Jeremy Bass to Release the Lyrically-Driven “The Greatest Fire”

Credit: Skyler Smith

Listen to "Trees for the Forest" HERE

The Greatest Fire (Jan. 19th, Jungle Strut Music), the upcoming new album by Brooklyn-based artistJeremy Bass, contains numerous turns of phrase that are completely world-class, impressive for any emerging songwriter, but the rub here is that Bass actually makes his bones as a classical guitarist.
 
Bass has logged countless hours mastering the instrument that he was originally trained on in Italy and Spain, and his ascension as a composer ultimately led to The Secret City, the arts organization for which Bass serves as musical director, receiving an Obie Award – off-Broadway theater’s highest honor.
 
“I wanted this album to be an expression of everything I was capable of, to feature the best songwriting I’ve done to date and to let rock n’ roll shine through the more diverse influences of my previous records,” Bass says.

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To that end, while Bass’ voice can be described as a mixture of Paul Simon, Jeff Buckley, and Thom Yorke, you’re now as likely to find walls of distorted guitars and stacked keyboards in his arsenal as you are to find a blend of banjo, ukulele, acoustic guitars and mandolin.
 
And while his sound bears little resemblance to one of his heroes, Bass relates wholeheartedly to this Tom Waits quote: “I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”
 
The songs on The Greatest Fire take this idea as gospel, both in ideology and practice.
 
“I thrive on the interplay between what people think they’re hearing, and the actual content beneath,” Bassexplains. “I think that’s where the best songwriting happens.” Bass mentions Hank Williams and Merle Haggard’s outlaw output as examples of this juxtaposition.
 
A more contemporary songwriter who was a master at this, as well, was Elliott Smith.
 
In fact, The Greatest Fire’s “Trees For The Forest,” premiered yesterday via music discovery websiteAtwood Magazine, opens with a short picking run that immediately brings to mind the opening of Smith’sEither/Or classic track “Angeles,” and contains a lyric that could have come from Smith’s canon: “But you know those people who never get lost, never learn how to find their own way,” a fine example of Bass’ ability to lay it on the line, as if playing some kind of musical rope-a-dope by weakening his audience with pretty sounds before landing a truth punch.
 
“What I really wanted to do was write the best songs I was capable of writing, to deliver the best performance possible, and to make the best album I was capable of making,” Bass says.
 
The Greatest Fire, the new album by Jeremy Bass is scheduled for release on Jan. 19th, 2018 via Jungle Strut Music.