John Ross and the Pacific Brilliance of Wild Pink's 'A Billion Little Lights'
Plus, 10 things I'd to see and hear in 2021
Western Washington state is as beautiful as it gets, but it can also be a pretty gray place. Never more so than during the Winter. This year has been especially drab with rain pouring down at a rate unusual even for this area. We’ve essentially had three months’ worth of typical precipitation packed into a two-month window. Backyards flooded. Trails washed out. Just brutal.
So, when the sky parted for a little while the other day, I decided to leash up my dog Harrison and go for a stroll around the neighborhood. As we walked down the sidewalk toward a nearby park the Olympic Mountain range, which had been obscured by haze for weeks, finally came into glorious view. I paused for a moment to drink in the sight. The formerly dark green expanse was capped with sheets of snow and ice. Just in front, the waters of Puget Sound glistened like diamonds under the intense glare of the sun. And in my ears, a song called “Amalfi” waxed and waned.
“Nothing ever means nothing,” the singer assured me.
You ever get the feeling that you’re listening to something at the exact right time and place? That’s the sensation I got standing there while the sounds of Wild Pink’s gorgeous new album A Billion Little Lights flooded my auditory cortex. It’s a record crafted largely by New York-based singer-songwriter John Ross and as I later learned, much of it was inspired by the very same peaks and valleys that stopped me in my tracks that bright and brusque afternoon.
“We had done some West Coast shows a while ago,” Ross explained. “It was right before [Wild Pink’s second album] Yolk in the Fur came out. I started writing these songs in 2018. We just happened to be on tour out there and did a lot of exploring. We had several days off during that run and explored Washington, Oregon and California. I just happened to be writing and drawing inspiration at that time.”
The resultant record A Billion Little Lights is one of the most gorgeous-sounding and cohesive works I’ve heard in quite some time. It’s my favorite album of 2021 thus far, and something I expect to return to quite a bit as we endure the last vestiges of this Winter chill and round into a drier, sunnier Spring. I can’t stress how rare it is to find something this fully realized. The way that songs like “Bigger Than Christmas,” “The Shining But Tropical,” “Amalfi” and “Oversharer’s Anonymous” waft into one another is patently stunning. The singles standout, but you’re gonna wanna listen to this one front-to-back. Of course, that’s exactly how Ross and the band planned it.
“I definitely wanted the A and B side to feel like two big, cohesive 20-minute pieces of music,” he explained. “I was pretty aware of the fact ahead of time that I wanted everything to segue. That affected the sequencing of the album, and some of the decisions I made writing the songs even.”
Originally, the plan was to create something even more sprawling and epic. Coming off the commercial and critical success of the band’s equally stunning sophomore album Yolk in the Fur — “It was received better than I thought it would be, which was really encouraging” — Ross was feeling as optimistic and confident in his songwriting as he’d ever been. As he told Ian Cohen in 2018, his vision for the follow-up to Yolk in the Fur, was for a “concept double album around the mythology of the American West.” Easier said than done. “When I was talking to Ian I was like calling my shot,” he said. “But then three months later, I was like, ‘I don’t wanna hear a double-LP. Who wants to hear a double album right now?’ So that went by the wayside.”
The scope was restrained, but the influence of the West on this shimmering, effervescent collection of songs can’t be ignored. “The Shining But Tropical” definitely — “The plan was to float away / Face down / In the San Francisco Bay / On a clear blue day” but especially on “Pacific City,” which was inspired by a trip to…Pacific City, Oregon.
“We were in Portland and we asked some of the people we were staying with, ‘Hey, we wanna go to the beach, where should we go?’ And they directed us toward Pacific City. We explored Seattle quite a bit. [Bassist] T.C. [Brownell] just actually moved back to Seattle. So, we explored around Seattle and his hometown. All the major stops between Seattle and L.A. pretty much. Mount Shasta is pretty cool.”
As a songwriter, where and when really matters to Ross. “Time and place is all over my songs,” he said. “I think early on, I set out with this record to do something very specific with sweeping Western album. And it just went beyond that pretty quickly for me, so I’m hesitant to say that there are other overarching themes. The West was like a big part of it for sure, but there’s more of a cohesive mood all the way through, I think.”
There’s also a cohesive sound that matches the brilliant vistas that inspired him. A Billion Little Lights is awash in gloriously understated waterfalls of synth-driven soundscapes, interrupted at times by a guitar line here, a drum break there, and at the very heart, Ross’s hazy vocals. Sometimes a song will wash over you a dozen times, before the weight of a lyric as hilarious as, “You’re a fucking baby / But your pain is valid too,” makes itself known.
It’s heartland rock at its core, but also something more; something different. A vibe. A feeling. A way of being. “It’s pretty universal to the music I enjoy listening to,” Ross said. “Tom Petty style, big stadium rock is something I’ve been drawn to for a long time. I guess I don’t mind the comparison.” It comes as little surprise that his favorite Petty album is Wildflowers, along with Into the Great Wide Open.
