RISK TAKER
Brandon Decker puts everything into his band, music
Taking risks is part of who Brandon Decker is.
The musician has invested everything in his music.
From his time, energy and emotions to his finances, everything goes into pushing his art forward.
All this comes after a health scare a few years ago.
“I’m fine now, but it was scary,” he says in a recent interview. “Not knowing if I was ever going to play again, that was scary.”
But Decker is back, and his new album, “Into the Red,” will be released in August.
The album is partly retrospective. It will have songs from the six albums he has released with his band, decker.
The other half of the album is new music inspired by the state of the world.
“Everything about what we do as artists needs to be about an experience, about making people feel and think,” he says. “The reason to perform is to inspire.”
For Decker, inspiration most often comes from the natural beauty that surrounds him in his adopted hometown of Sedona, Ariz.
The album title also serves as a not-sosubtle tip of the cap to his fascination with the area’s distinctive geology.
“Sedona is this red rock land that looks like Mars,” Decker said. “I grew up in the Midwest, and I’ve been all over the place, but Sedona is the first place that really felt like home. I don’t think I’ve ever really written a song outside of Sedona. It’s this fertile little embryo for creation.”
“Into the Red” also includes a pair of tracks from the band’s most recent studio release, 2016’s “Snake River Blues.”
The two tracks demonstrate both sides of Decker’s songwriting instincts, with “The Phantom” and “Holy Ghost.
“Snake River Blues” is also the title of a documentary about the band directed by Matty Steinkamp. The film captures the making of the album, a whirlwind tour of the West and a monthlong residency in New York City to mark the record’s release.
It chronicles a year in the life of the band and offers an unvarnished look at the setbacks and triumphs of the life of an independent musician.
“Matty came to me and said, ‘I want to make a film about what you’re doing because I believe in you,’” he says. “He just embedded with us for the better part of that year. It was strange because, you know, it’s one thing when you make a music video and you’re playing in front of the camera, but to have the cameras around you all the time was a new experience.”