blog

Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).

Listen to the new Roland High Life song, "Old Atlantic!

My indie rock band The Roland High Life is finally playing shows again! And so to celebrate, we put out a new song. Well sort of.

We’re calling this a “remix” even though the non-remixed version of the song hasn’t actually been released yet. That’s because I record this version by myself, with the intention of releasing it as a single under the name “The Quentin Choir.” Then, the Roland High Life started practicing again, and “Old Atlantic” began taking a new life with the full band sound. But I was still really happy with this solo version I’d recorded. So, with the band’s permission, we decided to put it out to help promote our upcoming shows.

The real fun story behind this song is that it came to me almost complete formed. I was driving back to Boston from Ithaca at some point, listening to a live bootleg from Frank Turner’s 2019 Lost Evenings festival, which took place in Boston, and which I attended with Jake and Chris from my band. Just as I crested the curve of the Mass Pike and saw the Boston skyline in through the distant sunset, the Frank Turner song “If Ever I Stray” came on. It’s already a song about home and friendship and, well, water — “If ever I stray from the path I follow, take me down to the English Channel, throw me in where the water is shallow, and then drag me on back to shore.” And suddenly, the chorus of “Old Atlantic” just struck me. I think “This is gonna be my Boston version of ‘If Ever I Stray.’” I pulled over and recorded a voice memo, then finished the song as soon as I got home.

The bonus irony here being that the final version of the song has a weirdly Everclear vibe to it, sounding nothing like Frank Turner at all despite being written as a deliberate homage. Ah well!

You can “Old Atlantic” on any ol’ streaming platform. So check it out!