There is a cold palpable sadness within the fluttering synth lines and narrative of "Yesterday: a ballad about yesterday" by alt pop rock outfit Strange Familia. Constructed of illusory surreal sounds, hard rock downbeats with artful broad wings filtered through psychedelic colors and Garret Williams' vocal aesthetic that carries true emotional weight. When the blues rock / funky pop sways give way to synth arpeggios, you even get the sense of a gospel song. After all those tears in the mirror moments can take place anywhere and any kind of spirituality strikes us at the craziest of moments, out of the blue sometimes. All these sounds in their totality, in the way the song changes shape feels art rock-ish. The more you listen, you hear more layers of the onion being peeled away.
From liner notes:
From liner notes:
[“The lyrics were inspired by a conversation with an old friend,” recalls Strange Familia frontman Garret Williams, “they confided some frustrations I thought were somewhat trivial. I wanted to tell them to move on. Life's long, keep living it, it'll work out.”
“I was up on a soapbox,” Williams admits, “and that’s recently become a hard pill to swallow. A couple of years have passed and I find myself at the end of a six year relationship I thought was headed towards a new family. Now, I can't help but feel like it was written for myself.”
Before the lyrics took shape, Yesterday: a ballad about yesterday began as a single note co-writer/producer Brecken Jones found while messing around with presets on a synthesizer. “It stuck out to me,” says Jones, “it had a broken quality to it, like an old toy keyboard you’d find at a yard sale or something.”
“The music was written at a time when life wasn’t going how I wanted it to, I was in a rut,” he continues, “so I think I channeled that dissatisfaction into pushing myself beyond what I was comfortable with musically. The complexity of the guitar chords, the rhythm, all of it. I was trying to create something that pushed against the frustration I was feeling, trying to make the most of something broken.”
In hindsight, it’s not hard to see why all the struggle Jones’ directed into the earliest version of Yesterday inspired the lyrics Williams would go on to write for it.
“Sometimes my own metaphorical valleys feel inescapable,” Williams explains, “but life always finds a way to show me new peaks I didn't think I was capable of reaching. The highest highs always seem to come after the lowest lows.”
“If this shit was always perfect you’d be stuck inside a personal hell,” he adds, quoting his own lyric, “That’s good advice. Let’s see if I can remember it myself.”
The release of Yesterday comes shortly after the release of honey., which marked the official end of a 3-year hiatus for Strange Familia. The band, which is completed by Cole Eisenhour on drums and Colter Hill on guitar, looks to build on that momentum as they continue to tour and release new music throughout 2023]
“I was up on a soapbox,” Williams admits, “and that’s recently become a hard pill to swallow. A couple of years have passed and I find myself at the end of a six year relationship I thought was headed towards a new family. Now, I can't help but feel like it was written for myself.”
Before the lyrics took shape, Yesterday: a ballad about yesterday began as a single note co-writer/producer Brecken Jones found while messing around with presets on a synthesizer. “It stuck out to me,” says Jones, “it had a broken quality to it, like an old toy keyboard you’d find at a yard sale or something.”
“The music was written at a time when life wasn’t going how I wanted it to, I was in a rut,” he continues, “so I think I channeled that dissatisfaction into pushing myself beyond what I was comfortable with musically. The complexity of the guitar chords, the rhythm, all of it. I was trying to create something that pushed against the frustration I was feeling, trying to make the most of something broken.”
In hindsight, it’s not hard to see why all the struggle Jones’ directed into the earliest version of Yesterday inspired the lyrics Williams would go on to write for it.
“Sometimes my own metaphorical valleys feel inescapable,” Williams explains, “but life always finds a way to show me new peaks I didn't think I was capable of reaching. The highest highs always seem to come after the lowest lows.”
“If this shit was always perfect you’d be stuck inside a personal hell,” he adds, quoting his own lyric, “That’s good advice. Let’s see if I can remember it myself.”
The release of Yesterday comes shortly after the release of honey., which marked the official end of a 3-year hiatus for Strange Familia. The band, which is completed by Cole Eisenhour on drums and Colter Hill on guitar, looks to build on that momentum as they continue to tour and release new music throughout 2023]
In the end, for me anyway, Strange Familia's "Yesterday: a ballad about yesterday" feels exquisitely deep, cinematically dense, a svelte novel or fodder for the next Hulu binger. I dig it.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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“Names are weird,” says Strange Familia lead singer Garret Williams, “I tried thinking of a better name for this song. I really did. But this song just feels like honey to me.” Comfort, warmth, beauty, and sweetness are all appropriate descriptors he lists off for both honey and the quiet, unflinching kind of love that inspired the lyrics of the band’s upcoming single before adding, “it can also be a sticky, inconvenient mess.”
