#i thought simon deserved more than the two lines he got in the stah album so. yeah

[lucindarobinsonvevo]

Good News This Week for Fans Of Eerie, Indiana Who Just This Week Put Out Their Long Time Unreleased Album ‘Broken Record’  

“We had no idea we were making a controversial record when we made it.” Band member Simon Holmes said this week, in an interview about the release of Broken Record, “I was just writing about my experiences. I guess my life was controversial.”  “I always felt like Simon never got enough recognition.” Admits the band’s front man Marshall Teller, “So when we made Broken Record I told promotion that it had to be equal this time, not like the mess that was promotion for JSNTF. When they decided not to put the album out, it felt like the label was just twisting the knife.” (note: JSNTF is Just Say Not To Fun was the band’s previous release) “Of course, then we had to throw something together from cut tracks and other bits we had lying around. I was never happy with the quality of America’s Scariest Home Videos. 

Broken Record was mostly forgotten for two decades before the band’s third member and later addition to the band, Dash X, was asked about it on an Instagram Q&A (of all things) when responding to a question from a long time fan he revealed that the band’s entire back catalouge had been destroyed by the label in an ‘accident’ and chances of release were ‘minimal’ unless ‘the bastards who keep leaking our tracks want to give us a copy’. Indeed, hard core Eerie, Indiana fans will know that various tracks from Broken Record have been making their way through fan groups for the last two decades since the initial recording. How they got there is difficult to say, though some sources claim that ‘Weird Kids’, ‘Tension’ and ‘Bigfoot is Real’ were all set to be singles and sent out to radio stations, and others claim to have taken them straight from work tapes of the record. One enterprising fan claims to have traded rare Taylor Swift tracks to someone who gave them a copy of ‘Ousted’, which they then shared on Periscope. 

Of course, how this release came about is as strange a story as one might expect from a band who released a concept album about being hypnotized into hating fun. Long time collaborate of the band, Janet Donner was apparently looking for pictures of her girlfriend and band mate Melanie Monroe (Both were considered part of the Indiana Six) in her storage locker with Teller when they came across a box marked ‘Marshall’s Junk’ inside was a variety of old ‘memorabilia’ from the era where all six projects were active at once. Among the junk was an old work tape of the first time the group recorded the album’s centerpiece ‘MMNH’, sheet music for several other tracks, and a large binder promotional material, lyrics and old photographs. Seeing that they now had the last remaining copy of any track off the album the band decided to get together and re-record it as a special gift to their fans. ‘Janet is a bit of a character. She hates to throw away anything to do with work, but she’s utterly ruthless when it comes to her personal life. She’s got three storage containers full of junk, and a house where she won’t even hang up artwork.  We used to tease her, but I guess it paid off in the end.” Teller said of the find

But what of the album itself? Well, the overall sound is like no other Eerie, Indiana album that’s for sure. Despite all their changes and use of multiple genres, one thing always held every E,I record together and that was Teller’s skillful guitar playing. Complicated riffs, long solos and difficult to reproduce life performances were a staple of the group, but almost utterly absent on this record, but not gone entirely from the tracks meant to be released as singles where the pop flavouring the band usually has remains undiluted. 

The most stand out track on the record is MMNH, which is sung by both Teller and Janet Donner, who take on the role of a dysfunctional couple arguing over the top of a beautiful piano track. The liner notes say that this fight is based on the arguments of Holmes’s parents and the personal digs that they take at one another are extremely niche and telling of that. While there are certainly no lack of tracks were Teller takes an emotional, confrontational stance with his singing, here it sounds much more refined and serious than he did at the time this album was originally recorded. Donner takes her voice an octave higher than her usual singing, and comes across as loud, and shrewd, at one point breaking down into tears while still singing. Conversely, Teller only gets louder, and angrier as the song progresses to a peak around the seven minute mark where his voice cracks, he stops and Donner sobbing is the only sound on the tape for minute afterwards. It’s an uncomfortable listen, to say the least, but the performances are perhaps some of the best in the career of both singers. The worktape version of the song is five minutes longer and very clearly an extremely early pass. Throughout the recording, someone, probably Donner, is wearing very loud, jangling jewelry. There are several long pauses on the track of Holmes at his piano, contributing a rare vocal performance of background vocals, which were cut from the final track. At the end, you can hear Holmes say cut, and Teller comforting Donner, who insists she’s fine just emotional. The track is experimental and clearly emotionally taxing, just like the rest of the album. While I wouldn’t have put it so close to the other most emotional track on the album, Broken Record, it’s certainly a one of a kind experience. 

