Welcome to An Overnight Low
The music of An Overnight Low is based on a journey that inspired a trilogy of travel albums. Delayed at Heathrow airport for nine hours and facing another six on my flight home for Christmas, Chad Walls pulled out the pictures, videos and interviews he collected over the past year while studying at The University of Manchester in England. Over several cups of Costa coffee, he organized these scattered items in folders on his laptop while waiting for his flight. The year of distance provided an objectivity allowing him to stitch together unrelated moments into common themes. The collected events spoke with a new voice creating new stories.
On his return to the university after the holidays, he continued using spare time to travel around the UK. En route, he continued to rearrange his travel artifacts. On one particular trip he used a typical song format as a template. He used journal notes and pictures he had taken at The Queen of Hearts pub on the corner of Oxford St. and Wilbraham Rd. in Manchester to create the song Sleeper. The videos he made at The Castle Arms in Edinburgh yielded Trainspotting Extras. The picture he took of sunlight glowing through a glass of beer at Teuchter’s pub in Leith inspired Smile.
He divided these songs into three albums named after the train stations he frequented most: Euston (2014), Piccadilly (2015), and Waverley (2016) and formed a band, An Overnight Low (Mac Coldwell, Chris Mayo, Sam Anderson, Mike Murphy) to help him record and perform them live. Rick Johnson of the Portland Press Herald says, “the resulting song cycle that makes up the album plays like a great road movie, and hits all the essential road movie bullet points along the way, including lost loves, fading friendships, loneliness tinged with excitement, travel in general and the characters one meets along the way on any journey.”
Sam Anderson– vocals, guitar….. Tina Murphy– vocals, guitar, keys….. Mike Murphy– drums, percussion….. Chad Walls– lyrics, bass, uke…. Mac Coldwell– vocals….. Chris Mayo– vocals, guitar
