Ben Kweller works via grief with the assistance of buddies on ‘Cover the Mirrors’ – Matter Information

In the weeks after Ben Kweller’s son Dorian died in a automobile accident at age 16, the household’s dwelling remained largely silent.

“The first two months after Dorian died, I didn’t even think about music,” the Texas-based Kweller mentioned from the highway within the midst of his present tour, which visits A&R Music Bar on Wednesday, Nov. 19. “There’s always music on in our home, and we’re all music lovers, but we couldn’t even listen to music we were just so sad.”

A couple of months into this grief, within the early spring of 2023, Kweller stepped into Dorian’s bed room, which he mentioned nonetheless seems a lot the identical because it did the evening {the teenager} left the home for the final time. Once inside, he picked up his son’s acoustic guitar and seated himself on the sting of the mattress, cautiously strumming a handful of chords between his tears. “And I slowly started feeling that magic of music and songwriting coming back,” he mentioned. “And then quick ahead to now, and I’m on a tour bus, touring and taking part in all of those songs. And it’s all been such a blur. And it’s laborious to consider all of this has even occurred, as a result of I bear in mind being so frozen when he handed away. It’s such a bizarre factor to maneuver on – I hate the phrase transfer on – however to go on, to maneuver ahead. 

“The hardest thing for me is the last time I saw him, when he left the house to go skateboarding with his friend, Dylan, every day the distance between that night and now grows farther and farther, and that’s so sad to me. There have been different things we’ve done, and different experiences both happy and sad, and they’ve all happened without Dorian. And that’s a weird thing to grasp, how life just moves on.”

On Cover the Mirrors (The Noise Company), launched in May on what would have been Dorian’s nineteenth birthday, Kweller explores this house with uncommon vulnerability, excavating his deep effectively of disappointment, sure, but additionally the 1000’s of how by which loss adjustments an individual and the necessity to protect hope even in these instances when it feels inconceivable to take action. “A new day’s coming for me,” Kweller sings towards the top of “Depression,” an in any other case downcast synth tune recorded in collaboration with labelmate Coconut Records that captures the texture of the climate lastly breaking on the finish of a protracted, darkish storm.

There additionally exists throughout the album the concept we don’t should navigate these shattered paths alone, with Cover the Mirrors steadily rising as Kweller’s most collaborative effort thus far. Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield turns up for “Dollar Store,” a soft-loud, alt-rock wrecking ball with a shout-along refrain, whereas the Flaming Lips assist to buoy Kweller amid “Killer Bee,” a reasonably, downcast tune that shimmers like daylight reducing via the grey of early daybreak. Then there’s “Oh Dorian,” an upbeat, country-tinged quantity given an help by MJ Lenderman and rooted in Kweller’s consciousness that he’s not the one one that misplaced one thing together with his son’s passing.

“I was totally thinking about his friends that day, and how crushed they were. You know, it’s one thing to lose your child, but also to lose your best friend when you’re 16 and in high school and having some of the best, most carefree times of your life. To have that taken away from you, I just couldn’t bear it,” mentioned Kweller, who throughout the tune pays tribute to his “crystal child, double Gemini,” putting the right steadiness between unhappy and candy, heartbreaking and hopeful as he sings, “I can’t wait to hang with you again.”

In a manner, this actuality involves go in “Trapped,” which might rightly be described as a collaboration between Kweller and his late son, and which Kweller first heard via a closed door as Dorian labored alone in his bed room on the then-unnamed tune. “I remember he started work on that song in his room, and I heard it through the door and walked in and said, ‘Bro, what is this?’” Kweller mentioned. “And I sat down and we sort of worked on it a bit, and we tried to record it a few times, just as a little voice memo. So, I do have voice memos with him singing and with me singing, and there’s one where he’s on drums and I’m playing guitar. But he never finished it, and it was really sad thinking he’d never get to finish it and to put it out there. … And I just love it, because it’s truly a co-write with him.”

Kweller mentioned his son died at a cut-off date when he was simply beginning to scratch the inventive floor, seeing in his son’s growth a mirrored image of the teenage years he himself spent ping-ponging between kinds in an try to uncover his personal voice and identification as a musician. “He morphed a bunch in the four years leading up to his death,” Kweller mentioned of Dorian, who recorded and launched music beneath the identify ZEV (a posthumous album is more likely to floor sooner or later). “If you go to the ZEV Spotify, I think there’s like five or six songs we were able to put out when he was here. And when you listen to those, they’re so different. … The first one he put out, it’s called ‘Parachute,’ and it’s so wild, because it sounds like a 13-year-old Ben Kweller, back when I was first starting Radish.”

In these earliest days, Kweller acknowledged that he typically carried the burden of expectation, notably when he dropped out of highschool at age 15 after his first band, Radish, signed a serious label cope with Mercury Records. At the identical time, he mentioned he by no means felt as if he needed to compromise his music in pursuit of business success, or to show himself in any technique to anybody aside from himself – an concept that has been additional bolstered by his loss.

“I’m not even sure how to explain it, but it’s just like, what’s the worst that could happen? Because the worst has already happened, you know what I mean?” Kweller mentioned. “So many issues matter a lot in our lives, after we get in our little bubble. But when you’ve gotten one thing like this that occurs, it simply places all the pieces in perspective. And it’s humorous, as a result of me and [my wife] Liz will say that so much after we’re simply attempting to make some regular, common life determination, the place it’s like, ‘Fuck it, dude. How much does it really matter?’ Because, actually, life is brief. You gotta simply attempt to get pleasure from what you’ve gotten.“