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Communist Daughter on Touring through Exhaustion and Writing through Recovery

Communist Daughter
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Johnny and Molly Solomon of Communist Daughter

"It's the new album until tomorrow." On the last day of their tour, husband and wife musical team Molly and Johnny Solomon of Communist Daughter share exhausted breaths of post-tour pants-less desires and insight into their next project. 

Released in October of 2016, "The Cracks that Built the Wall," is more or less an old album at this point. The album contains songs covering multiple genres that Johnny says can be misleading to their listeners.

"We'll play shows where if people only know our slow folk harmony acoustic stuff, they'll show up and wonder why everyone is setting up all of these amps. And then there's times where people are expecting a full-on rock show and they don't realize there's three part harmonies and I have to pick up my acoustic for part of the show," he says.

"In the industry it can get maddening for a band to put a record together where there's three or four different styles, but I think it's been a strength for us in terms of being artists," Solomon adds.

Molly and Johnny's combined voices act together as a haunting and effective instrument. "Molly's voice was the voice I needed," Johnny recalls when he first discovered her voice. Molly notes that she had never taken a voice lesson. "I forced my brothers to sing with me so I could learn how to harmonize."

While it is Molly and Johnny's voices heard throughout, much of the album was written with Johnny's recovery from addiction in mind. "This record was more of coming to terms with my addiction. [It] was a lot about making peace with myself instead of making peace with everyone else around me," he explains.

"I think who I used to be would look at me and say 'I don't like that guy.' I eat healthy, I do yoga, I go to bed early, well we're all battling with who's the most tired. Right now the way we're dealing with it is this is the last day of tour... and man, next week is going to be awesome -- pretty sure I don't need to wear pants for a while." He laughs.

Despite still promoting their "old album," it isn't too early to talk about their next project. "Even though I definitely want a little time to think about it,  it feels like it's already started," says Johnny. "You learn a lot when you get sober and you try to write songs.

"As an addict when I was writing I relied a lot on this idea that once it strikes me I have to have inspiration. Once I got sober I had to learn a lot about how you can't get anything done unless you're sitting down working, so I just have faith that it'll come, it'll happen. This might be a little naive because I'm just at that stage where I now need to sit down with my guitar again and start banging things out." 

communist_daughter_-_roll_a_stone.mp3
Communist Daughter performs "Roll a Stone."

communist_daughter_-_balboa_bridge.mp3
Communist Daughter performs "Balboa Bridge."
communist_daughter_-_sunday_morning_again.mp3
Communist Daughter performs "Sunday Morning Again."