Whether it’s with Cursive, The Good Life, or by himself, Tim Kasher has a cerebral way of writing songs. They usually convey his thoughts on relationships, trends and other social topics with an effort of relatability to the listener being set forth. As he finds himself in his late 40s, he has been examining mortality, loss and the state of our crazy world in existential fashion. This is what his fourth solo album, Middling Age, released in April on 15 Passenger Records, is the result of.
Kasher had a bunch of different musicians collaborate with him remotely while making the album during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Jason Gerycz from Cloud Nothings, Laura Jane Grace from Against Me!, Jeff Rosenstock, and even his nine year old niece Natalie Tetro played a part in the recording sessions. When everything changed that fateful March two years ago, there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty about coronavirus. In the midst of all this, Kasher realized that in order for this new batch of songs to reach their potential, he needed to reach out to fellow musicians who operated out of their home studios.
“To begin with, I had to get a little crafty with how to do drums,” says Kasher on getting people involved in the album. “Even though I play drums quite a bit, I’m just not good enough to be ready to perform on my own stuff even though I’m willing to play drums on other people’s stuff if they’ll still have me, I guess. I had just finished touring with Cloud Nothings, which was the last tour I had done prior to the pandemic and Jason is an incredible drummer. He’s kind of a dream drummer for me to work with, but also of great importance, we had already struck up a dialogue that he had a home studio he was doing all of his drums out of. That was a great benefit because I kind of needed that due to how confusing the beginning of the pandemic was for all of us.”
“I was kind of making plans based on the thought that none of us could really be in a room together unless we quarantined and that seemed like a big ask,” Kasher adds. “Not to mention that I wasn’t even sure which studios in Los Angeles were even open where I live and/or if they were operating illegally or not, it was just a lot of confusion. It’s why I had to see which people were available through their home studios. My niece became part of the album pretty naturally. My sister, her proud mother, had been sending me songs that she had been writing on the regular and she’s really quite good.” Kasher got her to contribute to the first and last tracks on the album, “Middling Age Anxiety Prologue” and “Forever of The Living Dead.”
“She sincerely has a nice knack for it, it’s kind of wild to hear a nine-year-old working on songs,” He mentions about his niece. “For the last song on the album, I had the thought that it would be nice to finish the track with a young person’s voice, so I thought of her because I had been receiving these texts of her singing. I really love to bookend albums, so I also decided I’d use one of her songs prior to the opening track.”
Incorporating the themes mentioned earlier came naturally to Kasher during the making of Middling Age. It’s what he usually gravitates toward with his songwriting, and the new album is a further continuation and covering of those subjects.
“It’s a lot of stuff that I naturally lean toward,” explaining the themes behind the album. “If anything, I’d say I wouldn’t object to trying to reach out beyond these comfort zones that I like to write about. Lyrics have a tendency to be fairly personal and/or intimate, it’s a weird form of storytelling where in the end it isn’t storytelling at all. It’s just kind of where I generally tend to lean, the challenges that tend to consume my mind.”
As for what he hopes people take from the album, Kasher hopes someone finds a connection to what he’s singing about. If someone navigating the same thoughts he has can be helped while listening to Middling Age, then he’ll feel like he’s done his job as a musician.
“Just like with anything I do I hope people like it, really,” he says on what he hopes people will react to the album. “I guess it’s not a requirement, I’m happy to have this privilege of putting records out but it’s certainly more fulfilling if I can find a certain resonance with an audience. If it’s something I can share with an audience, that means a lot to me. That’s it primarily but other than that I hope by writing about my personal experiences and doing these exercises I work through in my mind, people who are going through similar thoughts and have similar feelings can be helped by me pinpointing for them.”
Watch the video for “Forever Of The Living Dead” featuring Laura Jane Grace and Jeff Rosenstock here:
For more from Tim Kasher, find him on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Photo courtesy of Erica Lauren
