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One of the reasons why we strive to create community is to deal with life’s curveballs. For people like Stephen Ziel, frontman of Chrystal Gales, community is all one has when those pitches get harder and harder and hit — something reflected in the band’s new single, “Everything Hurts.”
Ziel got his start in the Milwaukee music scene performing with Pet Engine, an alternative power-pop band that got some heat in the ’90s. His new project takes a contemporary country approach, evoking heartbreak and emotional turmoil through twang. It also invites other artists to contribute, and plenty of them accepted for the track we’re premiering today.
“Everything Hurts” is a hopeful, intergenerational collaboration that sees a host of talents join Ziel: Matt Smith on bass and producing, Steve Vorass on drums, Thea Vorass on cello, Thalia Hildebrand on vocals and an entire music production class from MATC.
The project is an exercise in trying to make sense of the world, stemming from a time in Ziel’s life when he was taking care of a loved one suffering from debilitating mental conditions.
“I’d always heard the words ‘dementia and Alzheimer’s,’ but I had little to no firsthand experience dealing with the realities of those diseases,” Ziel recalled. “After an intense week of hosting and caring for someone with a complex combination of memory loss, depression and PTSD, I quickly realized what an uphill battle we were fighting together.”
It was a time of devastation and forced introspection that led to him writing “Everything Hurts” as a way to contextualize the experience. So when it came time to record, it was paramount that he gather a lifetime's worth of collaborators who could bring as much heart as possible to the music.
The song took months to create, with the group constantly writing and rewriting every piece of the arrangement. Their fine-tuning became distinct enough for Smith’s MATC production class to take a swing at recording — a community manifested in a classroom.
The instrumentation follows a lot of American pop country standards, but with flair from the auxiliary instruments thrown in the mix. The cello and keys add an integral flow to the rhythm section that leads the listener through a gentle sway, with the guitar and organ acting as the gear changes that drive the song forward.
Lyrically, Ziel paints a picture of clutching to a future that’s always just out of reach:
I’ve heard the world can turn you upside down
And make you feel like This is all a waste of time
You’re uninvited to the life you're living now
I see the terror in your eyes
Everything hurts
Nothing feels good anymore
I deserve something better than before
Where have all the heroes gone?
Still waiting for Superman to come and save me
In a different light and with another story fueling it, “Everything Hurts” could have been remarkably depressing. But the way it came to be is truly a story of perseverance that shows how creating something with a community can turn the saddest song into a story of hope.
If money can’t buy happiness
And being broke makes you depressed
You hold your cards close to your chest
And try and get a little rest
But now you’re floating out to sea
You burned the forest for the trees
You painted it from memory
A lot of people think all they can do is watch the world around them burn and lose faith in everything they thought was real. To Ziel’s point, money can’t buy happiness, so maybe it's the struggle of just trying to figure out life that can bring some semblance of harmony. Superman's not coming to save us, but the people around us can make life go by just a tad easier.
“Everything Hurts” is the first taste of Chrystal Gale’s new album, Everyone for 10 Minutes, which will be released later this year. For now, you can listen to the single anytime using the player at the top of the page and catch it on 88Nine throughout today (7:30, 11:30 a.m.; 3:30, 7:30 p.m.).
Jonathan Joseph is a Milwaukee-based multimedia freelance journalist who specializes in art and culture writing (and all things Milwaukee), with work appearing on Radio Milwaukee and in Milwaukee Magazine. Contact him via email or find him on LinkedIn.