BACKSTORY

The origins of STATIC go back to 2013 when Conor Kelly O’Brien, playwright and theater producer, booked me my first show in Scranton, PA at a small theater he owned called The New Vintage. Both fledgling in our careers, Conor and I had a lot of ideas and lot of energy to pursue all of them. 

I wrote the first songs for what would become STATIC in 2016.

I wrote Little Life, as well as Big Eyes Big Heart, on the same day in the backyard of my parents’ house when I was home for a brief stopover between touring the East and West Coast. The next three songs I wrote were Panic In America,Find The Light Within, and I Can See You.  

I took a break at the end of 2016 and began to focus on developing the new material that ultimately became a nine song album called LIGHT SOUND. It was during this break I wrote Don’t Hold Me Down.

I recorded this album with Michael O’Keefe at his studio in New Orleans, Record Office Records, around the fall of 2017 and sent it to Conor not long after. Conor and I had talked briefly about him coming on the road with me as a tour manager but, when he heard this new music, he had a better idea. 

He said he was particularly inspired by the song Find The Light Within and was wondering if I wanted to turn the album into a musical. I immediately said yes and in the summer of 2018 we got together to merge his story with my music. He wove the six aforementioned songs into a narrative about a son writing music to process and cope with losing his father to dementia. 

We went on to perform this hour long, two man play together, Conor playing James and myself Matthew, at the Scranton Fringe in September of 2018, Cooperage in Honesdale, PA in November of 2018, Orlando Fringe in May 2019, Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, NY in July of 2019, Off-Broadway at 59E59 in July of 2019, and a full run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August of 2019. A live recording filmed during the Edinburgh Fringe was a part of the 59E59 Virtual East to Edinburgh Festival in July of 2021, when the in-person event was cancelled due to the pandemic. 

This musical gave us meaning and a reason to keep writing during the Covid pandemic when the future was anything but clear. We added Sam as a third character and I wrote four new songs (What are all the things you love about the world?, No Man’s Land, I Love You (Take Me Home), and Snowball) to expand the play to an hour and a half and add depth to the story. Our unfaltering director, Michael Pillot, kept us focused on continuing to develop this musical and, after all these years, it’s hard to believe we brought it to completion.

-Daniel Amedee