Hamilton, ON-based alt-rock Americana artists Bryce Clifford & Brother Superior have released their latest single, “Worst Enemy” from their upcoming album, Rebounder.
“‘Worst Enemy’ was the first song I wrote for the album, and two things were going on: I was decimated by the betrayal of my girlfriend, and feeling as though the bottom had dropped out. I was also excited about giving myself the space to build a new collection of songs from scratch, so I packed up and drove north to Canada with no plan except to mine the circumstances for a collection of songs.”
Armed with experience, the 2,500-odd kilometre drive confirmed to Clifford two things: he had a record and he couldn’t let it get away. “Worst Enemy,” in particular, came to the songwriter at some point on the 1-70 E through Kansas.
“I was afraid the adrenaline would wear off, so I worked on those songs nonstop for the first several weeks. Like a common cold, I knew I’d get better so I had to chase the ideas while I was still on the bad side of symptoms.
I set up recording gear in an unused RV my family had been storing on some empty farmland near London, Ontario. It was cold and this was self-imposed isolation before that was a thing, pre-pandemic; I was completely surrounded by snow-covered cornfields, and I shut off all social media for months, but it was perfect for silence and experimentation. It was very freeing to allow myself to be off the grid and off the hamster wheel.
Honestly, it felt like my compass was pointing closer to the right direction.
Based on the overwhelming feelings I had, and a racing mind, that goal was an antidote to a heart in free fall,” he continues. “This was neuron-firing creativity that had a way of absorbing the letdown, almost like a built-in defence mechanism.
I relied on that.
The beauty of going to such a small town was there was absolutely nothing going on, and everyone I’d known from there had moved on,” he says, recalling the time in Ingersoll. “In Austin, there had been too much going on and I’d been distracted for years. It was like a velvet coffin; at some point you realize you can have too good of a time playing the same places for the same people that you don’t notice you’re getting nowhere. By going to such a desolate spot, I tricked myself into doing the work.
I needed to be pushed out of my comfortable rut.”
Check out “Worst Enemy” below and stay up to date with Bryce Clifford & Brother Superior via their socials.
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