Minneapolis based trio Collapsing Stars is set to release their first full length record titled 2012, Saturday August 5th at the 331 Club. Three days later, they’ll pile into a van and hit the road for the first leg of their fall west coast tour, or as drummer Mike Langhoff refers to it, an opportunity to “make some Rock & Roll history.” Show starts at 10 PM but since there’s no cover – get there early.
2012 is the culmination of an artistic process that took roughly four years, a process that at times wasn’t always smooth. “For the first time in my life, I was experiencing some sort of creative block while trying to compose lyrics,” said Nelson. “I thought that in time it would pass, but after close to a year without any tangible progress on our record, I knew that I needed help.” Nelson decided to reach out to Minneapolis songwriting luminary Jeremy Messersmith. “Jeremy is extraordinarily accomplished in his own right, but what people might not know is that he’s a Dan Wilson Disciple. So I was the beneficiary of the wisdom and experience of two incredible songwriters. He walked me through his creative process and showed me some word exercises that helped break me out of my artistic paralysis. Without Jeremy this record may have never seen the light of day.”
Nelson wrote the first verse of the title track “2012” on December 20th, 2012. It was the eve of the highly publicized (and grossly misinterpreted) “Mayan Apocalypse,” the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mayan calendar. “It seems like every year, some fanatical group is predicting the end of the world, and I approached this prediction with the same indifference as all the others. But it piqued my curiosity so I decided to write a song about it. The first half of the song is in keeping with the doomsday theme, and I wrote it on the night of the 20th. I woke up the next morning, still breathing. No fire and brimstone. No horsemen. Everything was fine. Here I was, left with half a song to write and I wasn’t exactly sure how to finish it. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that everything isn’t fine. There was no cataclysmic event that brought the world to an end, but I started thinking about the countless existential threats that could have a similar effect over a longer time scale. These themes inspired the material for the rest of the song, along with several others forming the body of work that we call 2012.”
Tour Dates:
Aug 04 Forager Brewing Rochester, MN
Aug 05 331 Club Minneapolis, MN
Aug 10 Vail Brewing Company Avon, CO
Aug 11 High Hops Brewery Windsor, CO
Aug 12 Echo Brewing Erie, CO
Aug 13 Left Hand Brewery Longmont, CO
Oct 27 406 Brewing Bozeman, MT
Oct 28 Imagine Nation Brewing Missoula, MT
Nov 03 The Firkin Portland, OR
Nov 07 MAP Brewing Bozeman, MT
