Every week, the Milwaukee Music Premiere sponsored by Density Studios 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.
Milwaukee’s Stephen Ziel is back with his Chrystal Gales project alongside producer and engineer Mike Bliesener. Their newest song once again proves Ziel’s adeptness for creating soulfully heartbreaking music with country elements sewn into its roots
On today’s premiere of “Broken In,” Ziel stretches those roots further into the local scene, reconnecting with Milwaukee icons Goran Kralj (of the Gufs) and Jeremy Kuzniar (of Kings Go Forth, De La Buena).
Helping build the iconic ’90s Milwaukee scene with his band Pet Engine, Ziel was always used to having an outlet and yet was forced to let it lie semi-dormant while he was “changing diapers and cooking macaroni and cheese” for his two children. Ziel explained that he would try as often as he could to retreat to his “‘island of misfit toys’ basement studio” to continue his musical explorations and revive his mental health with songwriting.
He underlines that he took a “10,000-foot view” of his life and realized the ebbs and flows in his personal happiness matched up with the amount of time he spent on music.
The last time we shared a song from Ziel’s project, it had stretched its Milwaukee bounds by recording “Wide Awake,” a song created with Gail Ann Dorsey and Sam Lyons in Memphis as part of the The Goffin & King Foundation’s June 2024 songwriting retreat. Inspired by that experience, Ziel continued the process solo at home but soon found a ready collaborator in an old friend.
“‘Broken In’ started as an idea recorded on a phone late at night about six months ago,” he shared with us. “It was put off to the side while work on other songs took precedence. If you're a songwriter, you've got a phone filled with little epiphanies, and I never forgot about the spark of ‘Broken In.’”
He turned that spark into a flame a few months later by recording a cassette-tape demo and sharing it with friends, including Kralj. “Upon hearing the demo, Goran, Mike and myself all agreed that this was the right choice as the first single for the new record.”
There were some wrong turns, however. Ziel said he “hit a roadblock” and wrote a half-dozen different bridges for the song — none of which captured what he was pursuing. “So Goran picked up his guitar and wrote the chords and melody for the middle eight, and I wrote the lyrics. The bridge now serves as a brief memorial to mutual friend and collaborator John Michaels, who passed away during Covid.” On it, Ziel sings:
Just like the friends
That we have "lost along the way"
If it's meant to be
The things that leave
Come back someday
It’s the story of a positive outlook on a bleak situation. A story of hurting and being hurt but still attempting to fly as high as you can go. It’s the reason why Ziel often headed to his basement studio to apply some songwriting salve to his mental health; he just took it a step further this time by enlisting the fortifying support of friends.
The instrumentation of “Broken In” matches the upbeat and hopeful vantage point, adding snappy percussion and handclaps from Kuzniar to major-key jangly rock ‘n roll that feels like winds of change heading in a positive direction.
To get a dose of that positivity, hit the “Listen” button at the top of the page and catch “Broken In” on 88Nine today at 7:30 and 11:30 a.m.; and 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. You can also hear it live at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, when Chrystal Gales play with special guests Steve Vorass and Andrew David Weber at Wayfinder Bar/Restaurant (formerly Good City Brewing) on Farwell Avenue.
