The Freecoasters' Liparulo channels painful breakup into solo debut 'The Cost'
There’s more to Claire Liparulo than just ska and reggae.
Sure, that’s how most people know Liparulo. She’s the frontwoman for popular Southwest Florida ska-reggae-soul band The Freecoasters.
But before The Freecoasters, she says, she performed as a solo artist and loved all kinds of music. And if you pay attention, you’ll see some of those influences pop up in her band’s music, too.
“I had a whole life before I was in The Freecoasters, you know?” Liparulo says and laughs. “I was a solo artist before that. I just hadn’t released any music.
“I mean, I had to learn to play ska and reggae music to be in The Freecoasters. It’s not where I come from at all.”
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Now the singer, guitarist and songwriter is exploring those other musical influences − everything from rock and country to classic soul and power ballads ― in her debut solo album. She released "The Cost" digitally last week and puts out the CD version Friday, April 21, during an album-release show at Cape Coral’s Nice Guys Pizza.
Liparulo originally planned to drop the album last fall, but Hurricane Ian arrived and delayed everything.
Then The Freecoasters signed on for an upcoming summer tour with ska legends The Slackers, including a solo opening set for Liparulo in Chicago. And she wanted to give people a chance to hear her new album before then.
“I was really tired of sitting on it,” she says.
Claire Liparulo's "The Cost": Both a break-up album and a grieving album
With its seven songs, “The Cost” could be called either an EP or an album. But Liparulo eventually landed on “album.”
“I consider it an album, because it’s a work that works together,” she says. “It tells a story on its own. There’s a flow to the songs.”
That emotional story follows the crumbling of Liparulo’s marriage and the pain she endured on her path to feeling whole again. It’s a break-up album, she says. But it’s also a grieving album.
“It feels like a grieving process to me,” she says. “I experienced the life-shifting loss of my marriage, and I was just trying to make sense of my life for two years after.”
Liparulo recorded the album with musician/producer Caleb Neff at his Cape Coral recording studio, Juniper Recording. Neff's band, Rosaline, played on most of the songs, she says.
Album inspirations: A church sermon about a cat
The album's opening song and debut single, the anthemic power ballad “The Cost,” is about the moment of shock and disbelief you feel at the initial loss of a relationship. She calls it the “anger stage” of the grieving process.
The inspiration came from a church sermon that completely failed to make an impact on her ― at least in the way the pastor intended. The song catalogs the many things she'd invested into her marriage, only to have it end in failure.
“I had gone to church looking for answers, and this pastor was preaching about this cat that he had owned, and he felt this responsibility for it because he’d paid all this money fixing it up,” she says. “And I was just like, ‘What about me? What about all the things I paid for that I don’t get to keep?’ I paid a lot for a life that doesn’t belong to me now. …
“I got that message and it just missed me. And I just got really bitter and frustrated and sad. And I went home and I wrote that in, like, 10 minutes. It just spilled out.”
Other songs on the album chronicle her journey through her various stages of grief, from denial and bargaining all the way to acceptance.
The rocking “Love Is a Circus” dives into the cynicism she felt about re-entering the dating scene. The meditative “God’s Cathedral” was inspired by her therapeutic hiking in the woods after the break-up. And she compares the soulful “Too Young” to the bargaining stage of grief, when she found herself wanting to change and become a "better person" so her husband would take her back.
“I know now you can’t make people do that,” she says. “But back then I was in that frame of mind: I’m gonna be better.”
'Just keep playing those chords'
Liparulo wrote the final song on the album, “Things That You Do,” one late night with her friend, singer-songwriter Keefe Klug.
“I didn’t want to go home to my empty house, and so we hung out ― me, him and his wife all hung out,” she says. “And he started playing this music, and I was like, ‘Just keep playing those chords.’ And then I sat down with him at the dinner table and we wrote it until 4 in the morning.”
In a song cycle about the grieving process, she says, “Things That You Do” is the part where you finally let go of the pain and move on with your life. But there's more to it than that: She also designed the album to be immediately replayed so that the first song on the album, “The Cost,” is also the next song you hear.
“It’s like a washing of the hands,” she says of that final song. “But I know that grief is a cycle and it starts all over again sometimes.”
What’s next for Claire Liparulo of The Freecoasters
Liparulo plays all over Southwest Florida ― both as a solo act and as a member of The Freecoasters ― but she says she wants to expand her scope now and be seen as more than just a local act.
Her band’s tour with The Slackers ― 10 or 11 cities starting in May ― will certainly help with that goal. But she also hopes to get her solo songs played on U.S. radio stations and perform more solo gigs outside of Southwest Florida to grow her fan base.
The album, of course, is her first major step in accomplishing those goals. Liparulo says she’s proud of "The Cost" and the sounds that she and Neff created in the studio.
“I love these songs,” she says. “I think the album sounds beautiful.”
She still adores The Freecoasters, she says. But her divorce sparked a change in her that she can’t ignore. And that change led directly to the solo album.
“I love The Freecoasters and I love what we do, but it’s not 100 percent me,” she says. “It’s very special to me, but it’s not all of who I am.”
Liparulo says she doesn’t want to ignore her other musical wants and needs anymore, and so she’s spending more time working on herself. She learned that from her divorce, as well.
Bands and people come and go, she says, and she hopes The Freecoasters last for a long time. But no matter what happens next, she’ll always have herself.
“You never know how long you get to keep anything,” she says. “But I’m gonna be this person forever.”
Learn more about Claire Liparulo at claireliparulo.com. You can subscribe to her YouTube channel at youtube.com/@claireandaguitar.
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. Email him at crunnells@gannett.com or connect on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), Twitter (@charlesrunnells) and Instagram (@crunnells1). You can also call at 239-335-0368.
If you go
What: Claire Liparulo album release show
When: 8-11 p.m. Friday, April 21. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Nice Guys Pizza, 1334 Cape Coral Parkway E., downtown Cape Coral.
Tickets: $10 in advance, $15 at the door
Opening acts: The show’s openers include Hunter McDaniel and Katie Lyon
Info: 549-7542 or facebook.com/NiceGuysPizza
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: New music: The Freecoasters' Claire Liparulo drops solo debut The Cost