Broken Record, the tile track, is also an extremely emotional track, but personally I think would have qualified the album and the track for grammys. The track is written and played solely by Holmes, the only track of it’s kind in the entire Eerie, Indiana cataloge that was released, though there are rumors that there were more Holmes led tracks that he personally refused to release due to dissatisfaction with his singing voice. The track is a ballad, performed with a guitar, and is essentially a letter to Holmes’s brother, Harley. He sings through the run time, apologizing for not being able to not protect him enough. In the gentle climax of the song, he professes to feeling like a broken record, apologizing and apologizing and feeling like he’ll never say it enough. This track too is a deeply emotional listen, and extremely sad. At the time the song was written, Harley Holmes was in a military academy after getting into to much trouble in the small home town of the bands two founding members. Truly, Holmes has a nice singing voice, but it’s imperfections make the track all the more compelling in my opinion. Thankfully, one quick look at his Instagram account shows that his relationship with his brother seems to be a happy one. The leaked version of the track is not notedly different to the released version, other than it’s remarkably low quality (probably from years of being traded as an MP3 through various fan emails), and sounds far sadder than the version released now that Holmes’s relationship with his brother is doing better. 

Of course, the track-list is not devoid of the usual Teller-isms one finds on an Eerie, Indiana album. The supposed first single ‘Bigfoot is Real’ is a spot of real sunshine on a very bleak track-list with your usual flavour of complicated riffs. The song is devoted to celebrating the friendship between the two leads, who met as children and in their own words were ‘kind of obsessed with proving that their hometown as weird’. It’s a fun, fast paced moment of happiness on the album. 

Ousted, the final leaked track is a song with steel drums leading the charge. Though Teller is once again the singer, he’s clearly just the mouthpiece for Holmes, who sings about being ousted from his home life with his parents and moving in with Teller’s family. While it seems like it might be another sad song, it’s actually a loving song about finding family and non-typical family structures. The opening samples a recording of the actual court appearance where the Teller family was awarded full custody of Holmes by a judge. The liner notes suggest that this was recorded by Teller illicitly because he wanted to remember the day ‘Simon became my brother for real.’ Like the band’s final effort, Reality Takes a Holiday, Broken Record is a one two punch sort of record where the theme you think you’re going to get isn’t quite what you get. Yes, Broken Record is about the disrupted home life of Holmes, there’s a lot of love in the happier tracks. Weird Kids, Inbetween Tweens and Bigfoot is Real are all about being loved and accepted by your friends, and the deeply rooted friendship between Holmes and Teller. It ultimately becomes a record about finding a home and a family who love and accept you for you. 

Dash X is largely absent on the album, though he is the guitar player on the intermission track, but since he was not a member of the band during the initial recording, and he is busy with his current job as a voice actor there is seemingly not a lot of use for him here. Not to say he doesn’t pop up on some tracks, there was an entire extra verse added to High Strung for him where his raspy, gravelly voice adds a new layer of sound and texture to an otherwise cutting floor worthy track. Another track that feels like a miss is Under Foreign Stars, which is a Teller penned track about feeling alone in a new town that belongs on Foreverware, or an early demo tape far more than it belongs here. 

The liner for the album contains the lyrics, and a lot of previously unseen photos apparently taken by Donner of Eerie, Indiana in the studio recording in all era’s of the band’s existence. Including an extremely rare picture of PDA between X and Teller, who were closeted at the time. When asked about the owner of the broken collarbone features on the back of the album, Holmes revealed that it actually belongs to Melanie Monroe, and that it was technically because of her that the album was re-recorded they wanted to pay homage to her and use an old x-ray of hers instead of the one that was featured originally, apparently a broken arm belonging to Teller after disregarding the instructions of a waterside. 

When asked if this means that Eerie, Indiana was reuniting, Holmes said that they were not, this was currently a one of project to say thank you to their fans. “Eerie, Indiana fans have always been such great supporters of our individual careers, we wanted to give them something new. But there’s always hope about Eerie, Indiana putting out new music. Who knows. Watch this space!” 

#eerie indiana #Simon Holmes #marshall teller #dash x #janet donner #mitziedits #another adition to the EIAACU #(eerie indiana as albums cinematic universe) #this one only took me 4 hours and i like it way more than the other one lol #i thought simon deserved more than the two lines he got in the stah album so. yeah