It’s a beautiful morning in Trevor Powers’ woods in Boise, Idaho. The melodious chirping of birds can be heard on the phone as the musicians talk about living in a place that is both sacred and ruined. This multidimensional landscape has been a vehicle of inspiration, driving the immersive content he creates to reveal themes of nostalgia, childhood, love, pain, death and identity.Despite the changing circumstances, for youth lagoonfourth album, heaven is a dump.
For better or worse, Powers never left this corner of the Pacific Northwest—not literally, since he was a musician who traveled the world, but Idaho was his home. Of course, Powers didn’t always have such affection for the place he grew up in. “Like a lot of high school students, I couldn’t wait to get out because that’s all I’ve ever known,” he said. “I ended up going to Boise State. I don’t really know why I’m going to college, but there’s a lot of pressure in the field, like you do, and I don’t really have a compass and am looking for some kind of path . So I went to college for a few years and kept thinking, ‘When I graduate, I’m leaving.’”
Read more: Ranking every Arctic Monkeys album: Worst to best
But unexpectedly, the tour led Powers to appreciate his origins. “The whole definition and concept of home changed because it wasn’t something I wanted to escape from anymore,” he said. “There’s a sanctity to it; there’s a specialness to it.” Idaho becomes salvation This allowed Bowles “to maintain some residual stability” in his life. Although Powers never left the foundation, his life has changed a lot since he started Youth Lagoon in the privacy of his BSU dorm. In 2011, he made his mark on the industry year of hibernation, Strong debut earns him praise as one of the next great independent artists.
[Photo by Tyler T. Williams]
Instead of sticking to the same bedroom-pop playbook for his next album, Bowers is more experimental (and introspective) with psychedelic leanings wonderful ward.But after 2015 Savage Hill Ballroom, a song-heavy track that touches on themes like death, drug addiction and police violence, Powers announced he was taking a break from the Youth Lagoon and intended never to return there. In 2018, he officially released Mulberry Violence In his rightful name, came a loud bang — and an eerie scream among many distorted voices you’ve probably heard in your nightmares.unlike most materials Judging by Powers’ past, the work is dark, menacing, and disconnected from reality. Daydreaming innocence in rose colored glasses. But deep down on the surface, it felt like a spiritual release from the chains that had been weighing on him.
when all hell broke loose In 2020, as the epidemic spreads globally, Powers is forced to be alone and stick together A meditative soundscape.was an afterthought severe panic attacks, Capricorn Provides a well-being escape from suffocating uncertainty all of us. “Our whole world is built around distractions,” he said. “The only way to really know yourself is to sit in a room, close your eyes, and do nothing. What has been truly revolutionary in my life is learning how to do that, and in the process, I’ve learned It’s a whole new concept to love yourself.”
origin for heaven is a dump The plan finally came to fruition when Powers suffered a health crisis from a severe reaction to an over-the-counter drug. “It was as if my whole digestive system was turned upside down and gravity was reversed,” he recalls. “I woke up with acid in my mouth. My throat and pharynx were on fire.” After going to the emergency room, all the medical professionals he went to were unable to diagnose his condition, and Bowers’ condition escalated to To the point of losing my voice for a long time. He has never been so vulnerable.
“I have a notepad that I carry around, or text someone,” he said. “I’ve struggled with so much anxiety my whole life. Having this thing gets me through almost everything in life—it’s the music, it’s my voice, it’s the things I can tear apart and look at in my life. The way things are, I don’t know any other way – when it’s taken away for me, that’s when I really face “Who am I? “when.
The pressure brought on him by the alias in the past After disbanding, Bowers will never take Youth Lagoon for granted again. Call it self-death, or burn everything down and rise from the ashes, but the slow road to recovery has completely changed his perspective on Youth Lagoon. Instead of taking the path of least resistance, Powers confronts his demons head-on and fights back, becoming an evolved version of himself who somehow finds peace amidst the chaos.
Before this harrowing experience, he already had a rough idea heaven is a dump, but no concrete vision until his body began to feel like a prison. “I’ve been writing this album for over four years, but most of it was discarded because I couldn’t figure out what the pulse was,” he says. Late last summer, Powers finally regained his health and began recording some of the songs he had created during the ordeal.lead single “Idaho Alien” provides direct entry into the headspace of his period, while the accompanying visuals transport the viewer into an alternate version of that atmosphere.
Music Video Directed by Tyler T. Williams “sling” Perfectly captures some of the emotions Powers tries to convey through his music. Shot in Idaho City, an old mining town, Bowers is shown walking alone in the woods wearing an oversized green coat and carrying a suitcase. (His mother, Bonnie, was the official horseman on set.) For him, the song in particular served as a North Star guiding the direction of the album. As he sings in the epilogue, “Heaven’s a dump / This is my home.”
Bruce Springsteen’s influence on Trapeze, Boxer and Country Imp can be seen everywhere, and these ballads show how Powers mastered storytelling. The lyrics to the moody jazz song “Deep Red Sea” were cobbled together while he was walking around the neighborhood. “A lot of it was just documenting what I saw,” he explained. “There’s a lot of fusion between fiction and non-fiction where I’ll play a character with a few lines and then I’ll get something that comes straight from me and it’s the glue that holds everything together. I think, feel There’s a beauty in the juxtaposition between something far away and something close to home.”
[Photo by Tyler T. Williams]
the ghost year of hibernation That feeling can still be felt on the album’s opener, “Rabbit,” which features an interlude of Powers’ niece, Freya.if it unlocks the image alice in wonderland, It wasn’t his intention, but it’s an interesting coincidence. “For me, it’s largely because I haven’t fully grown,” he says of this familiar theme in his work. “I don’t feel any different now than I did when I was a kid, and I don’t want to lose that.” Similar to the famous westerns that follow the adventure In Cowboys of the Wild West, Powers adopted the image of the Lone Ranger, navigating twisted rabbit holes in a frontier of his own design. His soft, delicate voice, accompanied by a piano, presents his own version of a bar singer.
in every aspects, heaven is a dump sums up the moments of clarity when these brooding protagonists return to the roots of their origin stories. They eventually realize that danger isn’t always lurking outside; danger isn’t always lurking outside. It has been suppressed in my heart. “My favorite thing about Idaho is that it really has a cowboy feel,” Powers said. “It’s very cowboy, but there’s a weird feeling to it, because everyone’s trying to figure out what it means. They might have deep roots in country music, but they also listen to Linkin Park. . . .”
Now that the dust has settled, Powers is excited to be back on the road and touring with the entire band. When asked how he felt working on the project alone over the past few weeks, he paused to gather his thoughts. “Honestly, I didn’t think about it that way, and it hurt me emotionally very well because it does still belong to me, but once it’s out, it’s not,” he concluded. “I never believed in a piece of music, a project, like I believed in this one, so there’s nothing that can really get me down right now.”
