Leon Frear - A Morning House
Chicago-based rocker/ songwriter Leon Frear presents 'A Morning House', a song about regret and hope previewing his debut album 'Wild Rice'. His first album under this moniker, this represents a new start since relocating from his home town of Chapel, North Carolina.
The new single follows 'A Town Called Chapel', which Frear describes as “a poison pen love letter to an historically musical time and place, to big blown-up plans and irreplaceable, lost relationships", and Frear's debut single 'Secret Second Moon' with a fantastic animated video by French artist Ronald Grandpey.
This powerful album reflects a dramatic period in which Frear experienced a life-altering love affair, its implosion and aftermath, followed by a decade of reflection and changes. Informed by his own experience, Frear's music speaks of love, lust, broken promises, miscommunication, and incinerated bridges. This 10-track collection sees Frear playing every instrument and capturing every breath to tape during a recording process that took years to complete.
"When I first got to Chicago, I had been living alone in one of those long term stay motels. You know the type. Half a kitchen in your room, maybe a few coin-op laundry machines in the lobby. Lots of activity in the parking lot at all hours. Coyotes... I had been living there for a few years, really just trying to survive and get sober. Even though I had a few songs partially written, I wasn't sure if I would ever record or release music again," says Leon Frear.
"But one night I had this dream that I was in a bright green field of grass, with a white house in the background, gleaming on the top of a hill, with rows of chairs arranged on the lawn. There was a crowd and I was seated in one of the chairs. There was a small stage set up and a man with curly hair was playing guitar and singing. Even though he didn't look like me or sound like me, I understood that he represented me, some part of me or maybe a different version of me. Maybe I was imagining what could have been, or feeling regret for what I had lost. I don't know. But in the dream, this man and his band were playing a song. And A Morning House is the song I heard in my dream that night."
He adds: "It's about feeling regret for things that you've done. Maybe bad things. But even more than that it's a song about the strong feelings of regret you feel for the things that you haven't done. All of those missed opportunities. Unhad adventures. Unexplored romances. But for me, having that dream, it felt like an extraordinary thing had occurred. In the end, that helped me find my motivation again. When I was finally able to put myself together enough to leave that place, find a real home and start putting a studio together, A Morning House is the first song I completed."
Laced with hints of sadness and regret, anger and remorse, the lyrics are tempered with sardonic wit that leaves the listener wondering if Frear doesn’t secretly savor feeling bad. If there’s an opportunity to mock an uncaring universe, this is an opportunity Frear doesn’t let go to waste.
Dubbing his brand of post-alternative music “vocabulary rock”, Frear aims to shift the emphasis away from the man and towards the music and lyrics, while inviting the listener to commiserate together through this exploration of grief, depression and sadness.
As of January 30, 'A Morning House' is available from fine music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. The 'Wild Rice' album will be released (on vinyl and digitally) on March 1.
