Photo credit: Dylan Shanahan
Soda Road
There’s no sugarcoating it: Winters are bleak in Milwaukee. The cold weather and short days have a way of cutting us off from such basic necessities as social interaction and sunlight, and unless you’re into outdoor sports, there really isn’t all that much to do. It’s hard to be at your best when there isn’t even really an incentive to shower or leave your house. Stephen Strupp was feeling that crunch a few years back when he was writing the songs that would become his Soda Road trio’s debut album, Varsity of Winter.
“I was definitely not in the best state I’ve ever been in,” recalls the songwriter. “It was a couple of winters ago, when the Polar Vortex was in full effect, and it was before I was hip to things like taking a vitamin D supplement. I wasn’t taking care of myself in a responsible enough way.” Strupp escaped his funk, but it left him with a batch of songs he didn’t know what to do with—songs far more melancholy than anything he’d recorded on his 2014 solo debut, Danke Für Das Gilt, or on his many albums as a former member of the Milwaukee indie-rock band Sat. Nite Duets.
“I guess I went through what a lot of people go through when they write songs or make something in a specific moment,” he says. “When I was recording the album, I had kind of moved on from those feelings, but I still wanted the album to be specific to that time period—which I felt conflicted about, because I was making myself relive some feelings that I would rather move on from. I don’t know if I’ll write something that way again. It was definitely a learning experience.” Even after he’d recorded the album, with a band lineup featuring Midnight Reruns’ Graham Hunt and drummer Ben Mitchell (since succeeded by Sam Reitman, also of Midnight Reruns), Strupp second guessed releasing it. “There’s already so much sadness out in the world, I didn’t want to be adding to that pile,” he says.
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Save for the almost Elliott Smith-esque melancholy of its title track, however, Varsity of Winter isn’t nearly as dispiriting as its origins. It’s a sharp, tuneful set of easygoing power-pop, a bit mellower than recent releases from Sat. Nite Duets or Midnight Reruns perhaps, but still a delight on the ears. Strupp doesn’t let the rawer subject matter dampen his usual wordplay, either. “I lift weights but they’re too heavy/Rather lift lines from Tom Petty,” he sings over a tipsy melody on “Four White Horses.” On other songs, he retreats to reassuring childhood memories. “Teach Yourself Zen” recounts a childhood vacation at Epcot; “Christmastime and Christmas” celebrates the one thing about winter Strupp genuinely loves—the holidays. (“Christmas comes only once a year, but I wish that it came more,” he sings, a childish sentiment that holds true in adulthood).
“I don’t think it’s a deliberate thing,” Strupp says of the wistful nostalgia for his youth that continually creeps into his songs. “It’s just a way of finding comfort, and I think I was exploring innocence in a way with those childish memories. I was going through a time when I was filled with these feelings of regret, heavy feelings, and I guess maybe trying to make sense of that by rewinding, looking back at my early days.”
Asked what it is about those childhood memories he finds so reassuring, Strupp takes a long pause. “Honestly, I’m not totally sure,” he says, before a second, even longer pause. “I really don’t know. But I guess I come away from them realizing that I’m still the same guy inside as I’ve always been.”
Soda Road play Tonic Tavern on Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 8 p.m. Varsity of Winter is streaming at sodaroad.bandcamp.com.
