Every week, the Milwaukee Music Premiere connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
When talking about a song titled “Flowers in a Storm,” it’s a bit too easy to lean on the old trope of every cloud having a silver lining. It’s also hard not to conjure those words of wisdom after hearing about this love song written for someone else turning into a song about needing to love yourself first.
That’s the realization Oli Smith of Milwaukee band Rainbow Cobra arrived at in the three-plus years between writing “Flowers in a Storm” and sharing it with the world via this Milwaukee Music Premiere.
Back in 2021, Smith was in a celebratory frame of mind thanks to the relationship he was in at the time. Like a lot of us in that situation, he forged a stong link between the person he was with and his own emotional health. Eventually, Smith had to put that relationship — and that link — behind him.
“I truly believed that a relationship or something outside of myself could fix my problems and make me feel whole,” he shared with us. “But I had to realize the hard way that this type of dependence on someone else for my own wellbeing was unfair and unhealthy. Writing and recording this song helped me realize that.”
With years between those two activities, Smith had time to build a sturdy collaboration with Rainbow Cobra bandmates Tommy Curtis, Nicholas Abel and Sam Broadnax. This past April, the quartet hooked up with Radio Milwaukee’s own Lodi Broekhuizen to spend time in the studio recording “Flowers in a Storm” and a couple other tracks.
Aided by Lodi’s trademark serenity, they ended up with a single that — like the band’s evolution — starts with Smith on drums and acoustic guitar before carefully layering contributions to create a well-rounded final product. Electric guitar, bass, grand piano, tambourine and even some violin from their multi-talented producer merge beautifully as Smith sings about being in the thrall of a seemingly healthy relationship:
Your love makes me feel
Like I’m ten thousand people
Living their lives
Happy, warm and stable
I’ve never lived
To see what comes of us
First time that love
Comes hand in hand with trust
Smith put a nice button on the three-year journey to this premiere, saying, “It’s really cool when something you made, like a song, can be a mirror in which you reveal your own blind spots to yourself.”
Listen to “Flowers in a Storm” anytime using the player at the top of the page, or catch it on 88Nine today at 7:30 and 11:30 a.m., and 3:30, 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. The single’s official release is this Friday, Jan. 31, and Rainbow Cobra will likely bring it the very famous X-Ray Arcade stage when they open for Neva Dinova on Feb. 21.
