After meeting at an open-mic night, Malarie McConaha and Tim Hunter bonded over their mutual love of Leonard Cohen and what began as an acoustic project soon became a blues, roots southern rock-inspired band named to honor the Cohen song “Famous Blue Raincoat”, The FBR.
With their debut album Ghost coming out on January 19th, the group recently released their first single “Before I Drown”, and were kind enough to discuss the single with us.
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Indy Review: Let’s first discuss how The FBR formed. You first met at an open mic night; what started your discussion, and led you to know you had found someone who could be a good musical partner for you?
Tim Hunter: It was over a Leonard Cohen song that we met. Malarie had covered Cohen’s
“Hallelujah” at Fox and Locke’s (then Puckett’s) open mic in Leipers Fork, TN. But she
sang verses that most people don’t know. I knew them, and when Malarie got off the
stage, I said “You didn’t learn those verses from church or Shrek, did you?” The two of us immediately became friends, and began to meet to bounce song ideas off of each other. Over time, Cohen’s influences were organic. Not just the music, or the meeting over a Cohen song, but we had learned that Cohen had lived in a cabin in Leipers Fork for a couple of years during a dark time in his life in the early 70s. It was there where he rediscovered his muse. And they learned a mutual dear friend had produced some of Cohen’s later albums.
IR: What is it about Leonard Cohen’s songwriting that speaks to you and how has it
influenced your style of songwriting?
Tim: Cohen had a way of reaching deep into his own soul and exposing all the light and
dark places. That’s what I love so much. It’s poetry. It’s complete disclosure. His words
and melodies make you taste the tea and oranges that come all the way from China as
you look upon Suzanne’s face and fall in love with her too as he sings about her.
IR: You recently released your first single, “Before I Drown”, from your coming debut
album Ghost. What were the first sparks of inspiration for this track and how did it
develop from how it started to the final mix?
Tim: I was alone one evening at home, finger picking on my guitar when that
progression came to me. It was after a breakup with a girlfriend who struggled with
alcohol abuse. The words and melody came to me that night, minus the bridge that I
would write later. I had that part of the song, but I felt that another part of the story
needed to be told. I just didn’t figure out how to tell it until I heard Malarie singing TLC’s
“Waterfalls” by the fire pit a couple months later.
When she sang the spoken word/rap section in “Waterfalls” I knew that I would write a
spoken word section as the flashback in ‘Before I Drown’ to tell that part of the story …
the part from the ex girlfriend’s childhood that I learned about in one of her late-night
chaotic, drunken ramblings. I also felt like it would honor her, as she is a huge Eminem
fan. Eminem‘s way of writing about his own traumatic past, and being real and raw about
his emotions, is so powerful for the listener, especially one who has had similar
experiences. His music is cathartic.
Although musically it is built on top of the acoustic guitar parts, the production builds as
it progresses to what sounds more hopeful at the chorus, then the spoken word bridge tells the listener why it’s come to this, and reiterates the desperation of this person who must face her demons alone.”
Malarie McConaha: I instantly felt a connection to this song with some of the unhealed parts of my own past, and unhealthy ways I’ve coped. It sat on a shelf for a few years before I had the confidence or voice to sing it with. I hadn’t quite learned to let myself go when singing, I was still too rigid. The producer, Matt Sepanic, was incredible to work with on this song in particular. He set a scene and it was very much like a director directing an actor. He was more worried about capturing emotion than perfection. During the last tag he asked me to sing it, as if I was already dead, and crying out for help in that in between place. We all were crying by the end of vocal recordings that day. When we went into mixing, Jim Scott really pulled the cinematic effects of this song to the forefront. Even the beat under the bridge, gradually growing in intensity, to help create that tension into the release of the final chorus.
IR: The song deals with heavier issues of cyclic trauma and alcohol abuse. What’s your
connection to this subject matter that made it an issue you wanted to address?
Malarie: While this song was written from Tim’s own experiences, I was drawn to it. Most people
have some sort of connection to addiction and mental health, whether through their own
battle or the battle of someone they love. I loved that this song was from the perspective of someone right on the edge, trying so hard not to succumb to their pain. I loved that the bridge was a flashback, and that it was so poignant. People often look at those struggling with mental health or addiction issues as the antagonist of a story line, and I think this song is a great reminder that these issues do stem from unhealed trauma in some form or another.
IR: Something I really liked about the song that also took me by surprise was the bridge,
which jumps away from the melancholy, gothic Americana tones of the song into
something resembling a hip-hop/speak-sung breakdown, carrying a wallop of attitude
with it. It reaches but succeeds. What led to this creative leap, and did you ever worry
that it might be too jarring?
Tim: When I first had the idea to write it in, it definitely crossed my mind that it might not
fit, but when I tried it, it just worked. When I presented it to Malarie, she was a little
hesitant at first. But when she sang it, she owned it, and we knew it was going to be something special. People love it at live performances, and it’s so gratifying to see fans singing it with her.”
IR: What made you decide to release the track as the first single from Ghost?
Malarie: It sets the stage for the rest of the album. I didn’t want the listener slowly
inching into the water. I wanted them to dive right into where we are coming from.
I think this album in some ways is a journey of grief. From the darkest places, to almost
a sense of hope toward the end.
It didn’t feel right starting the album with some of the “happier” tunes on the album.
IR: The video for the track uses a lot of symbolic imagery, most powerful being the snake
slithering through the whiskey shot glasses. Was this a Biblical reference, replacing the
apples with alcohol?
Malarie: The snake was my idea, and it absolutely stems from the Bible and the
temptation, but also, the snake also represents the trauma, it represents her PTSD. The
demons from your youth that are always creeping back in, when going unchecked.
It represents the struggles of feeling like you want to crawl out of your own skin as a
survivor of any form of violence, but especially sexual abuse.
IR: How does the song fit in, either musically or thematically, with the rest of the songs
on Ghost?
Malarie: Thematically, this album is about the things that haunt us. The ghosts from our pasts.
Unhealed trauma, choosing to numb the pain instead of address it. It’s about the death
of things. The death of innocence, relationships, the death of who we used to be, the
death of dreams, the death of ego…
“Before I Drown” fits because It is the rock bottom. This album is almost like a movie that
starts in the middle of the story, and then works back to explain how it got there, and
then continues along the story. We didn’t name the album until after all of the songs were on the wall, and I was seeing it as a whole for the first time.
Musically I think it is a song that, while it fits, it shows our flexibility as far as “genre”
goes. Every song is treated as a mini movie. Our voices and general instrumentation
are what tie it all together, but we try to let each song take on its own feel, we don’t want
to put it in a box in production just to sound like the rest.
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Ghost is out on January 19th. You can listen to “Before I Drown” now in our A Single Sit-Down Playlist!
The Indy Review 