakout in defense of my own happiness. The record, which featured a co-write and appearance by pop country titan Maren Morris, expressed itself in broad, universal terms, dissecting anti-Black violence, religion, and being queer in America. She’s said that she wrote the album’s closer, “jordan,” the day she decided to come out herself. In December 2022, she performed the song on the lawn of the White House as part of a celebration of the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires that all states recognize same-sex marriages.
Before the performance, she had a moment where she booted everyone from her dressing room, and just looked at herself in the mirror—a practice her therapist encouraged. “When I was a young Black queer kid in Arizona, I don’t know that I could’ve imagined a world where I would be invited to perform on the White House lawn to celebrate same-sex marriage. It was really emotional and powerful. I tried to embrace as much of the significance of the day as I could because I also know that things like that are a lifeline for queer people around the world.”
Joy Oladokun’s music weaves between alt-folk, indie-rock, and pop, and on her fourth full-length, she invited friends like Chris Stapleton and Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull to fill out the sound.
Oladokun came up with the title for Proof of Life one day when she was sitting in her studio, looking at all the instruments and knickknacks lining the room. “I started morbidly thinking about what would happen to them after I die,” she chuckles lightly.
“For me, ‘proof of life’ was like a way of saying, ‘What is singular about my existence right now, and what connects me to the rest of this planet?’” Oladokun continues. The songs on Proof of Life became vehicles to explore those threads, “and doing it in a way that 100 years from now, if someone found my album, they would have a pretty good understanding of who I was, what I had been through, and what I believed about life.”
Oladokun says she conceptualized the bulk of the record’s 13 songs in her attic studio at home, then enlisted Mike Elizondo and Ian Fitchuk to produce some of them. But Oladokun produced a good chunk herself, renting Electric Lady Studios and inviting her friends to contribute. Across the record, guest spots from Chris Stapleton, Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull, and Mt. Joy add extra color and dimensions. Oladokun says it was an exercise in learning to contribute and how musicians can lift one another up.
“When I was a young Black queer kid in Arizona, I don’t know that I could’ve imagined a world where I would be invited to perform on the White House lawn to celebrate same-sex marriage.”
Right through to its close, Proof of Life ripples with big-picture tension and energy, but they’re perhaps the most pronounced and direct on “We’re All Gonna Die,” which opens with howling violins before switching gears to a macabre, anthemic indie pop rock banger. “We’re over our heads so I’ll say it out loud / We’re all gonna die trying to figure it out,” Oladokun calls on the chorus. Her pal Kahan takes the mic on the second verse: “I’m pissin’ in the dark and hopin’ I hit the bowl / I’m afraid of what I can’t control,” he groans.
Making the record and performing the tracks live has pulled Oladokun into a more open dynamic conversation with her guitars. Sure, she can do the tender, Chapman-style singer-songwriter routine as well as any of them. But on tour recently, she and her band have been ripping “Smells Like Teen Spirit” right after the heavy racial reckoning of “I See America.” By the time the solo in “Teen Spirit” comes, it feels like an explosion of emotion. “It’s like this expression of all the sadness and frustration that those songs represent to me,” says Oladokun. “I’m gonna get on the acoustic guitar and give you a clean version of ‘Keeping The Light On,’ but I’m also gonna take the solos at the end of ‘We’re All Gonna Die.’ To me, [performing both styles] gets the message across in a different way than if I delegated [those parts] to someone else.”
On Proof of Life, Oladokun isn’t a pessimist, but she is a realist. The record tells us that we can and must find joy and peace and community, but the trouble is that we have to do so knowing that not a single one of us is here forever. It’s hard work to keep your footing knowing that everything changes, and everything goes away. But if you can find something to help steady yourself, hold onto it. “One thing that I feel really proud of that hasn’t changed,” says Oladokun, “is that I love playing guitar more than any single thing in the entire world.”YouTube It
Joy Oladokun and her band groove through a perfectly restrained, airtight rendition of “Somebody Like Me” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.