Q&A: Finding Charm in Between Gray Skies, Buffalo-Based Eugene Palmer Celebrates Release of Album ‘Rut’ With Upcoming Release Party
INSPIRATION CAN BE DRAWN FROM ANYWHERE — and we all find it in different places. For Buffalo-born and raised artist Eugene Palmer, it is found nestled in the music of other artists, in the undertones of his hometown losing the Super Bowl, and in isolation that was prompted by the world being shut down. Palmer’s latest full-length album, Rut, out everywhere now, explores the simplicity in life.
Somewhere between the home of the Buffalo Bills football team and the picturesque mountains of Montana among the elk, Matt DiStasio’s alter-ego of Eugene Palmer was born. After years of making and recording music, the accumulation has come to fruition with this release.
Rut is equipped with 10 songs that each take on a life of their own, with euphonious and dreamy notes paradoxed by psychedelic rock undertones. Standout track “Apparition” has a full sound with an almost beach-rock flare, despite the artist actually having no relation to the beach. “Summer Day” is another gentle piece, showcasing Palmer’s ability to hit high notes while we dream of warmer weather, as all New Yorkers do.
Read on below to learn more about the process of creating Rut, upstate New York’s hottest album release party, and what Eugene Palmer is listening to.
LUNA: Congrats on your release of Rut! There is quite the mix of sounds on the album — what did your creative process look like?
PALMER: Thank you! Some of the riffs on this record I think I first started playing six or seven years ago. I love writing songs but my process is more like writing a college essay the night before its due than something more refined and disciplined. I really need a deadline to get a new batch of songs out.
In March 2020, I was one of the first people to get COVID in Erie County, and since I worked at a cancer hospital at the time I basically was quarantined in my one-bedroom apartment alone for seven weeks. When I got sick of binging TV shows I spent my time organizing my ideas into actual songs. This is when I wrote “Mountain Road,” “Apparition,” “Summer Day,” and “Little Birds.”
Fast forward to late summer 2021, a friend asked if I wanted to open for his band and that’s when I got the band together for the first time and finished writing the rest of the tracks. Like any good hipster, I’ve loved Pet Sounds since I was younger, and I ended up exploring a Brian Wilson-esque approach to my vocals on a lot of these songs. I listened to a lot of Brazilian musicians like Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa in college and those bossa nova–style jazz chords and syncopations found their way into a couple tracks as well.
LUNA: I think COVID changed the typical course of action for many creative people, and it had these weird benefits where we were so isolated that it forced us to make art or write music. How do you think Buffalo, NY has shaped your sound?
PALMER: As much as I love my home city, Buffalo has long, depressing winters and everyone that lives here has a little seasonal affective disorder. It’s cold and the skies turn gray for weeks at a time. We used to be an industrial hub, and all the factories shut down decades ago. And worst of all, we went to the Super Bowl and lost four years in a row in the early ’90s. In writing a record that I decided to call Rut, while not intentional, I think a lot of these local cultural emotions came out in my music. I wanted the record to come out in the middle of one of these gray winters hoping people might find some beauty and comfort in it while going through a hard patch themselves. I think the lyrics reflect a lot of these themes as well.
LUNA: It’s hard not to comment on the social and atmospheric happenings around you! What else inspires you while you write?
PALMER: I lean heavily on my influences, so I love listening to new music all the time, hoping what I like to hear will subconsciously find its way into my music. I prefer to have spontaneity dictate what I write, playing guitar for hours until riffs come out that I like and writing my lyrics in a stream-of-consciousness way.
LUNA: Do you have a favorite track on the album? Can you talk to us about the meaning behind it? Give us an inside scoop of what is happening in your brain.
PALMER: I think my favorite track is “Mountain Road,” which from what I remember was the first of these songs I finished writing. One of the three songs on the record where I fingerpick the guitar, I at first just combined a couple riffs that I had been working on for a while. One day at band practice I hit my distortion pedal on a whim and that’s how the build-up to the end came to be. The lyrics are pretty much me fantasizing about moving back out west, while starting to feel burnt out at my job at the time as an Oncology RN.
I think this song is a good example of the themes of isolation and yearning for change that appear throughout the record. We recorded an early demo of the track to release as a single and I was never really happy with it, so I’m really glad people can finally hear the album version.
LUNA: Your release party is coming up on March 11 — talk to me about what fans can expect from the evening.
PALMER: Basically we’re going to play the whole record from start to finish. We have been playing as a three piece for the past couple years, but for the release party we are adding a second guitar and we have been adding a lot more vocal harmonies to our live show, so I think people are going to like what they hear.
Sonny Baker, a Buffalo indie legend, and his band are opening for us, and I’m super stoked. Some of my fondest memories are basement shows we played with Sonny’s band when I moved back to Buffalo around 2015. Last but not least, the show is at a record store so there will be CD copies of Rut and the full store to browse through.
LUNA: What or who are you currently listening to?
PALMER: I’ve got tickets to see Alvvays this weekend in London, Ontario so I’ve had their discography on repeat, especially their latest record, Blue Rev. I’ve also been playing the new Caroline Polachek record quite a bit. I’ve never been a contemporary country guy but I can’t stop listening to Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country. Lainey just plain rocks.
The album release show for Rut will take place at Black Dots Records, located at 368 Grant St, Buffalo, NY 14213 at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 11.
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