Ross and Wild Pink have been waiting a long time for you to hear this music. “We hit L.A. in October 2019 to drums and vocals and flesh out a lot of the songs with David Greenbaum who’s the producer on the record,” he said. “By that time the songs were pretty much written, and we were just trying to bring them to fruition out there. Then we mixed, and I think I finished mixing with David in January of 2020. Then Covid hit in March, and then everybody shut down and froze.”
I promise that wait is ultimately worth it. And in fact, he’s already working on the follow-up as we speak. “As of November, I’ve been writing again,” he said. “Nothing I can really say, but I’m really pumped about these new tunes.”
In the meantime, it’s another rare sunny day around here and my Dog is giving me a look like, “What the hell are we doing inside, man? Let’s go!” So pardon me while I pull out my headphones and see if I can’t find some of my own inspiration out there.
A Billion Little Lights by Wild Pink will be released on February 19th via Royal Mountain Records. You can pre-order a copy here.
10 Things I’d Like To See and Hear in 2021
A new year is upon us, and with that a whole range of possibilities. While 2021 has gotten off to a bit of a rocky start in some areas, I believe there’s a lot to be hopeful about going forward. So, in the spirit of optimism, here are a few things that I’d like to see and hear in the coming months…
10. New Music from Jimmy Page
Of all the pipe dreams on this list, this is the pipe-iest. I’m not even looking for an entire full-length album. Give me a single and a b-side, and we’ll call it good.
In the meantime, if anyone needs me I’ll be over here holding my breath.
9. Music Festival Streaming Services
I’ve been stumping for this one for a while, but it feels especially prescient right now. Why haven’t Goldenvoice, AEG, C3 Presents and other big corporate monoliths who fund and operate Lollapalooza, Coachella, or Bonnaroo launched a streaming service where you can watch old sets from festival’s past? I mean, I suppose I know why. It probably boils down to money, rights sharing, and other legal matters. But still. With no one being able to go out and enjoy shows for themselves, it seems like they’re leaving a lot of cash on the table by not allowing us to give them, say, $12 a month to re-live the experience of seeing Daft Punk in 2007, Soundgarden’s reunion in 2010, or Hologram Tupac in 2012.
8. A Temporary Moratorium on Kanye West Discourse
I think we’ve all earned a break, right? Let’s agree to come back in 2022 and debate how over/underrated 808s & Heartbreak is…among other topics.
7. More Boygenius
They are the Crosby, Stills & Nash of our times. Phoebe Bridgers. Julien Baker. Lucy Dacus. Bridgers had one helluva breakout year in 2020 with Punisher, and I can’t wait to hear what Dacus and Baker have planned in the coming months. Hopefully we get a few more collaborations between the three of them, like this song “Favors” from Baker’s next record Little Oblivions.
6. A New St. Vincent Album
I’d already be inclined to get excited to hear hear a brand new St. Vincent record, but then Annie Clark gave an interview to MOJO recently where she described her new record as a “a tectonic shift.” Adding, “I felt I had gone as far as I could possibly go with angularity. I was interested in going back to the music I’ve listened to more than any other — Stevie Wonder records from the early ’70s, Sly And The Family Stone.” If you can’t get stoked to hear what in the hell that’s going to sound like, then congratulations! You’re officially dead inside.
5. Even More Neil Young Archival Releases
In 2017 we got Hitchhiker. In 2018 we got Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live, Songs for Judy and Tuscaloosa. Last year we FINALLY got the long-lost Homegrown along with the rest of the Archives Vol. 2 box set and a Return to Greendale. This year looks equally promising. Neil’s already announced another live album with Crazy Horse titled Way Down in the Rust Bucket that’s set to drop later this month. It also looks like we’ll get an entirely new album recorded in the early ‘80s called Johnny’s Island that he considered putting out instead of Trans. I’m extremely here for all of it.
4. A New Father John Misty Album
Word around the water cooler is that the artist formerly known as J. Tillman has been sitting on a finished, full-length release for quite some time. As an songwriter with at least two masterpieces to his name – 2015’s I Love You Honeybear and 2017’s Pure Comedy – I can’t even begin to tell you how intrigued I am to hear what he has to say next.
3. Guitar Solos
30-seconds, 20-minutes; doesn’t matter to me. Rock, indie, hip-hop, jazz, pop; throw ‘em into whatever you got. Shit like this:
2. A New Kendrick Lamar Album
It’s been almost four years since the Compton MC dropped his Pulitzer-prize winning record Damn. Four. Years. In an era where 365 days feels like a lifetime, four spins around the Sun has the whiff of eternity to it. Lamar is one of the most interesting, outspoken, and insightful artists of this young millennium. Given all the insanity we’ve endured lately — plague, hysteria, a violent insurrection — I’m beyond fascinated to hear he has to say. And if we get another era-defining anthem like “Alright,” “Humble” or “Swimming Pools” along the way, I’m cool with that too.
1. Actual, Honest-to-God, Live Concerts
Look, I’m not a medical professional. I’m not an expert in any capacity really. I’m just some dude fervently wishing that we get this thing under control so that I can dance and sing in a room full of a few hundred strangers in front of a 10-foot tall stack of speakers dimed out to maximum volume. It doesn’t have to be next week. It doesn’t have to be this Summer. Hell, I’ll wait until December 31st if need be! Call this the power of positive thinking.