American Opera Announce New EP “Your Songs”

American Opera (aka the musical project and brainchild of Saginaw, MI and recent NYC transplant John Bee and friends) has revealed the title, artwork and track listing for his new EP, Your Songs, due out July 2nd.

“Your Songs” Track Listing

1. Shorelines
2. Broken Roads
3. Maps & Globes
4. The Good Fight
5. Baby Birds
6. Ann Marie

In describing the origins of the Your Songs EP, John says:

A while back I reached out to fans with an opportunity to have a personalized song written for them. I stole the idea from Max Bemis of Say Anything. Initially I was just going to write dumb little 30 second ditties to post on YouTube, but that all changed pretty quickly. The folks who wanted songs had great stories and my original idea of writing stupid songs like, “Hey David! This song’s for you! La la la” just weren’t going to cut it.I have never really been able to wrap my head around the support that my listeners give me. I feel unbelievably overwhelmed whenever people buy my music or sing my songs. A lot of my time is spent trying to think of ways to “pay back” my supporters. I can never come up with anything remotely close to what I have received from you and at this point you guys have given me so much that I’ll never even come close to evening things up, but I figured that this might be a small way to thank the kind folks who support me. So I reached out to you kind folks and heard your stories. Those stories turned into songs and those songs turned into a record. It was a unique writing experience and I got to try a lot of things that I don’t think I would have otherwise tried.

I’m used to writing about my own life. Usually I’m writing about whether or not there is a God or doing what I want to do with my life so it was definitely a change of pace to write from all of these different perspectives. A couple songs are about relationships, which I never write about so that was interesting and new. One song is about a marine losing his mother to illness, another is about losing a grandmother to cancer, and another is about starting and raising a family. The record has ups and downs, hope and defeat. It was a challenging and fun experience to put myself in someone else’s shoes. I recorded these songs with my big brother Joe at Northpost Recording in Traverse City, MI. It was the first time that we have worked together musically in over 10 years. When we were kids he would force me to play rhythm guitar so he could be all badass and shred solos. Long story short, he’s a gnarly shredder and I can only play rhythm. We had a lot of fun recording. It was an awesome experience and though we got on each other’s nerves, as brothers do, I’m glad we did it. I’m really proud of him and what we accomplished together.

Since these songs were inspired by a handful of you kind folks, and because these songs are for you, I decided to name the record “Your Songs”.

 

I had such a blast writing and recording these songs. So thank you for your support. I always say it, but it doesn’t make it any less true when I say that it means the world to me. Thank you. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see “Your Songs Volume 2” sometime. It worked for Kidz Bop.

 

Love,

John