Bloomington singer-songwriter Nolan Kelly said the release date for his new 6-song album "It's Gonna Be OK" coincided with the 10-year anniversary of his best friend's death by suicide.
And though the longtime member of the now-defunct Bloomington psych-rock band Flaccid said his friend clearly weighed heavily in many of the songs, the album's broader theme is about "loss."
“Personally, I really like to write songs as open ended as I can,” said Kelly. “So that no matter who you are, what approach you want to take from the song, you have something to take from it. I try to keep it fairly universal.”
“Shame” opens the album. An acoustic guitar accents a finger pointing inward to mistakes made and owning up to them. But it segues into another acoustic number “I Know I Know,” which qualifies that accountability by pointing out others who also have some culpability. Kelly said the two songs are not connected thematically, as they were written at different times with a different mindset.
“That was just a riff I had had sitting around and floating around in my head for so long. And I'd play it intermittently for different friends hanging out at home or whatever. And a few of them were like, ‘Oh, man, that's great. You have got to make something.’ I really didn't know what to do with it. And I just kind of penned some words to it. It sat around for probably the last couple years until I ended up getting a small collection of these together and decided to go fully record it.
I know your name
it's not what I was expecting
I know you're in pain
I've come to try to take it away
I'm so ashamed
to think I had some say
you're not to blame
for how we let it escape
- “Shame” by Nolan Kelly
Does “Shame” reference the friend who died?
“I couldn't even say,” said Kelly. “I kind of like to leave them open ended anyway. So, it could probably go either way, even for me personally. I think in the overall context, it would be more about the shame of regret and things you wish you could have or would have done.”
“I Know I Know” adds more responsibility.
“Right,” said Kelly. “There's two sides to every street … you can't take all the blame for the end of time for anything that you might have done or be going through.”
I know I can
And I know you can
I know we can be exhausting
But if I don't show it
And you don't blow it
It may not be too overwhelming
I've had one hell of a day
and I know I may be insane but you're not anyone to blame
- “I Know I Know” by Nolan Kelly
The sonics of the album change abruptly near the beginning of “No Doubt.” The third song opens with what Kelly calls a “grassy” acoustic guitar, but the drums, electric guitar, and other instruments quickly take over.
“That was possible because of all of my great friends. And honestly, literally all of the guys in Flaccid ended up playing on the last four songs, as did as my buddy Chris Wyman and our friend Airius Reeves on saxophone.
10 years come and go so fast
I get lost in my own past
But as I drift and float around
You're still here inside the sound
“No Doubt” by Nolan Kelly
The song can easily be understood as a remembrance of Kelly’s friend who passed 10 years ago and the time since to reckon with what happened. But with old bandmates fleshing out the music and Kelly’s intention of multiple song meanings, a nostalgic look back at Flaccid could also be read into the lyrics.
“There's definitely some of that too,” said Kelly. “But at the same time, I'm still grateful they're all my best friends. And ironically enough ... it sounds kind of hard to believe, but in some way, if we hadn't broken up, then we wouldn't even necessarily be able to still have the great friendship that we do. That relates to the strife of losing somebody … like I don't know who I would be without my best friend that I'd mentioned and losing him. I also don't know who I would be at all without going through the difficult times of losing him. It's also defined me just as much as the entire time knowing him.”
The full band treatment continues two songs later on “Time Himself."
“It's fat,” said Kelly of especially the anthemic ending. “I mean, it's cool too, because over the course of the whole song, it's literally the same chord progression, just ... with the dynamic changes ... it ends up ebbing and flowing and growing ... and becoming huge and bombastic.”
He brought in younger sister Sheridan to create a choral arrangement that builds "Time Himself" to that climactic finish.
"They're all just blowing up at the end and moving and shifting. Our engineer Eric Nelson, who we recorded with at Eclipse Studios here in town, did a phenomenal job as always mixing and engineering our thing,” said Kelly.
The album title comes from a line in the album's last song. Kelly said he didn’t want to draw attention to a particular song on a dark album about loss and hoped to leave others, and perhaps himself, with “hope.”
And I know you feel the same
And I know it goes away
I need you to tell me it's gonna be ok
“Let You Go” by Nolan Kelly
“I wanted to put that stamp on it that it is going to be OK through all the dark shit that you go through. Which also felt like a fitting reason to end the album with “Let You Go,” because it's a happier tune to bounce out with … not to leave you on such a cliffhanger of a monster “Time Himself” leaves you with.
Nolan Kelly’s “It’s Gonna Be OK” is available on his Bandcamp page and all the streaming sites.
