Story
Chris Pomeroy is a singer-songwriter from suburban Chicago. He started The Secret Odes in 2019, though he's been putting songs together in every bedroom he's lived in since he was a kid in the 1980s.
The songs that found their way onto this debut try to make sense of this moment we're all in together. Melody is key, along with a warm, in the room sound that aims for intimacy and catharsis. Inspirations include the late great John Prine and The Replacements.
There are love songs, songs about getting into debt, songs about addiction. Other tracks explore how slippery identity can be, or how our country seems to be wobbling into an uncertain future. All the songs try to find the light without forgetting how dark things can be.
The album was recorded at home in late 2019 and early 2020, with Mr. Pomeroy playing all the instruments, usually late at night when his kids were asleep. It was mixed by John Michael Ford at SunLion Sound in Nashville, TN in the spring of 2020. The tracks were mastered by Duncan Ferguson in June 2020 at Duncan Ferguson at The Voltage Exchange in East Nashville, TN.
Before starting The Secret Odes, Chris spent his professional life doing theater. He appeared as an actor, directed plays, and started a small theater company in Chicago with some close friends. Through this whole time, he kept playing music, putting together song after song, dreaming of starting a band and making some recordings.
Then he fell in love, got married, had two children, and suddenly found himself in the suburbs again, not far from where he grew up. Music became more of a lifeline than ever before, and he began messing around with recording equipment, setting up shop in rooms around the house. He tried to narrow his catalog of songs down to ten, putting together new tracks and rewriting old ones, searching for the right combination. The goal was to make an album that was of the moment, but fun. To leave the listener with a sense that it's possible to transcend this anxiety ridden time. As the chorus goes in the album's final song:
"The only constant is change."
The debut album by the Secret Odes will be available on all streaming platforms on October 16. It can be pre-ordered here.