Multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, producer, vocal coach and quilter, Eliza Hardy Jones, releases “Counterfeit,” the ethereal-indie-folk song exploring existential dread as the second single from her upcoming sophomore LP, Pickpocket. “Counterfeit” follows the single release of “This is the Year.” Pickpocket will be available worldwide on all platforms beginning April 19th. Pre-orders for the limited edition, 140-gram translucent lavender vinyl are also now available exclusively through The Record Stop.
“In the age of social media, reality is filtered and manipulated so that it can be shared with the public,” says the songwriter. “And sometimes it feels like we live our lives for the pictures and posts they will produce. It’s not just that the picture is a manipulation of reality - the reality is manipulated by the picture. ‘Counterfeit’ is a song about this feeling of estrangement from the ‘self,’ and that feeling of disorientation about what is actually real. I co-wrote this song with my dear friend Matt Musty. Matt sent me so many killer drum tracks for this record and proposed that we write a song together. So, I recorded a simple skeleton of the song with just a single synth line. Then we sent the song back and forth, and with the help of Jon Levy on guitar and Solomon Dorsey on bass we ended up with this big crashing tumble of a song about existential dread."
The ten original songs on Pickpocket, explore surviving grief, birth, death, and the innate humanness surrounding a challenging and personal journey to becoming a parent. It was written, recorded, and produced by Eliza with production assistance from the multitalented producer, engineer, and instrumentalist, Nick Krill -- who also mixed the record. Additional musicians recorded their parts in bedrooms across space and time.
WXPN cheers, “Weaving grief into gold, Eliza Hardy Jones’ new single [This is the Year] is a balm for wounded hearts” and PureMzine raves, “Eliza Hardy Jones’s dedication to her craft continues to inspire, as she navigates the intricate intersections of art, music, and personal expression with unwavering authenticity.”
“This is the Year’ is a song I wrote about the hardest year of my life and how I made it through,” explains the songwriter. “It was a year of profound loss, and both physical and emotional ruin. It was a time where I found myself lost in my own grief. I was so deep in it before I ever even realized it had come for me. A slow erosion of everything I understood about myself. I wrote this song as a way to find my way out, to find my way back. While this song is intensely personal, I hope that if others recognize themselves in it, it may offer some peace in knowing they are not alone.”
With a sonic palette including ethereal folk coupled with indie rock undertones, Pickpocket finds the songwriter calling upon her musical friends, including Charlie Hall, Dave Hartley, and Anthony LaMarca (all of whom are collaborators in The War on Drugs), Daniel Hart (St. Vincent, Dark Rooms), Matt Musty (Grace Potter, Train), Brandon Beaver (Buried Beds, mewithoutYou), Severin Tucker (Nightlands, Silver Ages), Benny Yurco (Grace Potter), Tim Deaux (The Whigs, Grace Potter, Kings of Leon), Jordan West (Grace Potter, Cam) and Ben Alleman (Dr. John, Grace Potter, Jenny Lewis) to help bring this collection of songs to life.
“This is an album about grief or more accurately, about surviving grief,” says Eliza. “It's about my experience of living in this world and in this body and doing my best to find purpose and joy. I made most of it sitting in my little home studio, surrounded by my quilt projects. I would send tracks off to friends around the country, folks who I played with in Buried Beds, Grace Potter's band and The War on Drugs, and they would send back little pieces of themselves, drums and bass and guitars and violins and synths, all kinds of love to help me fully realize this album.”
Eliza Hardy Jones is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, vocal coach, and quilter. In the early 2000s, Eliza began her professional career in the Philadelphia music scene with her band Buried Beds and in addition to her solo output, worked with several notable artists. She has been a touring member of many bands, including Grace Potter and Iron & Wine, before joining The War on Drugs in 2022. Following the release of her first debut solo album in 2016, Because Become, Eliza focused on a large multidisciplinary art project interviewing women in the U.S. and Russia, in which she recorded folk songs, and then transformed them into a series of ten handcrafted quilts that are now part of the permanent collection of the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. She also co-wrote the musical Lashed but not Leashed (2019) with legendary Philadelphia drag queen Martha Graham Cracker and lent her vocal coaching skills to members of the NFL Philadelphia Eagles aka The Philly Specials, for their Billboard chart topping holiday albums, A Philly Special Christmas (2022) and A Philly Special Christmas Special (2023). She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and infant son.
Eliza will play select dates in celebration of Pickpocket and will continue to perform with The War on Drugs throughout 2024 including September 17th at the Mann Music Center in her hometown of Philadelphia.
Find Eliza Hardy Jones Online
Official: elizahardyjones.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizahardyjones/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2TbzUCLFqFocmNhtBnxonq
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizahardyjones
X: https://twitter.com/elizahardyjones
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/eliza-hardy-jones/1067078960
