Dan Israel Set to Celebrate New Album ‘Seriously’ at the Hook and Ladder
The prolific Minneapolis rocker’s latest album is vulnerable, introspective and a damn good time.
Dan Israel’s Seriously album artwork.
Minnesota music mainstay Dan Israel may have 99 problems, but inspiration ain’t one. Hot on the heels of 2019’s Social Media Anxiety Disorder and 2020’s Social Distance Anxiety Disorder, his latest album, simply titled Seriously, drops this Friday, Nov. 4, 2022.
As the titles suggest, Israel doesn’t shy away from songs about individual struggles with helplessness, frustration, breakups, etc. But as the titles also hint at, these troubles are so widespread (thanks to social media, the pandemic and more) that they’re almost collective. Therefore, even his most confessional-sounding songs give the sense that he’s empathizing with all of us, that we’re all in this together.
Musically, he opts for catharsis when expressing these feelings: Israel’s a skilled veteran rocker with a knack for fast songs. You might catch him in a mid-tempo moment here and there, but in general, he wants to help us burn off our frustrations and sadness with driving drumbeats and scorching electric guitar.
The opening track of Seriously sets the stage perfectly for Israel’s brand of music therapy; “Happy for Now,” he says, is about “trying to be happy in the here and now—and how that’s sometimes easier said than done.”
Dan Israel. Photo credit: Steven Cohen, 2022.
The next song, the title track, digs into some of the many reasons why being happy is so hard. Israel says it was “inspired by a lot of things going on in the world (how about the daily news, every damn day?)—but it might have been particularly inspired by my revulsion at the events of January 6, 2021.”
He adds, “It’s hard not to have this sense that every day you think things can’t possibly get worse and more debased in our society (particularly in the political realm), and then they absolutely DO get worse. I also started to notice how often everyone around me says ‘seriously’ lately—sarcastically, humorously, with a sense of outrage—and I liked the idea of a song called ‘Seriously.’ It also felt like a good ‘Zeitgeist-y’ title for the album.”
No matter what your personal coping mechanism is when something makes you say “Seriously?!,” there’s a song for you on this album, including a love ballad about sticking with someone through thick and thin (the sweet and sincere “How Do I?”), songs about driving as a means of escape (“just wanted to lose myself, thought I might as well try,” he sings on “Drove So Far”), and just a fuck-it-I’m-out-of-here answer to what ails you (the uber-wish-fulfillment banger “I Quit”). And that’s just scratching the surface of this 10-track tome of our times.
Dan Israel. Photo credit: Steven Cohen, 2022.
Besides Israel’s obvious experience and talent as a songwriter and musician, some Seriously amazing local talent came together to produce this record: drummer David J. Russ, bassist Mike Lane and guitar wizard Steve Brantseg (Suburbs, Bash and Pop, Phones), as well as production work at Rich Mattson’s Sparta Sound on Minnesota’s Iron Range and then at Dave Russ’ It’s a Secret, where layers of sound were added by John Eller (Shiny Lights, Zeppo) and Peter J. Sands (Honeydogs, Turn! Turn! Turn!) on keys, and Katie Gearty (Sunshine Committee) and Colleen Martin-Oake (Lolo’s Ghost) on vocals. (Even the album cover is locally grown, featuring art by renowned Minnesota artist Laura Bennett.
Seriously drops this Friday, and Israel will celebrate at the Hook and Ladder Theater’s Mission Room in Minneapolis. Doors open at 7, opener St. Dominic’s Trio plays at 7:30 pm, and Dan Israel & Band take the stage at 8:30 pm. If you need to dance away some angst with someone who knows just how you feel, check it out!
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the primary music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley!
