Jason Erie - Tiny Fires (2022)

Over the course of 12 songs, Tiny Fires takes the listener across a sonic landscape which manages to incorporate everything from intimate acoustic ballads to raucous rock anthems, all of which showcase Erie’s unmatched versatility. Ultimately, whereas producer Brett Ryan Stewart (Wirebird Productions) creates a masterful musical backdrop for the record, it is Erie’s extraordinary lyrical content and the consistency of his heart which ties the whole collection together. The record begins with the title track, an ambient exploration of the helplessness in watching the world outside burn from inside a house and a body—each in their own varying states of decay. Though the subject matter of the tune is timeless, one would be remiss to ignore the pressing global chaos that accompanied the specific time of its writing. As Erie puts it, “I wrote this song while I was in quarantine, right before I could get the vaccine. Two weeks apart from the people closest to you is hard when they are right outside the door. All I could do was watch TV, write, read, but even with all of that time in solitary, you find yourself scratching at the walls, dreaming of what awaits you outside. Even when I could muster up the courage to dream, it was hard to picture anything good. The pandemic was surging, people were dying in the streets just because of the color of their skin, the whole world found itself on fire, and here I was writing about it.”

Where the first half of Tiny Fires is brimming with raw, dystopian hopelessness, on the latter half, the listener is greeted by a coming to terms of sorts. Erie seemingly begins taking ownership of his own role as a father, son, American, and human being. Perhaps the most obvious illustration of this empowerment comes in the song “Sins of my Father”—a marching rock track that seems equal parts anthem and dirge. In it, the perspective is taken of a son grappling with the troubled history of his father and his own identity within that lineage. Certainly, the lyrics are deeply personal to Jason.  “I’ve always been close to my dad and realize now that he worked really hard not to become his father. Thanks to that I get to say I hope to become more like him. Now that I am a father, this song serves as a reminder that trauma does not define who we are” On another layer, the lyrics are also undoubtedly relevant to Americans forced to question their own collective history, the sins of their forefathers. It seems to beg some very important questions. Is it okay to be proud of where we came from even when where we came from was far from perfect? Can we learn from the scars of our past and build something greater than any flawed, hand-me-down patriotism could ever encapsulate?

According to Jason Erie, the answer is resoundingly yes. It will always be a long road, paved by the blood, sweat, and tears of the most common among us, but it is one that can be traveled together. It is a struggle to be proud of, a home worth building, and a song worth singing again and again. Jason Erie has proven himself to be just the man for the job.