Ben Morrison (of The Brothers Comatose) has announced his debut solo EP, due out March 1 on AntiFragile Records. This EP will be followed by a second EP to be released later in 2019. With this new batch of music, Morrison has been able to push his creative boundaries and stretch songwriting legs in a way that he was never before able to do. With the announcement, comes the release of the first single and a stunning music video to go along with it.
“The video we made was really fun. Friends of mine - The Rainbow Girls - sing background vocals on the new track “25 Miles” and I thought it would be great to get them in the video. I didn’t really have much of a concept so I called them up and they said to come out to their house in the sticks and we would play a game called stump. It’s an old carpenters game where you get a stump, a bunch of nails and a hammer…and you flip the hammer in the air, catch it and bring it down in one motion, trying to nail in other peoples’ nails. Last nail standing wins. I had the idea to turn the game into an old-fashioned kung fu battle, which found me and Vanessa May of the Rainbow Girls battling it out and me ultimately losing in the end. SPOILER ALERT. Whoops. It was really fun to make and I think fits the vibe of the song quite well.”
The Brothers Comatose, a familiar name in the roots and americana landscape, have been hitting it hard for the past 10 years, and now with some lineup changes the band is taking what they call a “palette cleanser”.
“We all needed to pursue our own things for a bit. Mine is to take that time and make as much music as I can and try some sonic exploration - something totally different than the thing I've been used to for the last 10 years in BroCo. So…I just booked some studio time and sat my ass down to write a bunch of songs. This change in the band has brought up all sorts of feelings in me and the only way for me to process all that stuff is to write.” says Morrison.
The EP will be recorded analog style to 2" tape at Tiny Telephone Studios in San Francisco.
The choice to go analog was an easy one to Ben Morrison “When you’re recording to tape, you don’t have those fine-tuning details. You just have to play and sing your asses off in the studio. Sometimes you make mistakes, but some mistakes can be cool. It adds humanness to a record and I love that. Perfection is sterile and crappy.”
“My vision for this project is to explore the fringes of the music I've been writing that I wasn't able to explore fully with a string band. I've been working on lots of songs with different grooves - slow groovy crooner tunes and some uptempo rockers.
I kept asking myself why am I doing this thing? It’s kind of like my Rumspringa. Like the Amish do with their youth, letting them out into the world to experience all the different non-Amish facets of life. That’s what I’m doing right now.”
