Portland based musician and producer, Nick Arneson, is an indie rock artist who recently released his new album, MidLifeCrisis on August 17, 2018.

Arneson’s raw emotions come out to play a major role in this new album, and I had the pleasure to chat with him about the meanings of the songs.

Tell me a little about the album, is there an overall message being told?
The overall theme is kind of in the title. I joke with my friends that I am going through a midlife crisis. This is almost like my sports car or model girlfriend. The message is about all the shit you have to take care of when you get to be my age (39).

But there is also another layer, if you spend some time with the album the bigger meaning is societal. As a country, we are kind of going through a midlife crisis as well. With social media now its hard to rally around a cause because we can’t focus on one problem at a time to help fight the evils of the world.

Which song on the album sticks out as having a personal meaning to you?
The whole thing is personal, there’s not an ounce of bullshit. But there are a couple relationship songs on there that are super personal. Try and Stay are really close to home, but the latter half of the record is more existential in nature.

Tell me about the inspiration behind the song ‘Once’?
I quit drinking recently, it was something that I had dealt with for a long time. The song Once is basically me talking to myself about that. Whatever vices people face, its about that inner voice that everyone has telling them its not worth it, but their body just isn’t listening.

If you had to pick one song to tell people to listen to that would sum up the whole album, what song would it be?
I would say, Inertia. Its the most outlaying song and my favorite on the album. Its the most rock and roll, and I played all the instruments except for bass. It starts out very inward talking about the process and then it goes into social commentary talking about whats going on around us. It has a lot of my over all message of the album. But I would also pick Outsiders, it talks about not quite fitting in with the crowd and being a little different.

What can fans except to see from you in the upcoming months?
I feed the internet. I do live performances, I have a place I call ‘The Barn’ and I do a live stream on there. So in the next few weeks I’ll be doing a performance on there and I typically announce them weeks out. Sometimes we do full album performances, and we did one for the album release.

But musically, I’ve been working on the next album. I got so much material that I just don’t know what to do with it. So I’ve been trying to stay on this album for a little bit long and then move on to the next.

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You can keep up to date with Nick and his music on his website www.nickarnesonmusic.com

Photos provided Bradley PR and Marketing.