Indie Rock musician, Rich Aucoin is thrilled to release his new single “How it Breaks” that is out now via Haven Sounds as well as the music video that is featured on PopMatters. The song is a call to action and references several classic songs of protest. ECHO had the chance to talk with Rich about the song and music video.
How are you doing?
I’m well thanks. Just balancing the huge workload of all the projects I’m doing (another album for 2021, music videos for all my new singles as well as some off my 2019 album Release as well as other art projects and live streams) and the existential weight of the crisis the world is in as well as locally (my quiet province just had the worst mass shooting in Canadian history). Also adjusting to the economic changes of how to live as an artist with performing opportunities cut off or limited for the foreseeable future. I’m lucky and fortunate for a lot of things and thinking about everyone effected by this and worse off atm too.
Let’s talk your new single “How It Breaks,” what was the creative process like and what was the inspiration behind it?
I only first really heard David Bowie’s Young Americans at the start of my bicycle tour across America that I did this time 2 years ago for Mental Health America. I was really into how he referenced The Beatles’ A Day In The Life so I knew I wanted to write a song that referenced that reference and just kept adding to that idea and then focused on the idea of it becoming a protest song as protests have a link to the past but are trying to break free of it and change the future. I wrote the beginnings of the song at a place called Arcosanti in Arizona a real interesting unusual community of artists that was created in the 70s trying to be some sort of new evolution in urban city planning and a sort of utopia but it never really turned into the city they were planning but still it’s a cool brutalist architecture 70s sci-fi kind of place with a bunch of rad artists living there now but only around 100 instead of the 2000 planned at its start. I wrote the rest of the lyrics on my bicycle while biking through decaying towns of Route 66 that have been steamrolled by a capitalist system and forgotten by travellers who now travel on the modern interstates instead.
The music video shows past and present videos of protests, why is that important for you to show that in the video?
I wanted to remind someone now that the protest that they could attend will be something remembered and important for change. They can either say they were they and that they helped or they’ll have to explain why they didn’t to their grandchildren. There’s lots of great activism happening right now and I just hoped to make something that encouraged more people to become involved.
What have you been doing to stay creative during this quarantine?
Working on a synth record that will have (already has) more synths than have ever been recorded on one record before, making 10 music videos, starting to outline my records for 2022 and 2023 which will have more lyrical content than my 2021 aforementioned synth record. Reading a bunch and trying to take breaks while having to promote my current singles for so much of the day as well.
What’s something you’re excited to do after the quarantine is over?
Play shows. My shows are very interactive (the lyrics are all projected like karaoke) and I perform all my music in sync to movies (since all the albums can be watched as alternative soundtracks to films like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon and The Wizard of Oz) and everyone dances together under one of those giant parachutes from gym class in elementary school so my shows will be one of the last things to come back online after this and a vaccine is distributed because of how close and sweaty they are.
What can we expect next later this year from you?
More singles, videos and an album.
If you could set up a fan in a setting for them to listen to your music what setting would that be?
Just listen with a nice pair of headphones on is the best setting I think.
What’s one quote you’ve heard in life that you want to ECHO out to fans?
come to terms with death. thereafter anything is possible. – camus