Scott Yoder

Annibale Records

I don’t remember when it started but at some venue, some airport, some recording studio I started to lie to myself. It was subtle, it was sad and it was unavoidable. The sort of commodifying ethic that’s usually left unspoken in the music business was taking its toll on me. It was taking its toll on my band. This dehumanizing attitude may work to insulate and justify more successful artists—it may even propel them to make better work but with a small, underdog group like The Pharmacy, it could never sustain itself.

The smell of bullshit is inescapable within such narrow confines as a Ford Econoline, a dive bar, or a house show. It manifests in a singer storming offstage in a nervous breakdown during an encore of an otherwise excellent set, a drummer interrupting a ballad to complain about his monitor mix, or a piano player unable to wake up and face an early afternoon hangover to drive a van to a show that he’s not even sure will happen. It makes for good melodrama but not necessarily good music.

So, in turn, people started taking us for granted. A tit-for-tat of lowering expectations until things came to a head in a not-so-euphoric smashing of instruments at a summer 2014 record release show. A tense talk afterwards led us to the decision to make the following free block party show our last. It was the one of the most emotionally satisfying and honest shows I’ve ever played!

Totally humbled by limited success and with an intent to weed out my own callous immaturity, it was against this backdrop that I decided to pick up the pieces and reengage. A few months of dedication to writing songs from a person-to-person perspective had me feeling like anything was possible. No expectations, no promises, I wrote and recorded this record in the way that made sense to the songs, not to appease the allegiances of any rock n roll subgenre. The act of digging up a barebones a cappella voice memo. What did it really need? Anything? Figuring out what compelled me to hum a series of notes, what harmonized with it… that felt so much more real than any band practice I could remember.

In arranging this record, I consciously sought out musicians I played with and felt confident in their innate abilities. No ego-checks, no passive aggressive vibes, limited bullshit (don’t trust anyone who says they’re completely bullshit-free). These are the songs I came up with. I love singing them. They aren’t happy songs, but they make sense to me and they are my conscious attempt to tell the truth to myself.

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Scott Yoder was the lead singer and guitarist for The Pharmacy from Seattle. Over the course of 12 years, the band toured the world and released 5 full-length records before breaking up in the summer of 2014. Early last year, he released his first solo cassette and started touring solo around the country via Greyhound bus playing lots of shows with the likes of Jessica Pratt, Juan Wauters, Kevin Morby, Jesse Sykes, Mark Lanegan, The Abigails, Jimmy Whispers and a bunch more.

Looking Back In Blue, his debut LP, is out March 25th, 2016 on Annibale Records!