Photo Credit: Cortney Armitage
You can add “author and illustrator” to Brett Newski’s resume. Maybe someday there will be an album called Brett Newski Takes a Vacation, but that day is in the future. Newski might be the hardest working person in Milwaukee music, even during a pandemic.
In June the singer-songwriter will release a hardcover book and album It's Hard to be a Person.
Subtitled Defeating Anxiety, Surviving the World and Having More Fun, the soundtrack is rife with Newski’s hyper pop sounds, abetted by his longtime collaborator, drummer Spatola. As a teaser, he has released the track "I Should've Listened to Ferris Bueller (featuring Barenaked Ladies Steven Page)."
As a teenager Newski saw the Barenaked Ladies perform a sold-out show at the Marcus Amphitheater. That concert served as inspiration for him to get a job a McDonald’s to earn money to buy a guitar. The rest, as they say is history, finding Newski collaborating with his hero decades later.
The book, It's Hard to be a Person, collects Newski’s quirky illustrations in taking a light-hearted look at his own anxiety and depression, offering hacks and ideas to feel better.
“Years ago, somewhere on the Internet, I posted a few dumb drawings making fun of my own anxiety and depression,” Newski said. “The response to them was warmer than anticipated and people kept asking for more. Blending humor with pure depression seemed to strike a chord with a decent amount of people.”
Three years later he had enough drawings to be collected for the book. “More than anything I want this book to be useful for people,” Newski said. “I’m not a doctor, just a person who spends too much time in my head. The objective of It’s Hard to Be a Person is not to give unsolicited advice, but to hopefully save you some headaches on the long and winding road of life in your brain.”
|
|
Here is Exhibit #37 of Newski not taking himself too seriously.
Additionally, Newski's ongoing podcast Dirt from the Road features conversations with fellow nomadic musicians. They discuss maintaining mental health “and the weird lifestyle from making a living on the road.” Each episode focuses on a new country or territory. Guests have included The Lumineers, All American Rejects, Dashboard Confessional, Guster, Heartless Bastards, Verve Pipe, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Frank Turner.
