Interview: John Condit & The Comedown
- Kenny Sandberg
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
The Comedown feels like a deliberate fresh start. After years with Lilly Hiatt's band and The Inscape, what made this the right moment to launch something entirely under your own name?
There’s been a sort of evolution through all of the music I’ve made… Each time feeling a little more focused than the last. After about 12 years of using The Inscape moniker, it always felt difficult to create a ‘band image’ with it. I always had members floating in and out, and the music started to always feel like more of a solo project than anything. After writing the Return to the Center album, it felt like the right time to come out as a solo artist since I played most of the instruments on the album with my longtime musical sidekick, and bass player, Robert Hudson.
Once Return to the Center was released, I had actually formed what felt like a solid band. Our live shows consisted mostly of the Return to the Center material, but as we started to work on new songs and gel on the existing material, calling it a full solo project didn’t feel quite right. I decided to give the band a name, and The Comedown felt like a good name! It is definitely a fresh start since this new music is coming from a solid core of the four of us.
You've spoken about "Shooting Star" coming out of a period of writer's block after Return to the Center. What does writer's block actually feel like for you, and what eventually broke it?
Writer’s block feels like monotony to me. Return to the Center came out of a fruitful time during Covid, when I had the time to sit and solely think about music. Of course, after writing Return to the Center, came the actual recording of it, and then I mixed the album entirely myself, which kept me busy and present with it. After the world started coming back together, so did the daily grind of working full time, settling into schedules, and getting back to the “real world.” All of this really felt like it was putting music and creativity on the back burner for me. I think what really helped break it was bringing some of the half written ideas I had to the band, and that started to flush things out. Songwriting still feels a little slower for me these days, but I was so excited to just have something that was not only literally new, but new and refreshing to myself and the band.
Recording live to analog 2-inch tape with minimal overdubs is a real statement of intent in 2025. What does that process demand from the band that a more layered studio approach wouldn't?
Recording to tape always makes the band listen to each other, and operate more as a unit together. I’m not discrediting that this can’t happen when recording digitally, but when there’s not an unlimited amount of takes, it really forces you all to focus. Every record I’ve always done has always been on tape in some regard, but this time I really wanted us to capture what the band sounded like as a whole.
The track is being compared to The Verve and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Are those reference points you were consciously working from, or did they come as a surprise when people started making the connection?
Kind of, yes! We did a couple small tours after Return to the Center was released, and one comment that really stuck with me was people saying we sounded like The Verve live. I’ve been a huge Verve and BJM fan for awhile, and have consistently become more interested in some of those earlier psych meets shoegaze sounds of the 90s. It’s felt more like a direction to work towards nowadays. Not saying I want to sound exactly like those bands, but there is certainly inspiration.
You describe "Shooting Star" as being about breaking through mental and emotional fog. How personal is that? Are you writing from your own experience or something more universal?
There are always bits in my songs that come from personal experience. Shooting Star is definitely analogous in some ways. I think the biggest analogy with it was from getting over a relationship from the past couple years. Shooting Star felt like something that really broke through that fog.
What does The Comedown look like beyond this single? Is there an album in the works, and does the band have a live show yet?
We have another single to follow "Shooting Star” that will come out soon called “Bend The Light.” It is a much slower song, and certainly embraces the idea of the comedown. No full album yet, but we’re chipping away at things! My guitar player recently had a child so live shows will hopefully pick up more as he and his partner get settled. We’re itching to play!
