Andrew Bryant is a singer-songwriter and musician from Oxford, Mississippi. He makes his own records in his home and plays drums and other things in Water Liars. Andrew started playing music as a teenager in the early 90’s in an evangelical church in the rural south. After high school, he became involved in the Memphis punk scene, relocating his music from the church to the small stages of DIY art spaces and music venues. He began making his own albums in his home in the early 2000’s and toured constantly. In 2012, he teamed up with Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster to form the band Water Liars. They made 4 albums together and played thousands of shows before giving it up. Andrew now lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his wife Sarah-SoonLing and his three children, making as much music as he can in his home studio.
On July 9th, Andrew will release his new solo album A Meaningful Connection, which finds him poignantly exploring the depths of his wants and needs and fears. For fans of Bryant’s work with Water Liars, the album finds him treading similar Southern ground as he writes uses quiet indie folk to offer thoughtful observations on where we are as a society.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the music video for “Reality Winner,” one of the standout tracks on the new album. The song finds Bryant examining our relationship with truth and reality, which is a theme that resonates in our time of social media-driven misinformation. Singing and rocking with a similar sense of reflection to artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Bryant takes a breather as he tries to distance himself from a constant bombardment of media that can make all of us crazy if we aren’t careful. This is backed by his simple approach to indie rock and folk as he layers in bright guitar solos and acoustic strumming with a straightforward beat and a catchy chorus. The video shows Bryant escaping to nature to ideally lose himself so he doesn’t lose his mind, which is a feeling many of us have become all too familiar with these days. In our time of media saturation that can lead to mental health issues, it’s refreshing to hear an artist like Bryant give us a well-written song that encourages us to unplug and let go.
Bryant describes the inspiration behind the song:
“‘Reality Winner’ was meant to be a song that exposes the harm inflicted on people in our society’s flawed relationship with truth and reality, particularly the damage caused when exposing lies with truth is condemned or punished. The inspiration came one night at the bottom of a Twitter rabbit hole concerning the imprisonment of Reality Winner, the former American intelligence specialist who exposed Russian interference in the 2016 election. Reading her story, and the numerous hot takes surrounding her actual reality, propelled me into anxiety, unable to shake the idea that our former reality star president might say something insanely ignorant like “She’s a Reality Loser if you ask me.” Needless to say, as a newly sober person, full of daily anxiety, I ended up in an existential spiral about the nature of truth, the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell others. Then I walked to the park and wrote this song so I wouldn’t lose my goddamn mind.”
WATCH:
Photo credit: Paul Gandy
