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Following the release of his debut EPBilly Is Dead (out now via all DSPs) earlier this fall, Tearing Up (the brand new project of musician Graham Caldwell) returns with the long-awaited release of his debut LP, Heavy.
The new record is not “easy listening” — “I wanted this record to hurt,” as Graham wrote, and that motivation was largely inspired by a series of personal struggles that he experienced from late 2017 to early 2020, including the loss of his father. In those hard times, the people around him helped push him forward, and writing this record, in all honesty, gave him something to do aside from grieving. “October of 2017 to January of 2020 basically felt like one very, very, long year. But even before that, the record was always going to be called Heavy,” he wrote.
In addition to finding solace in human connection, Graham also found himself turning to music in less of a “this album saved my life”-sense, but more so in recognition of the way music can heal, but can also hurt. Heavy came from his personal place of pain and loss, and it became his version of hard, but necessary truth-telling via making art.
“Billy Bragg’s ‘Sexuality,’ Dixie Chicks ‘Wide Open Spaces,’ Andy Shauf’s ‘My Dear Helen,’ Cindy Lauper’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Carey’… Even writing this list makes me misty. At the real root of it, I think I just wanted to write music that could make someone cry. Just something that would make a person feel something, realize something, or remember something they thought they’d forgotten. I hope I’ve done that with this record.”
