Acclaimed Ontario Psych-Punk singer-songwriter Graham Caldwell, who previously shared music under the moniker Billy Moon is back with a new project, Tearing Up! Doubling down on punk abandon, but the songwriting chops of Jonathan Richmond or Frank Turner, Caldwell will release a new album as Tearing Up, Heavy, on January 27th, 2023. Caldwell has multi-disciplinary talents, as he created the art for heavy and also directs music videos. Check out the new single and lyric video for “Said Something” here at Ghost Cult!
The forthcoming record is not “easy listening” — “I wanted this record to hurt,” as Graham wrote, and that motivation was largely inspired by a series of personal struggles that he experienced from late 2017 to early 2020, including the loss of his father. In those hard times, the people around him helped push him forward, and writing this record, in all honesty, gave him something to do aside from grieving. “October of 2017 to January of 2020 basically felt like one very, very, long year. But even before that, the record was always going to be called Heavy,” he wrote.
In addition to finding solace in human connection, Graham also found himself turning to music in less of a “this album saved my life”-sense, but more so in recognition of the way music can heal, but can also hurt. Heavy came from his personal place of pain and loss, and it became his version of hard, but necessary truth-telling via making art.
On the new track, he wrote:
“Losing someone is particularly strange because in life, we get used to things being temporary. We know we can never step in the same river twice, but this is assuming there will always be a river. When the river runs dry, it’s quite a shock, and given how often we were used to stepping in it, we find ourselves asking: where the fuck is my river?
Sometimes, these things happen because of an unknowable number of circumstances: Anyone who’s ever been in a car accident will know about having the thought of ‘if I had just left home 3 seconds later…’ or ‘if that woman driving had checked her blindspot…’ or ‘if that guy in the truck had pulled over sooner.’ Sometimes things happen and the reasons are too complicated for any one of them to the be sole reason for the thing that happened.
But then again, what if one of them was? What if one of them actually was and you could never actually know for sure? What if one of those things was something you did, unknowingly, absent-mindedly, that set off a chain of events that would ultimately end in tragedy? You will never know, but of course that means you’ll never be sure either.
Suicide is difficult because it blames both everyone and no one. The person who dies is both perpetrator and victim. It absolves everyone and yet also condemns them. You are both at fault and totally powerless at the same time, waving between the two feelings like a metronome. When I lost a young family member to suicide, many of us were completely dumbfounded as to why this person would choose to end their life. What made things worse was how they left no explanation, leaving us to try and piece together whatever their reasoning was, an endless circle with no real answers.
Time moves on and to some extent; our family’s been able to find some sense of closure. We accept how we’re powerless against the past and keep moving, for better or for worse, it’s all we can do.
Graham Caldwell’s previous project, Billy Moon — namesake from Christopher Robin’s nickname as accounted in A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six (or When We Were Very Young) — saw him release a number of acclaimed, multi-genre’d singles and eclectic full length LPs such as Punk Songs (2018). Over the years, he additionally shared the stage with acts such as Nada Surf, Day Wave, Will Butler, Born Ruffians, July Talk, and Ty Segall, among others.
In addition to his musical work, Graham also just directed the new video for Zoon’s track “Giizhig” (taken off his A Sterling Murmuration EP), showcasing the visual, graphic, and animation skills he houses under his creative arts hub, YammaNamma.
Heavy – Tracklisting:
- Intro [Another Breath]
- Hoadie
- Local Legend
- Sleeper Agent
- Moonbeams
- Said Something
- Your Flame
- Cancer Of The Everything
- [Still Sleeping]
- [Invasive Species]
- Overgrown
- Blindspot
- END Memo ‘Normal School’
Heavy – Credits:
All songs written by Graham Caldwell except for Local Legend
Local Legend written by Graham Caldwell and Marlon Nicolle
Vocals, guitar, piano and additional percussion by Graham Caldwell
All bass performed by Nicholas Hind-Knapp except for Your Flame
Bass on Your Flame performed by Charles Kostash
Guitar by Jamie McLachlin
Drums by Marlon Nicolle
Recorded at Soleil Sound Studios and Candle Studios by Josh Korody
Mixed by Graham Walsh.
Mastered by Phil Demetro of Phil Demetro Mastering
Artwork by Graham Caldwell