'Healing through creation': How Decker's new music helps listeners cope with loss
Brandon Decker didn’t just decide to write a concept album whose central themes he likes to say are “grief, loss and transcendence” because those topics seemed like fertile ground for an artistically rewarding experience.
He was actually grieving and losing and doing his best to transcend the heartache he was living through the way he often makes it through the times that try men's souls – by sharing his innermost feelings in song.
The emotional journey to “Ouroboros,” a title he chose because it symbolizes “the oneness of all things and the timelessness behind our perceptions of beginning and end,” began with a terminal cancer diagnosis for his father.
In January 2021, he moved into his father’s house to help him through his final days.
“I basically watched him pass over the next nine months,” he says. “Seeing that up close and personal.”
At the same time, he was going through a painful breakup with the woman he had planned to marry.
“That all got me into therapy, where I was uncovering all of this deep childhood stuff,” Decker says. “So it was just a lot of death and grief. And none of it was from a place of sulking in it. It was like, ‘How am I gonna get through this and be better for it?’”
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As he started working on the songs that would become his latest album, doing what he could to chronicle the stages of his grief in real time, the Sedona singer-songwriter was mindful of the universal nature of those feelings and experiences.
As Decker says, “I just kept thinking, ‘How could this be something for other people to use in their own process?’”
That’s part of how he landed on the notion of assembling a community of friends into a 16-piece ensemble to help him bring those songs to life at EastWest Studios in Hollywood, where Frank Sinatra sang “New York, New York” and major portion of Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album were recorded.
“I had some seasoned people in the band, from David Moroney on cello to Aldy Montufar on trumpet, a bunch of people from Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra, professors from ASU, really professional musicians, Megyn Neff, Holly Pyle,” he says.
“But everybody was taken by the history of that place. It was palpable. And it was something we all cherished.”
The entire album was recorded live in one room with no overdubs in two-hour sessions after six months of whipping the songs into shape at rehearsal.
“I had this notion it would just be so incredibly powerful to experience making music that way, instead of compartmentalized takes with different musicians,” Decker says.
“What would it be like to be in a studio recording something where when the choir kicks in, the choir is 10 feet away from you? I wanted to feel it, with the hope that you can feel that on the record.”
At the same time, Decker didn’t want to be stuck in the studio for weeks on end belaboring the process. Hence the two-day session.
“What it meant was I spent a lot of time in a rehearsal space, which is far less elegant,” he says. “But I just wanted to do it all together to see if it can still be done.”
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How the Sedona songwriter found himself making a record in Hollywood
He initially wanted to track the album live at Flying Blanket Recording in Mesa with longtime producer Bob Hoag.
“I told Bob, 'This is what I want to do,’” Decker says. “And he was like, 'I don't think we can do that here. I think we need to do some overdubbing sections.' I was just like, 'I don't know, man. This is pretty much where I'm locked in on. Let me take a night to think about it.'”
About four hours later he got a call from Hoag, who suggested recording the album at EastWest.
As Decker recalls, “At first, I was like, ‘There's absolutely no way we could pull this off. There's no way we can get all these people who are busy out from Phoenix to LA.’ Then I thought about it and was like, 'We're just gonna have to figure out a way to do it. Because it's gonna be epic.'”
He couldn’t very well do something epic in a legendary studio without inviting longtime visual collaborator Matty Steinkamp to capture the proceedings for a documentary, "EastWest: A Film About Healing Through Creation."
“We knew we needed to capture it,” Decker says.
“And the cool thing about Matty being there was that we knew it would get done right. Matty always gets the vision for what would suit my art. So mostly, he was just kind of there being himself. The best part is just having that comfort of knowing you've got the right person there doing it.”
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The challenges of live recording at EastWest Studios
There were some challenges involved in doing it the way he had envisioned, including the sound of individual instruments bleeding into microphones that were supposed to be recording other instruments.
“It definitely presented some unknowns that made it hairy,” Decker says. “I mean, we knew there would be bleed. We didn't know how much that would impact things. It rendered some tracks unusable.”
Two 12-hours days of tracking vocals live was also tough on Decker’s voice.
“I didn't realize just what that would mean to my vocals,” he says.
“About midway through day two, I was just blown out. There was kind of a dark moment of the soul there of like, 'Is this all backfiring because I can't sing?' But overall, I will always cherish it as one of the best things I ever did in my life.”
The idea of sharing his innermost feelings with all those other people in the session didn’t faze him.
“Anyone I deal with is a friend,” he says. “I don't do things with people I wouldn't classify that way.
"And I felt like everyone, while maybe not deeply grasping just what the lyrical nature of it was, understood the delicacy and intention we wanted to handle the project with. It felt like everyone was present to do it right.”
Decker sees 'Ouroboros' as 'a time capsule of ... existential meanderings'
Sharing his innermost feelings is also at the very core of who Decker is as an artist.
“I'm a heart on the sleeve kind of guy,” he says. “And it wasn't like they were watching me in those terrible moments when you grieve where you're crying with snot coming out of your nose."
He did have a good cry at the Airbnb in Los Angeles, though, the morning after they finished recording.
“It was a beautiful morning,” he says. “This little storm was blowing through and I was doing yoga under an orange tree with that kind of sweet citrus smell when the whole thing hit me that that part of the process was completed. I just started bawling.”
The whole process was “super cathartic” for Decker.
“I only write albums that are kind of like a time capsule of what my existential meanderings are,” he says. “And this was the boldest attempt at that I've made. Sitting here almost a year after recording it, two years after writing it, I feel like I have better self-awareness and strength and community and joy.”
Now that it’s over, would he do another record this way?
“I don't think so,” Decker says. “It's just not really a smart way to record. Let alone 16 people. Maybe five. But overdubbing is the way.”
Decker. release show
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, June 10.
Where: Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix.
Admission: $15.
Details: 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.
Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: New Decker. album helps listeners cope with pain of loss
