NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD started as a much different album, one that was closer in timbre and aesthetic to my folky first album, SONGS. With the benefit of hindsight, I probably would have switched the names of the two albums; SONGS has a lonesome, lonely sound to it, while NOBODY ELSE is more a celebration of the diversity of songs. (The fact that there’s actually a song called “Nobody Else in the World” on this second album doesn’t matter so much – I always loved that the Doors song ‘Waiting for the Sun’ wasn’t on the album of the same name, but on an album two years and a lot of liquor later.)

All the same, things are what they are, and this album has the name that it has, and that’s that. And truth be told, it does work for this album in its own way; it reflects my literal do-it-yourself ethic, involving no one else in its creation other than myself. Warts and all, that is. I don’t have any particular genius on any instrument, at least not comparatively. My friends and erstwhile bandmates Clay Davidson and Erik Strom both have great genius at the guitar and drums, respectively. My friend Owen Dollar has great genius at engineering. I am what you might call ‘passable’ at a variety of things, more a jack of all trades than a renaissance man. In other words, I’m generally working at the far extremes of my facility in any instrument or recording technique, and none of those extremes are very far from the ground. But it’s me, and it’s honest. My music isn’t punk rock, but my ethic is.

I believe albums should balance being a cohesive whole with being an accurate snapshot in time. I’m still learning how to do that. I imagine I always will be. That doesn’t mean the songs are necessarily biographical, though there are always grains of truth/pieces of myself in each lyric. ‘Citizen Freak’ is a breakup & fall out song but with a synth pop foundation to keep it from being too dirge-like. ‘Should Have Been There’ is pure self-flagellation (‘only five cents for unlimited beatings’) moving toward the hope that death provides comfort against regret. Good God let’s hope so, at least. ‘The Last 3 Days’ is a tribute to an old girlfriend who had the rock & roll courage to simply disappear for days at a time. ‘Don’t Get Up’ is really about nothing more than how much I love a good edible on a day off. To be frank, I don’t a hundred percent know where ‘Liquor Store’ came from – I was suddenly just writing it and making myself laugh. I’ve always loved the sound of a clavichord/clavinet, whether it be the syncopated funk of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ or the laconic shuffle of The Band’s ‘Cripple Creek.’ The lyric makes me laugh because of the refrain (‘Hey man – need me to write this down?’)

‘Bury Them’ was the first song I wrote for this album and was really the first synth-based song I’ve written. At the time I write this, that song has gotten more streams than anything else, which surprised the bejesus out of me. ‘One of These Days’ springs from a conversation I had with a friend who found the thought of chasing the future paralyzing. ‘Ghost Train Coming’ provided a way for me to write about two things that show up in my work quite a bit – ghosts (metaphorical and actual) and trains (actual and metaphorical.) ‘Nobody Else in the World’ actually stemmed from a song prompt to write something about being the last person on earth. As much as I found the prompt to be – I don’t know, corny? – I do really love how this song came out. High drama, and all that. And the final song, ‘The Great Black Wall,’ I wrote immediately after a friend told me they had decided to leave their spouse. I found my way into it, my connective tissue, in the line ‘thought we were so old too young,’ which absolutely nails the way an ex and I both look at our time together.

I’m very proud of this album, and I hope you like it.

Tommy Trull
January 8, 2023