Zander Schloss has released a new single “Dead Friend Letter” from his forthcoming debut solo record Song About Songs, which will be out on March 4 via Blind Owl Records. Pre-save the album HERE.

Marking the beginning of a new chapter for the longtime Circle Jerks bassist, Schloss says of the album, “This is my polar opposite version of punk rock. Punk rock is volume and anger and speed. I wanted to do space and vulnerability and excruciating, almost subconscious emotions, things that I feel so deeply that I would never say them out loud.”

“‘Dead Friend Letter’ was a bit of a departure for me,” states Schloss. “It’s musically, one of the most upbeat songs on the album. In juxtaposition, it tackles the most serious subject. Suicide, and some of the circumstances and thought patterns that may lead to it. It is written in the third party about a fictional character that, as it turns out, is someone that many people who have approached me about the song have known at some point. If you relate to the song or know someone like this who is struggling with drug addiction, alcoholism, loneliness or hopelessness and is looking for a very severe, permanent solution, please seek help instead.”

Song About Songs, which features the Los Angeles-based performer as singer, guitarist, and writer of nine striking original compositions, displays a revelatory new aspect of his work. It will surprise listeners accustomed to hearing Schloss in an aggressive hardcore format, but the St. Louis-born musician notes that his early musical inspirations came from a distinctly different realm.
“Everybody always used to make fun of me because I was a muso,” he says. “I’d studied Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Neil Young and all of those guys back when I was a kid. Then I moved out to California and sunk my teeth into Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page and became a rocker. Then in my last year of high school I started listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, moved in with my jazz teacher for a year and became a jazz guy.

The album was recorded at Los Angeles’ Sargent Recorders, owned by producer and fellow Missouri native Gus Seyffert, who also plays bass on the collection; Seyffert has worked with Roger Waters, Norah Jones, Beck, and the Black Keys, among others.

Photo Courtesy: Geoff Moore