John Zdrojeski Talks About Longing and Wanting With “Nor’easter I” EP

We are already in the middle of July, and you guys know what that means, it means only one thing, and it is, to discover new music!

John Zdrojeski, a New York-based singer, songwriter, and actor, brings this new music to you. He gets his great storytelling from his background in theater and musical experience. Because he’s been part of a bigger entertainment industry, you can see his mastery of his craft on his new EP entitled Nor’easter I. It is the first from a trilogy of EP’s Zdrojeski is releasing over the next year and a half, while he’s doing The Great Gatsby on Broadway.

Zdrojeski shared that this EP earned its title because of two particular reasons. First, he lived his entire life in the Northeast of the US, and rather than shy away from being specific about that in his imagery ― he said that he wanted to lean into it. The second is that it is a reference to the specific storms that would stop the world there in the tri-state and New England. In Zdrojeski, this storm is his mother’s death, specifically.

Nor’easter I was a product of confusion and grief. Zdrojeski shared that he was trying to find himself both aurally and spiritually. “Aurally, between the classic rock-influenced LP Misters I released in 2022 and the folky EP Primitive I released in 2019, and spiritually, in the wake of my mother’s death in 2022.” He also pointed out that something he had learned in his grief is that life ― in part ― is losing people who have a sense and appreciation of you as a person; who can validate the experiences that exist only now in one’s memory. “Nor’easter I is—I think — my attempt to do that for
myself.”

The EP started with a song that is entitled California Pick Me Up. This song tells the story of a person who chooses a life that’s completely opposite of the one he’s used to living when he was younger, and wishing to come back home. It is not that you completely hate the life that you’re living now, but because the life you lived in the past is more comfortable and warm.

The second song in the EP is entitled Daisy. It was a song for a lover that you intensely want to be with, but literally cannot, because they still has ties with another person and that makes the whole relationship complicated. The persona talking in the song is also ready to risk it all for dear love, but can’t do anything about it.

The third song, War-torn, gives us a scenario of a couple going through a divorce. It was beautifully written how they both suffer from the vows they made out of love, now that they’re out of love with each other. The song feels suffocating and awkward, which is good because it shows how well-portrayed the story is through the song’s lyrics. Carrol Gardens 1984 is kind of connected to the former song, War-torn. In this song, the persona is wishing for them and their partner to go back in time, when everything is alright and fine.

The EP’s ender is the song Everything Says It So. It is a song for someone who you admire so much that you won’t care about being humiliated yourself or being in a competition with other people for their love, because you’ll move the mountains for them. That’s how intense you feel for them.

“To paraphrase Jason Isbell, the songs in this EP aren’t fiction or non-fiction, but they are truthful. The characters in them (and they are characters) are all longing for something: a different time, or to go home, or to not repeat the mistakes of their parents. And while this EP is definitely a rock EP (with a conscious nod to the heartland rock of the eighties that was big when I was born) it leads with its lyrics.” shares Zdrojeski.

If you also want to experience a one-of-kind EP, stream Nor’easter I on your favorite music streaming platforms, and don’t forget to follow John Zdrojeski on his social media accounts for updates on his music and acting career, too!

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