Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
It’s no secret that we at The Alternative are fans of the alt-country stylings of Massachusetts rockers Tiberius. Troubadour, the band’s fifth full-length, came out a week ago tomorrow, and to celebrate the occasion vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Brendan Wright broke down the writing of Troubadour. Read all about their process below, and give Troubadour a spin while you do.
For most of my life, I defined myself almost completely on who I was in relation to the other—my friends, my family, and my relationships. Troubadour was written in a short period of time where these relationships changed significantly, and it felt as if I underwent complete ego death. For months I felt insane but inevitably found solace in nature and the constancy of the trees. For a period I felt utterly connected to the universe in a way that was completely outside my sense of self. I was everything all at once, and it was one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had. And it was hard. And I think I was lucky enough to capture it in these 10 tracks.
(there’s nothing wrong with the truth) (August ‘23)
I’ve gotten into this habit of putting in some sort of teaser track on my records—something to serve as a cold open before we hit the ground running. When I listen to this one, I imagine sitting on the edge of the earth staring out at the abyss and asking, “How did I manage to get here?” and then thinking back to nine months prior. Conveniently, it also serves as a nice opener to our live shows as well.
Sag (November ‘22)
Sag was the first track written for the record and the last to come out of what I consider the Fish in a Pond era for the band. Unlike most of the other tunes, a lot of the arrangement came from playing with Christian, Ben, and KP. I distinctly remember having a pretty rough arrangement of it in December ‘22. There were folks that I was playing with in the Boston scene at the time that had their sights set on New York, and I felt this general pressure to uproot my life and head to Brooklyn. I often found myself lost in thought over what role I wanted music to play in my life and how that would affect what I do next. I was playing the comparison game with my musical peers pretty constantly. It was the start of this theme of looking at myself in relation to the others around me and trying to decipher who I was based on that.
Felt (Feb/March ‘23)
Not too long after writing “Sag,” I went through a breakup. I was scared to know who I was now that I no longer filled this role as a partner, and instead of sitting with that, I tucked away my feelings and started distracting myself with casual dating. I started spending some late nights slipping into the backstories of strangers’ lives. It was very much a temporary escape and short-lived. It never eased the issue at hand. I was alone, and I was terrified to sit with that. I think it’s my sleeper favorite on the record. I like that the ‘road trip story’ in the second verse ended up previewing motifs in the record.
Tag (May ‘23)
I think for most of my life, sexuality has been a taboo, self-imposed perhaps more than anything else. I was thinking a lot back to the awkwardness of becoming aware of myself as an adolescent and feeling this sense of terrible shame. After the temporary escape of “Felt,” came the lingering knowledge that I needed to take some time to be alone and sit with these questions, but I was still reluctant to do so. What kind of life did I want for myself? But alas, I didn’t quite get there yet. A few months pass between the writing of those first three tunes and the next. Tiberius releases Fish in a Pond, and I take some time to travel away from Boston and the insular routines of my life.
It Has to Be True (August ‘23)
The second half of the record came together almost all at once. One of the first in that batch is “It Has to Be True.” There’s not a ton I really want to say about this one—perhaps because I feel like it’s better left to be listened to. It’s one of those 3 (or 4) chord and the truth kind of tunes. I thought I was figuring out who I really wanted to be, but as I look back, it’s easy to see that I was still putting off that work.
It started off as one of the most emotionally resonant tunes for me on the record, but over time, I’ve become a bit desensitized to the content. When playing it live, my band will often sing along to the first verse and clink beers as if it were an old Irish drinking song. Regular attendees of our shows will tend to do some sort of dance. It’s become a bit of a celebration.
Moab (July ‘23)
I wrote this one about trying to let go of the expectations you have for yourself, or the expectations other people have for you, and/or the perceived expectations you think other people have for you. When I wrote it, I was feeling pretty insane about a short-lived relationship—like the kind of insane you feel back in 8th grade where you come home crying all of the time because you have absolutely no sense of self. Writing offered catharsis.
