My debut album, Fly Out, is out today on all streaming platforms. What a way to celebrate my 18th birthday!
I have wanted to release an album for so long now. I remember thinking about it long before I even started playing guitar! A couple years ago, I remember dreaming up the concept of a “coming of age album” while I was bored in PE class.
Last summer, I couldn't help but notice that my 18th birthday was on a Friday, which happens to be the best day of the week to release music. In August of 2024, armed with a one week audio production class, a few borrowed microphones and a student discount Pro Tool subscription, I set out record Fly Out.
I had no idea what I was doing at first, but song by song, I learned how to record and mix my music. It was not an easy process. Each song took hours and it was aggravating, frustrating and boring. Not to mention the joyful but sometimes tedious process of writing the songs.
The last couple months have been some of the hardest, best, happiest, darkest, most interesting and most influential months of my life. During the process of making the album, I constantly felt that I was outgrowing my old songs; my old self. I tried as hard as I could to capture the fleeting emotions that changed every single day, along with the world around me.
I think that the first two tracks on the album sum the whole thing up pretty well. In “Childhood Home,” I wrote about my connection to my hometown and how it still feels like home even though I am a completely different person than I was. On the second song, “Get Lost,” I am frustrated, fed up, and ready to move on. These songs seem contradictory to each other, but they are both true. I want to stay here, I want to stay young, I want to freeze time and be this way forever, but I also want to leave. I long for adventure and I long for what lies ahead. Fly Out got its name from this line in “Get lost:”
“When the time comes for me to fly out, I know what it's gonna be like. I'm gonna play my music heavy and loud as we drive into a brand new night”
I hope that everyone, regardless of age or background finds something meaningful to them in these songs.
I want to thank everybody who has made this thing happen. I want to thank my mastering engineer, Eric Ayotte, my graphic designer, Jacob Cummins, and my friend Rob Wintsch who has been extremely helpful with my newsletter and my website. Thank you to my mom, Emily Rieffel, who co-wrote some of the songs on the album.
I want to thank all of my musical inspirations, Pete Seeger, John Prine, Woodie Guthrie, Loudon Wainwright III, Cheryl Wheeler, The Mountain Goats, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Mary Gauthier, Jason Isbell and Brandi Carlile, just to name a few. Thank you to everybody else who inspires me to keep making art. Also, Thank you to Caffe Lena and everyone involved with their open mics; that is where I first performed.
Thank you to Dana Nemec, Jason Nemec and Main Street Studio for hosting my album release show!
Thank you to my family and friends for all their support and thank you to anyone else who I forgot to thank! I could not have done this alone.
Enjoy the album,
Simon Elijah