Noah Gundersen’s latest recording is called “White Noise.” The Seattle-based singer-songwriter is exploring big themes like religion, relationships and our culture's need to have it all.
The album was fueled by a feeling of emptiness Gundersen felt one night when he walked out on the stage. He said he wrote the opening song, “After All (Everything All The Time)”, over the course of a year and half.
“It was to me the simplest, most honest statement to start the record with because there is a cultural element of wanting everything all the time,” he said. “It also felt important for me to say I’m a part of that as well. I’m not excluded from having that desire to constantly be satiated while never truly feeling happy with all these superfluous things. So it felt like a good kick-off to the record.”
Gundersen, who grew up in a small railroad town, said he wrote the song “Fear & Loathing” with his hometown in mind.
“It used to have an identity as a town,” he said. “People had a sense of themselves in their work. And I think when that is gone it creates this void of ‘Who are we as people? Who are we as a town and a culture?’ And then I think it gives rise to this kind of insular thinking that is self-preserving, and one-dimensional and ultimately becomes bigoted and a lot of that drives from a sense of identity as a town, and even as a country.”
He added: “The song was not meant to excuse anyone. Fear is normal. Change is really terrifying, especially if you have grown up in a small town. There’s a lot of that and I see that.”