“Half-Life” is the new EP from indie rock veterans Berry.
The band, which consists of Joey Lemon (guitars, vocals), Paul Goodenough (drums), Shane Bordeau (bass) and Matt Aufrecht (keyboards), recorded the collection of songs in the span of two days in 2022 at Goodenough’s home in Indianapolis.
The sessions, though, as Goodenough and Lemon explain, were not without their complications. For one, three of the members were traveling to Goodenough’s home from Denver (Aufrecht), Wichita (Lemon) and New York City (Bordeau). Though they faced some difficult patches in the journey, the sessions ultimately resulted in some of Berry’s strongest material to date.
The collection features songs that touch on matters such as climate change, aging, mortality, personal and worldly failures — but also carry with them a sense of empathy.
“Half-Life” is out Friday, March 22, on all digital streaming platforms and via Bandcamp.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
What I love about Berry is that each time there’s a new record, it’s not just that there’s a new collection of songs. There’s always a story that goes with the material. What’s the story behind this one?
Paul Goodenough: I turned 40. It was my 40th birthday party and my wife vacated the house with our two little kids. I think she also ponied up some of the cash maybe to fly people here.
Joey Lemon: The starting point of that story was that Paul’s wife, Rachel, reached out to me and [said], “I just want to throw an all-day jam session.” My two least favorite words in music are "jam session." [Laughs.] I immediately returned the message and said, “That sounds great, but can we turn this into something a little bit more serious?” We quickly found our way into a full-blown recording session.
We did something similar at Paul’s bachelor party. I don’t know that we recorded any of it. It was Paul’s wish to have 24 hours of music in the house. I think we tapped out at 12 hours. [Laughs.]
Joey, you showed up in Indianapolis and there was a complication almost right away because your bass player, Shane, had problems getting out of New York City.
JL: My memory is that there was this massive fog in New York City that shut down the city entirely at the time. The timing of the flight was such that they kept egging him on. “It’s still going to make it out, it’s still going to make it out.” I think he ended up spending an entire day in the airport, hoping that his flight was going to make it out. He went home that night and then came back super early the next morning, and it was almost the exact same thing. They said, “Yeah, we’re going to get you out. We’re going to get you out.” But it wasn’t until midday or something that he actually flew out.
PG: In my memory, it was a little bit heroic. He was sort of like the mom in “Home Alone,” when she says, “You’re going to get me home to see my boy!” He had a come to Jesus moment with the people at the airline desk. He just got on a flight. They made it happen for him. [After] he threw a big enough stink.
JL: I think we were sitting in Indianapolis and saying, “Dude, Shane, this is not worth it. Go home.” [Laughs.] But he made it happen somehow.
When you got to Paul’s house, this material had already taken shape.
JL: After Rachel reached out about getting us together, we all reached out and started chatting on the phone again and making plans. It was Paul’s birthday, so I decided to throw it into his court and said, “Please come up with a strategy to write songs.”
PG: We were all 40 or about to turn 40. I had started reading Jeff Tweedy’s “How to Write One Song.” There’s lots of practical songwriting prompts in that book. I thought it would be fun to use some of those. That was the structure of the process. The content of the process was an invitation to think about what our dads were doing at that time: Turning 40 [and] approaching midlife.
When I was a kid, when I was 12, I had certain feelings, mostly angsty [ones] about my parents and about my dad. As I’ve gotten older and as I’ve become a dad, obviously I’ve had my eyes opened to the struggle of what it is to be a parent. Getting 40, getting old and weird, hairy and sad.
JL: [Laughs.]
PG: It was this reflection on what it is to get older. We used the Jeff Tweedy prompts and took [ideas] from our contemporary Christian upbringing and combined it with Tool or The Odyssey. One of the songs that I contributed lyrics for recalls the Exxon Valdez disaster, which happened when I was seven, in 1989. It’s sort of this mashup of nostalgia with what’s happening now in our lives and having a different perspective on things as you get older.
You had some complications, as we mentioned, with getting started. But once you’re there and it’s time for the first beat, does it all fall into place?
JL: [Laughs.] It’s “Oh, crap. We haven’t played music together in a couple of years!” In my memory, the first song that we did took us three or four hours to get it to the point where we were ready to record it. After that, it went faster. It’s definitely a relearning curve every time we get together to record. Especially for me because I think I lack the musicianship of my bandmates. It seems like a huge uphill climb.
PG: I’m going to say that it takes about six hours to get in the zone. It’s a rusty bike, but it’s still a bike, and we get that thing going.
I’ll close out on this, which seems pretty obvious, but how awesome was it that Paul’s wife said, “Hey, have friends over and make music”?
PG: Thank you, Rachel. This would not have happened without her. She’s very supportive in allowing me to do this. Thanks, babe. I feel very fortunate that she supported us and was the first domino to make this happen. She was key in everything that happened.
JL: Absolutely. We’re very lucky that she’s such a big fan and so supportive of what we do and really has been since day one.
