I Like This: Adam Baldwin
Adam Baldwin is a no-nonsense rocker from Nova Scotia who you may know from his association with fellow Dartmouthian native Matt Mays. He has a new EP coming out March 29th called No Rest for the Wicked via Sonic Records that encompasses the last few years of his life and how the East Coaster was almost swept up in an ocean current of despair and addiction.
Thankfully, Mr. Baldwin was able to find redeeming hope through music, delivering six raw, soul-bearing tracks whose subject matter is just as heavy as their guitar-driven instrumentation. The video for “Salvation” is particularly intense, and doesn’t pull any punches in terms of the effect Trump’s presidency is having on us all. Don’t think we’ll seeing that mess of rockstar hair under a MAGA hat any time soon. Here’s what Baldwin has to say about his powerful new song:
“At some point while writing this record, I’d given my addiction a personality. He was like a junk yard dog on the other side of a fence I’m cursed to walk by from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. I wanted that to come through on this recording in particular. The guitars had to be jagged, the bass had to growl, the words had to snap and bark.
I was attending twelve step meetings in the basement of a church in the south end of Halifax. One was held a few hours before I had to go to work singing songs at whatever bar, around the various substances I was desperate to avoid. This is where the religious imagery comes from. I’m not a religious man, but I was trying to find a god of any sort to save me from myself. I wrote the words in my head during one meeting just by looking at the old cross stitches hanging crookedly around the room, and from listening to the harshest truths I’ve ever heard, delivered by some of the most unassuming folks I’d ever met. Truth is cold. It’s uncomfortable, it’s harsh. That basement was cold. Damn cold.”
Adam Baldwin is currently wrapping up an intimate tour of Ontario. Visit his website to find out where you can still catch him…and maybe pray at the saving altar of rock.