Eddie Cohn on Late Night

Eddie Cohn

On Wednesday September 7, 2011 at 8pm we are happy to have musician Eddie Cohn return to the Swoop’s Word Late Night studio. We’ll find up what Eddie’s been up to, his new music, and why he loves Instagram so much. Hopefully we can convince him to play a tune or two live in our studio again. After Eddie, we’ll be taking on all topics, and of course our regular Brewskis, sports, and news of the day segments. Tune in at Swoopsworld.com.

Eddie’s life has always been one of mutability. He fell in love with music as a child, teaching himself the piano at age three, and moving to a variety of other instruments. But his musical career almost came to a halt when he was diagnosed at the age of 12 with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic disorder that causes painful inflammation throughout the entire body.
“It kept me out of school for two years and the pain was debilitating,” Eddie remembers. ”It was a frustrating and scary time for me. I remember days when I couldn’t move my arms or nights when I would sit in front of my drum set just praying I would be able to play music again. When I could play, I remember going down into the basement to pound on my drum kit just out of anger.”

This intense period of time has left quite a mark on the young musician, what he describes as a “scar.” But, says Eddie, “that’s where I write from. That’s where I go to when I write songs. Those feelings of pain, loss, death will always inspire me.”

You can feel this intensity and fire in everything he’s done since, including his acclaimed second album Stay With Me (from 2010). The self-released disc has garnered comparisons to artists like Jeff Buckley and Radiohead, and praise from bloggers and reviewers, alike, including John Soeder of The Cleveland Plain Dealer who called it “a rewarding collection of intricately crafted tunes with emotionally impressionistic lyrics.”

While Stay With Me overflows with lush arrangements, the live versions are a much different animal, both by choice and due to the economic realities of being on the road. “Touring with a full band is expensive,” Eddie says, “and I didn’t want it to be just me onstage strumming a guitar. So, I had to decide what instruments were absolutely necessary, and to me, it had to be drums.”

Eddie and his drummer Adam Gust retreated to the studio to rearrange the songs from Stay With Me for this stripped down live setting, with Eddie learning how to utilize loop pedals alongside his work on guitar and piano. Inspired by this, and the response they got from audiences form his home in L.A. to the SXSW Music Festival and beyond, the two recorded these new arrangements, resulting in Lights On, a three-song, self-released EP that brings out even more of the melancholy, joy, and fervor of his already-emotion rich songs.

“Watch You (Walk Away)”, an intense, tribal drum-heavy plea on Stay With Me, has become a quiet reproach featuring nothing but Eddie’s stirring and sexy vocals, Fender Rhodes, and strings. Too, the title track from his last full-length, all downtempo Zero 7 grooves, is rendered even more haunting when held to just piano and a light pulsing drum beat.

While Eddie has already seen the effects of these new songs when he plays them live, the new EP is also having an impact on the folks at iTunes, who have featured Lights On on both their Indie Spotlight and Singer-Songwriter pages.