Written by Imani Wj Wright
"He took his pain and turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that's what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you." — Hannah Harrington, Saving June
"He took his pain and turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that's what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you." — Hannah Harrington, Saving June
Some pieces of art are naturally evocative. Art that creates a core memory for you or puts you in the exact spot you first heard it, no matter how much time has gone by, is special. When it gets that deeply-seated in your psyche, can it honestly be considered just a song or a movie or a painting? That’s debatable.
As I listen to tracks such as “TRAUMATIZED” or “Hallucinations” by Getaway Stranger, I’m taken aback by how much of an experience the artist creates for his audience. As I dive further into Stranger’s catalog, I get completely caught in the atmosphere that is so carefully crafted. He’s more than a musician, he’s an engineer of emotions.
Stranger’s songwriting prowess, which is present in almost all of his work, comes from a place of authentic “darkness” and rightfully cynical outlooks.
“Yeah, it's very dark… I think I kind of tried to write from the perspective of others for the first time, 'because those are very dark, like very suicidal themes and like suicide and pretty much heavy depression is like the whole theme of that entire EP (Bystander). And, you know, there's no real light at the end of the tunnel with it,” Stranger said while explaining his approach to his EP, Bystander.
“It’s entirely very dark through and through. But with that, I wrote about some of my own experiences and I tried to write, from this kind of very, very dark perspective. Looking back from my own experiences and putting myself back into that place, you know, things came out of me. Some of them are experiences I've gone through and some of them aren't,” He continued.
Al Pacino isn’t Cuban, but he damn sure made everyone believe he was in Scarface. After many takes, unimaginable hours of preparation/filming, could you imagine the focus Pacino needed to execute each line every time he stepped on set? There’s a reason why that role will forever be iconic.
Getaway Stranger delivers an unapologetic grit and sorrow to many of his tracks that can’t help but make you feel his perceived pain, and invoke a ton of vulnerability out of you as a listener. But how does he maintain it?
“I get pretty sad about everything. If I'm not going through anything that's making me emotional in my own life, I could just look at the state of the world and get sad. So it's easy for me to get into a very depressed emotion. The smallest things make me upset and sad. So I could just take some of the smallest things that could have happened to me on a bad day, I'll be like, oh, I'm so fucking gritty. And that will trigger me to say some of the most aggressive things on a song sometimes. And it makes the most crazy, it kind of small things. It kind of takes me back to that dark place. And since I have experienced it in my past, it's like I do have that memory kind of bottled up,” Stranger explained.
Getaway Stranger’s music has the ability to make those who feel invisible feel seen. Along with that, for those who may not see some of the same depths of sorrow that others may, they will after listening. In an ironic way, listening to Getaway Stranger brings us closer, and increases our understanding of one another. You’re never alone in the journey he creates. It could be best described as escapism…
Listen to Getaway Stranger HERE
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