andDearFriends

t you can measure the caliber of a friendship by how someone responds when times are tough. Some people are paralyzed by the crisis and ghost because they're uncomfortable. However, others step up and go above and beyond to provide care, solace and a shoulder on which to lean. For musician John Booker, his band &DearFriends represents the latter situation—an emo-tinged indie rock project where close friends, acquaintances and even strangers came together to support him in a time of great sadness to produce something meaningful and beautiful. Piercing guitars, shimmering keyboards and Booker's empathetic vocals drive &DearFriends' self-titled debut album. The band amplifies the music's sweet melancholy by emphasizing little details: wailing, wordless harmonies on highlight "Oceans," a driving tempo on the Cure-esque post-punk gem "Don't Follow" and the chiming riffs swirling on "Come Around." Fans of Jimmy Eat World, early Death Cab for Cutie, Silversun Pickups, and the Jealous Sound will find much to love. The roots of the project and album stem from a traumatic event. One night in May 2018, Booker came home and discovered his musical and romantic partner of over a decade had suddenly packed up and left the home they shared. The couple had been on the path toward marriage, so her cutting ties without warning left him stunned. He called two long-time friends, who immediately came over and kept him company all night. Despite his bewilderment and sadness, Booker tried to look for a silver lining. "I remember saying to my friends, 'I'm going to write some songs again,'" he says. "I said it kind of jokingly, but I could already tell that it was going to be part of healing from this. In the years leading up to this, Booker had stepped back from the busy music and songwriting pace he had maintained with his pop-rock band I Was Totally Destroying It. Starting in 2007 and for the following half-dozen years, IWTDI released an EP or LP annually while touring the U.S. and sharing stages with bands like Motion City Soundtrack, Now Now, Third Eye Blind, Superchunk, and Cursive - but slowed output considerably over the subsequent decade. However, this jarring life event stirred his creativity. And he also knew that those two people who came over and kept him company—Aslan Freeman and Curtis Armstead—were the collaborators with whom he wanted to make this new music. And so in the summer of 2018, Booker started writing songs and then bringing ideas to the other two musicians. Neither musician was a stranger to Booker; in fact, Armstead was also in I Was Totally Destroying It. However, being so collaborative with making &DearFriends music was "definitely a deliberate thing, and a different approach than one I'd taken in past bands," Booker says. "I'd always been a band leader with Destroying It, in the sense of being the main songwriter. Most of the time, I'd write a song in full and bring it to the band. With &DearFriends, I was adamant that I didn't want to finish too many ideas on my own. I'd bring in maybe a verse, or maybe a melody with no words, just a chorus, and they'd write the rest. We helped each other fill in the blanks." Lyrically, that meant Freeman ended up co-writing the album alongside Booker. The two musicians were on the same wavelength, however, meaning these collaborative songs were still cohesive. "Aslan wrote lyrics that are very personal," Booker says. "You might think these words are coming directly from me, but he felt the situation so much because he's so close to it. A lot of things in the lyrics are his words, but coming from my perspective.” Although the album's songs naturally address the sudden split, &DearFriends' greater thematic focus is on transitions and transformations, and how to navigate a period where you're learning about yourself and looking inward to try to figure out how to move forward.

&DearFriends' smooth creative process occurred because the musicians were also living together at the time and could record the album at home. Not only did they have a downstairs practice space, but they also had enough professional equipment—and studio experience—to polish their songs without outside help. "We were able to do everything in our bedrooms here," Booker says. "Curtis and Aslan are great sound engineers and work in live sound and in studios. They're super knowledgeable." Having this home base also made it easy for Booker and others to call on their local musician friends to drop by and add some color and texture to songs. Members of Youth League, Sorry About Dresden, Jack The Radio, Unifier, and several other NC acts make appearances. Along with these friends, Booker also decided to reach out to some other hero musicians to see if they'd be willing to contribute a part or two. In the end, Booker was thrilled that people including John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea and Cake), Joshua Cain (Motion City Soundtrack), and Max Bernstein (The Actual, Taylor Swift) said yes. "Around 15 guests ended up performing on this album, and every single person that I reached out to said yes, from very close friends to people I had never met," Booker says. "It was unexpected and just a really great feeling—like, 'Wow, all these people want to be involved in this project. That's really cool.'"

Today, Booker is in a much better place in his personal life, so the music on &DearFriends resembles a snapshot of a certain painful period in his life. But the good feelings and collaborative spirit spawned by &DearFriends has endured, and stands as a testament to the ways the support of good pals can be transformative. "I felt so supported by so many people during that very strange and surreal time," Booker says. "It was the lowest that I've ever felt in my whole life. My two closest friends were there for me in that moment. But I was also overwhelmed by how much even peripheral friends seemed to really be there for me that whole summer. I had a lot of people really looking out for me and checking up on me. They all really helped lift me up through it." (Annie Zaleski is a Cleveland, Ohio-based author, editor and journalist. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including NPR Music, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Salon, Billboard, The A.V. Club, Vulture, Alternative Press, Stereogum, and The Village Voice. Her 33 1/3 book on Duran Duran’s Rio is available in bookstores now)