A few months ago, alternative folk artist The Last Optimist, aka Markus Belanger, released his album, seed water sun, an album at once emotionally subtle and seething with ethereal power.
In the past, his artistic output has often been referred to as ‘sad folk,’ but really, a more apt description would be radically self-aware, vulnerable to the beautiful and unforgiving aspects of the human experience.
Raised on the DIY folk punk activism influences of Ani DiFranco and Fugazi, it’s easy to see how The Last Optimist forged his own strong-willed and wholly original path, pairing indie rock with emo folk, social activism with transcendentalism, trauma with solace, and dissonance with poetry.
CelebMix spoke with The Last Optimist] to find out why he makes music, the evolution of his sound, and his creative process.
First, a simple yet revealing question: why do you make music?
I guess there are a hundred answers to your question: because I just have to, because I always have, because the songs will clamor around in my head like angry ghosts until I let them out, because I want to make the world better and screaming into the wind doesn’t seem to be working so well – maybe music is better activism – I don’t know… Because music brings those rare moments of solace and connection to our days – it has to be shared. Or maybe Phoebe Bridgers says it best with “Imaginary friend You live up in my head. So I’ve been making music Since you told me to do it.”
What inspired your new album, seed water sun?
I wanted to create the antidote or the salve for the last three years. Seed water sun is about coming back into lighter times. Our entire society – the whole globe – endured the biggest communal trauma of our lifetimes these past years. Like with any proper trauma, most of us locked up those feelings in a tight little box and set them aside to forget. But that much fear and pain doesn’t stay contained very well and leaks into everything putting on new faces and acting out. I guess I was inspired to face that music head-on but not to wallow in it – instead to quickly move forward to the healing and the joy that comes after the storm has finally let go of its grip on all of us.
Walk us through your mindset as you entered the studio to record the album.
For me the studio time was the very last chapter of a long songwriting journey last year. I didn’t even walk into the studio until I’d worked the songwriting all the way through, played the guitar lines a million times, and labored through the technicalities of the vocals. I wanted all of that heavy preparatory work behind me so I could be fully open to the creative and emotional sides of every song. For me, I go back to the story and emotion that birthed each song in the first place and to try to let that flow through my guitar and voice and onto the tape.
As a platform for your thoughts, what messages did you want to get across on seed water sun?
I struggle a bit with the word message since it means I know better than others and have to tell them. These songs share some of what I have been figuring out and maybe that will be helpful to other people and maybe they need to find their own way to it. ‘Two ways out’ has the most in-your-face story. We need to make personal and communal space to heal from the devastation wrought by a tiny virus – and we need to transcend the visible divisions of our time and start going after the puppet masters and the propagandists and the power junkies, no matter what team we claim as ours. Much of the rest of the songs are more about finding those small moments of peace in nature (not a sound), about resilience in the face of trauma (‘shame you left me’), and about finding the deep moments of love and connection.
Is there a song on the album that’s more personal to you than the others? If so, which one and why?
Most of the songs are pretty personal but the hardest one to sing without losing it is ‘on Monkton ridge.’ This is a song about my dad and my very hard forgiveness journey when he passed last year. Lots of people have complicated relationships with their fathers and can probably relate to what I struggled so hard with, and that’s honoring the good parts of your parents but not being able to reconcile their worst choices, those that changed the very courses of our lives. This song was written in a whole swirl of grief and sadness and confusion where I grabbed onto the tail of the only light I could see. That led to a hard struggle with forgiveness but that was what finally let us both move on.
How did you get started in music?
I started playing really young and my house was filled with instruments from the very beginning. My elementary school days were filled with fife and drum corps, piano lessons, trying to play the clarinet, and then buying my first dented-up trombone at age 9. My dad played out in a jazz combo every weekend and he first put me on stage before an audience when I was in fifth grade. Music was like air for my family: it was always around us; we were always singing; it didn’t matter your instrument – you just played. That’s always stayed with me.
Did your sound evolve naturally, or did you deliberately push it in a certain direction?
Music is a funny thing. It is always moving and it’s hard to predict where it will go next. This album feels like it is a decided departure from my earlier stripped-down slow and plodding sad folk music. It’s on the way to something else – newer influences of indie rock – older days of emo rock. I can’t push it but only feed it and stay wide open to what is happening around us. I’ve been immersed in live music again and that is rewiring my brain. I just saw Warpaint, boygenius, Ani DiFranco, Dispatch, Griffin William Sherry, and some local songwriters like Alex & the People and The Lied To’s. We are in a long-awaited rebirth of a new music era again and I can’t wait to see where it leads!
When writing a song, what’s the creative process like? Are you a conduit and music simply pours forth, or do you follow a template of some kind, or what?
It’s definitely more of the ‘pours forth’ songwriting and sometimes I feel selfish taking any credit for the songs that channel through. My process is to quiet my own frenetic mind and open up to the music that wants to arrive. For me, songs come first as images and emotions and then as words. Then I pick up my guitar and usually the line starts to form. The better songs force me to learn a new chord or a new rhythm pattern, so it all sounds really sloppy at the beginning but staying with it pays off and it all grows into something that feels complete. Songwriting has been a solo activity these past few years and I’m grateful that I have been able to share the creative process with Doug and Danielle for this one. They each bring something very strong and very different to the music and take it places I never thought possible. I’m hoping the days of solitary music are behind us now and we can make music together like it was meant to be.
How have you changed as a person and an artist over the past ten years?
That is a huge question! The short answer is that aging is humbling – erosion of ego yields less jagged peaks and more fertile ground. My life’s musical arc has been a sine wave bouncing between folk music and indie rock. I’m on the upswing toward the harder music right now. All the growth is going into relearning how to write for a full band, remembering how to play drums and bass, figuring out how to sing big in a crowded room, and finding moments of joy playing with friends.
Will The Last Optimist be touring in the near future?
I’m touring this album in short New England forays and trying to pull together something bigger for the Spring. I’m looking for other musicians who want to play together right now, so we can build something new. I think that will get us out of our caves and back out on the road. I’ve also got most of another album roughed out and will be getting back to the studio this winter.
Follow The Last Optimist Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify