“‘Tipping Point’ is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, especially considering I was the grand prize winner of the International Songwriting Competition with it. The song is about the incredibly frustrating yet simultaneously inspiring moment when you realize something in your life is coming to an end. With the video, we aimed to capture that emotion and tell a story that reflected the lyrics in as cinematic a fashion as possible.”
“Vinyl, to me, signifies ‘the album’ as an art form. For me, vinyl has always embodied the concept that when listening to an album, you aren’t just listening to a collection of songs, but something greater. A statement is being made; you are adding one and one and one and somehow getting five. Listening through an album is a journey divided by carefully placed intermissions (side flips), and when you get to the end, you feel like you’ve achieved something. The physical vinyl and its packaging is your badge of honor.
When I was a kid just getting into and quickly becoming obsessed by music, that was how I experienced vinyl. I am grateful to have lived in a house filled with great records. My mother had an enormous Neil Young collection that I completely wore out. Neil was absolutely one of the greats. He put out a lot of content and honestly missed just as much as he hit, but when he hit, he tapped into something magical.
I remember listening to Harvest for the first time and not only being blown away by every song on the album, but being confused and amazed at the same time as to how an album could have such a perfect dichotomy. Half the project was a rootsy, in-studio folk album and the other half was Neil accompanied by the grandeur of a symphony orchestra. It made no sense, yet complete sense at the same time.
It was with that vinyl record that I realized that well thought out contrast could make for great art just as well, if not better, than cohesion. It was that mentality that made me push “Tipping Point” a bit further into the writing process. The bridge of the song is nothing like the rest of the record and brings the listener into a different world. Like Neil Young’s Harvest, the song develops with one vibe, makes a sharp left turn, then immediately swings back to something familiar yet elevated. It was great artists like Neil Young that always pushed me to take the music to another level.
In honor of these greats that shaped me to be the music maker I am today, I keep a small collection of my favorite albums lying around my studio for inspiration. Right now I have Bruce’s Born to Run, Lynard Skynard’s (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd), and my all time favorite album, Van Morrison’s Moondance. I can confidently say I’ve listened to all three of these albums hundreds of times each. There was a point in my early teens when I listened to Moondance twice a day for an entire year. Without question, Van Morrison taught me how to write songs and set the bar extremely high as to what an album is capable of accomplishing.
For most of the greats’ records, vinyl was more than just a music storage medium. It was a statement and an artistic gesture. While we currently live and operate with a digital singles model, I still firmly believe the significance of the album that vinyl birthed is as potent and necessary as ever.”
—Skrizzly Adams
Skrizzly Adams’ “Atlantic City” EP arrives in stores later this year.
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