On one hand, when I listen back to this part of the record, I think about a time in my life when I was really low, and I used music to get me through. I wish I had acted differently, but it was how I felt at the time, and that was the place I was in. I strive to act differently. But I also think about how it’s not the details or stories of these tunes that feel significant, but something greater than the sum of the parts. A feeling of aliveness that comes from feeling like you could fall off the edge at any time. I don’t think I would’ve released them otherwise. In that sense, I don’t think these tunes have much to do with me at all, and never really have.
Redwood (August ‘23)
While it’s not really a secret that these tunes were inspired by affairs of the heart, as much as I’d like to downplay that aspect of them, I think the significance and emotional weight of these tracks come from a much deeper place of loss. I think “Redwood” really captures this feeling of devastation you come to when you realize you’ve lost something that you found totally integral to yourself, despite nearly trying to do everything to save it. A relationship to something that you used to understand who you are, consciously or unconsciously. And now it’s gone. The first part captures the adrenaline and the anger, and the second the feeling of being gutted by loss and disappointment. Despair deteriorating into desperation. It’s not exactly written from the most levelheaded and rational perspective. Fortunately, sometimes this kind of deep loss can leave you with nothing else but to finally pause and do that work on yourself you’ve been meaning to do all this time.
Sitting (September ‘23)
I wrote “Sitting” when I started practicing mindfulness and meditation exercises, particularly in relation to nature. I was experiencing intense anxiety and compulsive thought patterns, and it was really hard to focus. The only thing that offered any sense of calmness was when I made an active effort to stop and observe my surroundings. I would often sneak out of work, stare at trees, and focus on my breathing. I felt like my worldview, literally the way I perceive stimuli, changed for moments in those meditations. I felt grounded physically, but I felt like I was actually perceiving much more outside of myself. Looking back, it feels strange to conceptualize that one of the more anxious periods of my life also coincided with the closest I felt to ‘enlightenment’—or at least what I think it’d feel like. If “Redwood” is rock bottom, “Sitting” begins the upward trajectory of the record.
Painting of a Tree (September ‘23)
There’s something kind of heartbreaking about loving so much and then later realizing that you didn’t do right by that love. It’s such a hard pill to swallow. You tried to be good to yourself and to the people around you, and yet when you look back, you see so clearly the carnage of everything you demolished in your state of limerence. You hope someday you recover to where you can support the way you should’ve in the first place. It’s kind of about that.
Barn (August ‘23)
I think after this big struggle to let go and move on through all of Troubadour, we kind of get there by the end of “Barn.” In a lot of ways it was just a blatant Neil Young rip-off. But it definitely gets to a Tiberius tune by the end. It was, in a lot of ways, the first tune recorded for Troubadour, because I ended up mapping all of Ben’s drums over the original logic demo I made in the basement in August ‘23. For that reason, it feels the closest to how I felt when I recorded it.
Shortly after I made the demo, I went on a weekend trip with my parents to North Conway, NH. I was absolutely miserable. I remember playing the demo for my mom in my car from the parking lot of where we were staying one night. I was still in it all, but I knew at one point I would know who I was again. I would let go of all the heartache of change, and I would get to the other side. When I listen back, I can almost feel the tears weighing underneath my cheeks.
I think Troubadour ends there: knowing that it’ll get better, but it’s going to take some time, and that it hurts sometimes to get there.
As I was writing Troubadour, I was reading Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act, and he talked about how if we can just get good at observing the stimuli and capture, we merely act as vessels for nature or source. One of the reasons I feel like this record worked was that I was changing and going through stuff, and I pressed record as it was happening. As if I were a VCR just capturing what was already on the TV. Perhaps a bit of a pretentious interpretation, but hey, if I’m tasked to write this track by track, I might as well have a little fun with it, right?
Troubadour is out now.
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Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
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