Patrik Tanner produced and played with Tina & the B-Sides, Martin Zellar and the Hardways, and GB Leighton to name but a few, but throughout it all, he quietly recorded and released his own solo albums, Emitt Rhodes style, playing all the instruments. “It was a matter of finances as well as wanting something I felt I had ownership in.”
On his 11th solo album, Becoming the Sea, Patrik looks at letting go of the things we will all ultimately lose and reckons with one’s inevitable obsolescence. All with a nod to toward the music produced in California during the 1970’s. “Once I had moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980’s, I thought I’d never leave. It was still alive then. The sunset strip and all that, but even now when I visit, some of the magic remains, like an echo. L.A. has become a bit of an impossibility, but I still love it. I don’t think I ever truly left.”
All 13 songs on Becoming the Sea were chosen and sequenced by his wife of 22 years, Michelle Tanner. “It was as if she gave me an assignment. She asked for a file of all the songs I had laying around and picked the ones she thought belonged together. It really took the pressure off. Turns out they work together well thematically.”
The lead off single, California, is precisely the kind of song that comes easily to any songwriter who ever stared into the colorless void that is Minnesota in November. “If you live up here, you can’t even complain about it. People will tell you to stop whining or just move somewhere else. Still, anyone who can afford it will go elsewhere for a winter vacation but I’ve never met anyone from Aruba vacationing in Minneapolis in January.”
Impending loss runs through the album. “You learn the meaning of gratitude once you become aware of how much you have to lose. When you’re no longer running toward something, or away from something, you can appreciate how delicate everything is. It’s a balancing act. Makes you pay attention. I probably wouldn’t last 5 minutes in the same room with 22 year old me. That guy was insufferable.”
ALL SONGS WRITTEN, ARRANGED, PRODUCED, PERFORMED, RECORDED, MIXED AND MASTERED BY PATRIK TANNER AT STUDIO BREDSOUND, MINNEAPOLIS, MN. WHEW!
BACKING VOCALS ON THIS IS GOODBYE BY TINA SCHLIESKE (THANK YOU!)
BACKING VOCALS ON THE MIRROR BY ELLIOTT TANNER (DU ÄR DET FINASTE PAPPA HAR!)
SELFIE IN SANTA BARBARA BY PATRIK TANNER
ARTWORK AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION BY MICHELLE TANNER (YOU PICKED THEM, AND I PLAYED THEM. I LOVE YOU, BABY!)
PUBLISHED PATRIK TANNER (ASCAP) DARK ONE DO-0008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2022
IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR!