[Editor’s note: On Friday, February 28, Eau Claire, Wisconsin based band Them Coulee Boys will release their new album No Fun In The Chrysalis via on the band’s label Some Fun Records. The new release finds them reuniting with Grammy-winning producer Brian Joseph (Bon Iver, Kathleen Edwards, Sufjan Stevens) at Eau Claire’s The Hive Studios. Joseph previously produced the group’s 2021 album Namesake.
You can hear a sample of the album below as well as single “Change, etc.”:
The band’s fifth studio album is arguably the band’s finest work to date, as the songs showcase the growth and experience they’ve picked up over the decade-plus as a band. It captures their raw live energy and dynamic sound that draws from bluegrass, folk, Americana and rock influences. You can read Josh’s recent interview here.
Below, lead singer/songwriter Soren Staff penned an essay about the emotional process writing and recording the album.]
It was the first day of recording our fifth full length album and I was anxious.
It may sound normal, but for me, it isn’t. I’m a firm believer that the best antidote for nerves is preparation. It took bombing a few ill-prepared piano recitals for me to learn that the best way for me to feel comfortable making music was to over prepare.
It’s a mentality shared by my fellow Coulee Boys, and it’s served us well. For each record, we usually “woodshed” our tunes for 6-8 months before heading into the studio. That generally looks like the five of us gathering in our practice space (a converted metalworking garage), me teaching them the song I wrote, and then refining it over the course of the next six months. Songs start one way, and end another, and in the middle there’s a healthy amount of creativity and compromise. We all have our own influences we bring to the table, but when it comes down to it, we have to meet somewhere in the middle. This push and pull is what makes it special, and we’ve learned to give it time, to nurture that tension, and let the resolution speak for itself. Over five records now we’ve become a well-oiled machine, and truthfully, we can’t financially afford to mess around in the studio.
The first day of recording started with hiccups and stumbles, I couldn’t seem to get out of my head. Chemically, part of that is not my fault; it’s how I’m wired. But the fact was that regardless of how prepared I felt coming into the day, that feeling was gone.
We had hoped to avoid stumbling out of the gate with this record, we were returning to a familiar studio, The Hive, run by our idol turned friend Brian Joseph. Brian has worked with some absolute legends, some heroes of mine included. When we first met, I saw his resume (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Paul Simon) and knew I had to bring my A game to our first recording with him, Namesake. I rehearsed and refined my tunes, distilling them to what I saw as perfect. But Brian taught me how to throw a bit of that away, to let the magic of the space and the people and energy make the song into what it needed to be. This time around, Brian and I had become friends, and I no longer felt the need to prove anything to him.
But despite the preparation and familiarity, the first day of recording just was not going like I wanted it to. Takes felt uncomfortable, the songs were technically “working”, but there was no feeling of catching the moment. We tracked live, with no click track, chasing an organic feel. We were tight, but that organic feel we were going for came off as sloppy. We had worked so hard to come in with our songs ready to blow the roof off the barn, but when the night ended, we were leaving, with barely a usable track for our first day of work.
As the rest of the band packed up, ready to rest and hit it hard the next day, I instead decided it was time to get out of my head a bit. The boys filtered out, and at last it was just me and Brian in there. Without really asking what I was up to, Brian told me where to put the key when I was done, and he walked back up to his home, five minutes up the driveway from the studio. Then, as I had done many times before when needing to get out of my head, I started writing.
I laid down on the ground in the studio, strumming away at a song that I had recently been kicking around. It didn’t necessarily feel like a Coulee song, but I knew that I wanted to follow the thread someday. I just hadn’t figured that it would happen at that moment. We had ten solid songs to record. I had just one verse,
Change is hard, we all know this / Ain’t no fun in the chrysalis / You come out new and scared as shit / of what you’ve become
In the years between Namesake and the recording of this new album, change was my constant companion. I was finding myself at the end of one part of my journey and at the start of another, with no real direction to go. My life felt “up in the air”, and I was searching for solid ground. That tension became a part of me. It was an uncomfortable existence, like I couldn’t relax. I was enjoying life, and in love with someone, but it felt like it all could change in a second.
Looking at this record now, I see the seeds of that time. So many of these songs are about that tension, of navigating a space in my life that was tough but formative. Luckily, I had help. My friends, family, and my therapist all helped me understand that while life can be hard, I was growing. That change becomes growth when you embrace that tension.
The other big theme of this record is acceptance. Accepting my journey, accepting my faults, accepting what I can and cannot change. The record ends with that acceptance, with I Am Not Sad serving as a declaration of just how far I had come. It felt like an answer to the question the rest of the record was asking.
So, laying there on the studio floor among the detritus of the day, I saw where this song was coming from. I played the first verse, and when it came time for a chorus, I knew it had to start with the word “change”. When the other parts of the chorus materialized, namely “pain” and “faith” I saw my way forward. A verse about how pain hurts but if you’re too scared to feel it you won’t ever get what you want. Another verse about how sometimes it takes a little faith in yourself, to believe in what you’re capable of, before you really are. That night, I spent about another 15 minutes writing the rest of the song, played it straight through and knew it was finished.
My brain was buzzing, and my anxiety was gone. I was EXCITED. It’s a rush when creativity comes, and I was thankful for being able to wrangle it in that moment into a song. But now that I had the song, I needed to make a recording. I quickly opened up my voice memo app and recorded a demo, sending it off to the band’s group text, sheepishly saying “hey can we try this tomorrow?” Knowing full well that we don’t operate like that.
But when the next morning came, each one of the guys showed up excited and ready to learn the song. I taught them the chords, I gave them my basic ideas for what they should play, and we jammed. Whereas we spent months overthinking some of these songs, in this instance we were strictly creating in the moment. We didn’t plan, we didn’t discuss, we just did what served the song in that moment. And frankly, it felt like magic. We all could feel it. Everything came easy, the dynamics were undiscussed, but each rise and fall came exactly where we wanted it. The version you hear on the record was the second take, and it was the fifth or sixth time we played the song as a band. It came together like you always dream it will, and it did so by just trusting the process. We trusted in our ability, we trusted in the space, and most importantly we trusted in one another, knowing that we all wanted what was best for the song.
So, when you hear Change, etc. at the beginning of your listening journey through No Fun In The Chrysalis, see it as a question. Maybe the answer we present through the record is different than yours, but know that your answer is just as important. We made this hoping you would find something in it for yourself, something of what we gave of ourselves to make it. Thanks for listening.
You can find more about Them Coulee Boys and their tour dates at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to them on Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube.
Soren Staff
Contributor
Soren Staff is lead singer/songwriter of Eau Claire, Wisconsin band Them Coulee Boys