Williams and co-songwriter/producer Brecken Jones have been making music together as Strange Familia since 2014 and “sticky” and “inconvenient” describe many of those years—and much of the specific context surrounding honey. After their eponymous debut album earned promising press and fan reception in 2017, Strange Familia hit a series of roadblocks ranging from the worst kind of personal tragedy — the loss of Williams’ daughter — to the demoralizing tedium of laying fiber optic cable every day to pay the bills.
“The song has a confident vibe,” says Jones, “but when I started working on it I was feeling very defeated—work sucked, I wasn’t happy in a relationship, I was starting to feel like I’d lost my chance to live a creative life. So it was more reflective of what I wanted, not what I actually had.”
Like many of Strange Familia’s songs, it began with Jones experimenting with instrumental pieces before passing a rough structure to Williams to see if it sparked anything for him. “Sometimes I know immediately whether or not we can make a song out of it, “says Williams, “this was the case with honey.” The looped guitar chord, piano melody, and hip-hop inspired drums came together relatively quickly, as did the majority of Wiliams’ lyrics, but then life—the sweet parts and the sticky ones—put “honey.” on the backburner.
During what was meant to be a brief hiatus, Jones was selected for the prestigious Mix with the Masters program and got to workshop an early version of “honey.” with producer Emile Haynie (Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Bruno Mars, Foals) at Studio La Fabrique in southern France. “His feedback was positive, which gave me a lot of confidence,” says Jones, “his main suggestion was to give the piano melody more time on its own.” Rejuvenated by the experience, Jones returned to Strange Familia’s hometown of Salt Lake City with fresh motivation. But the pandemic hit shortly after and Strange Familia’s brief hiatus turned into a multi-year one.
Now, like many of us, Strange Familia re-emerges from the pandemic ready to resume life. The release of honey. marks the official end of their hiatus and the band, now totalling four members, will begin touring in 2023 in support of their second full-length album release. And this time around they understand it will likely contain plenty of ups and downs. Sweet, comforting, but often very sticky too. Just like honey.
Strange Familia, indie pop, alt pop, alt rock, art rock, blending genres, 3 year hiatus, lead singer Garret Williams, "Yesterday: a ballad about yesterday" (Official Lyric Video),
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
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“Names are weird,” says Strange Familia lead singer Garret Williams, “I tried thinking of a better name for this song. I really did. But this song just feels like honey to me.” Comfort, warmth, beauty, and sweetness are all appropriate descriptors he lists off for both honey and the quiet, unflinching kind of love that inspired the lyrics of the band’s upcoming single before adding, “it can also be a sticky, inconvenient mess.”
Williams and co-songwriter/producer Brecken Jones have been making music together as Strange Familia since 2014 and “sticky” and “inconvenient” describe many of those years—and much of the specific context surrounding honey. After their eponymous debut album earned promising press and fan reception in 2017, Strange Familia hit a series of roadblocks ranging from the worst kind of personal tragedy — the loss of Williams’ daughter — to the demoralizing tedium of laying fiber optic cable every day to pay the bills.
“The song has a confident vibe,” says Jones, “but when I started working on it I was feeling very defeated—work sucked, I wasn’t happy in a relationship, I was starting to feel like I’d lost my chance to live a creative life. So it was more reflective of what I wanted, not what I actually had.”
Like many of Strange Familia’s songs, it began with Jones experimenting with instrumental pieces before passing a rough structure to Williams to see if it sparked anything for him. “Sometimes I know immediately whether or not we can make a song out of it, “says Williams, “this was the case with honey.” The looped guitar chord, piano melody, and hip-hop inspired drums came together relatively quickly, as did the majority of Wiliams’ lyrics, but then life—the sweet parts and the sticky ones—put “honey.” on the backburner.
During what was meant to be a brief hiatus, Jones was selected for the prestigious Mix with the Masters program and got to workshop an early version of “honey.” with producer Emile Haynie (Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Bruno Mars, Foals) at Studio La Fabrique in southern France. “His feedback was positive, which gave me a lot of confidence,” says Jones, “his main suggestion was to give the piano melody more time on its own.” Rejuvenated by the experience, Jones returned to Strange Familia’s hometown of Salt Lake City with fresh motivation. But the pandemic hit shortly after and Strange Familia’s brief hiatus turned into a multi-year one.
Now, like many of us, Strange Familia re-emerges from the pandemic ready to resume life. The release of honey. marks the official end of their hiatus and the band, now totalling four members, will begin touring in 2023 in support of their second full-length album release. And this time around they understand it will likely contain plenty of ups and downs. Sweet, comforting, but often very sticky too. Just like honey.
Strange Familia, indie pop, alt pop, alt rock, art rock, blending genres, 3 year hiatus, lead singer Garret Williams, "Yesterday: a ballad about yesterday" (Official Lyric Video),
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