The Sound of Music: Will Toledo Writes from the Heart of Depression
Will Toledo’s solo project fuses spacey guitar-riffs with confessional lyrics to strike at the heart of personal ennui.
The Sound of Music breaks down how every little noise ― that instrument, that sample, that oh-so-significant pause ― makes a song special.
Written by Kateri David
Photo courtesy of Chona Kasinger
If any band deserves to be the patron saint of feeling down, it’s Car Seat Headrest. In the four years since Teens of Denial catapulted the band to indie rock stardom, they’ve developed a cult following among lost college students: the post-teens who feel alone in a crowd, nursing quiet heartbreaks. Though there’s no shortage of indie bands singing about bad drug trips or failed relationships, frontman Will Toledo writes on personal lows with an inimitable clarity — a surprising feat considering the band’s discography mostly consists of re-recordings from Toledo’s solo project from the early 2010s.
Before Car Seat Headrest, Toledo self-produced albums under the moniker Nervous Young Man. Stuck in his hometown of Leesberg, Virginia, he would drive his family’s station wagon to deserted parking lots, belting songs about adolescent heartbreak and confusion into his laptop. More than anything, recording was an outlet: after matriculating into Virginia Commonwealth University, Toledo felt anxious about school and distanced from his peers. “I didn’t get out much. That’s what the music reflects — introversion,” Toledo said in a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone.
These backseat recording sessions proved fruitful: over four years, Toledo self-released 11 free albums on Bandcamp. The sonic landscape on each release is crude and distant, saturated in feedback and tinny guitar riffs. Even on his more focused tracks, Toledo’s vocals still ring out from a distance, moving between a groggy deadpan when mocking his neuroses and a reverb-tinged cry when spilling his guts. Still, his songwriting gleams.
Toledo is a rare breed of lyricist who can root songs in feeling miserable; any resulting thoughts or observations serve to help him work through this state. Even within indie rock, a genre nearly synonymous with sadness, Toledo's songwriting stands apart. Where most artists talk about depressed moods through metaphors, relaying what it feels like, Toledo describes his reaction against it — or his inability to describe it at all. “I need a name for what I’m feeling, then I can start to work on a meaning,” he mumbles to himself on “The Ending of Dramamine,” a 14-minute track from How to Leave Town. The landscape is equally desolate: bleating synths bookend the song, appearing then fading back to nothing. The track is a not-so-subtle nod to Modest Mouse's “Dramamine,” which ends with a jarring series of alarms. When Toledo’s voice finally enters at the fifth minute, muffled and heavy, it rings out as a space transmission, joined only by the low hum of a synth and a ticking snare. On the following track, “Beast Monster Thing,” Toledo doubles-down on his problem: “Love isn’t love enough,” he sings in the chorus, voice cracking.
Photo courtesy of Pitchfork
But depression is hardly stagnant. Throughout these early Bandcamp releases, Toledo runs the gamut of ennui — sometimes within a single track. On “Plane Crash Blues (I Can’t Play the Piano)” from Nervous Young Man, Toledo veers into dissociation, losing touch with the present as he drives his station wagon. “I’m just cruising through the stop sign / Sorry officer, the radio was blowing my mind,” he croons over mournful guitar strums. It sounds sincere at first, but the background vocal — a lazy, looping note — betrays his disregard. It’s only at 4:19, when Toldeo’s thrashing guitar crescendo breaks, that we’re clued in on genuine regret: “My car just touched another / And everyone got hurt.”
Toledo’s known for witty songwriting but, more often than not, his humor stems from pairing offbeat instrumentals with earnest confessions. It makes his music seem self aware, as if Toledo's laughing at himself. In most cases, the combination of staggered beats and intense vulnerability makes the subject matter easier to swallow for listeners, but Toledo knows when to pull back and be sincere. On “something soon” from 2013’s My Back Is Killing Me Baby, upbeat, panoramic drums score the main verses, even as Toledo sings about wanting to bash his head in a car door. There’s a plucky bass guitar riff too, a sound seemingly borrowed from a stomp-and-holler anthem. When he revolts against self-loathing in the chorus, the drums drop out abruptly, leaving only Toledo’s cry. “Heavy boots on my throat / I need something soon,” he yells, supported by a bevy of self-harmonies. Here, his plea takes center stage.
Given Toledo’s confessional style, it’s natural to assume his songs stem directly from personal battles. However, when asked about “Fill in the Blank,” a raucous ballad from Teens of Denial about depression-induced guilt, Toledo said he doesn’t consider himself to be mentally ill, though he relates to the sense of emotional displacement. “It’s an inability to even describe what you’re going through, because you want to do justice to it without overblowing it,” Toledo told Vice.
It’s through stumbling around his feelings, dodging clichéd metaphors and direct labels, that Car Seat Headrest creeps closer to the truth: there isn’t a clear answer for his moods. Sometimes, depression is a faceless thing. Toledo seems comfortable with this fact, even as his songs move between detachment and violent desperation. In many ways, his early project feels more genuine, more earnest, than most 'sad indie' acts today, likely because Nervous Young Man was just that: an anxious college student who felt unknown to the word, recording music from his car.