PREMIERE: CEDARSMOKE // Keep Passing The Open Windows

Brisbane rockers Cedarsmoke are back with a brand new single, Keep Passing The Open Windows, ahead of the release of the new EP, Everything Is The Worst. Due out tomorrow (February 28), the new single is definitely Cedarsmoke’s darkest release to date.

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Distorted guitars, bursting choruses, gravelly tones, and a little 90s throwback in the bass—such are the complexities of theme and sound in Keep Passing Open Windows, it’s best to ask Cedarsmoke vocalist Jon Cloumassis straight up what it is he thinks people should know about this new song. “I’d say it’s one of our catchiest songs. The music’s upbeat and the lyrics are a bit down.”

Indeed. The music is pretty vibrant and totally rocking, so why put something like that against such heavy themes? “I think it balances itself out,” Cloumassis reasons. “I think if you do something musically too upbeat in the lyrics it comes across too cheesy, and if you do depressing music with depressing lyrics it comes across [as] melodramatic or whatever. I try to switch those up.”

This kind of contrast as heard in Keep Passing Open Windows isn’t necessarily an expected standard in music, it’s merely Cloumassis’ artist preference. “You want people to feel like they can listen to it again,” he says.

Indeed, Cedarsmoke have spent some time experimenting with synthesisers in the new song, not something they’ve done before but as Cloumassis attests, the band are always looking for ways to expand their creative horizons. “We figured out we could use a MIDI keyboard attached to the laptop and that opened up different noises we could put in–that’s been the thing we all played around with.”

You want people to feel like they can listen to it again.
[ Jon Cloumassis ]

It’s not the first time Cedarsmoke has done things dark, thematically. Their November 2019 single Pure Heroin a homage to Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his on-off girlfriend Nancy Spungen, was equally as balanced with the get up and go melodies and twisted tales. In Keep Passing Open Windows the inspiration was a little more localised to Cloumassis’ own mind than to pop culture legend. “The whole thing about this EP is to do with death. The first single with Sid Vicious and Nancy, it was to do with their deaths.

“I got the title from a book–the characters use that phrase, ‘keep passing open windows’, it’s like a whole motif to not jump out of windows.”

Cloumassis doesn’t think this premiere needs a trigger warning, he’s just drawn to the intricacies of this subject in such a way that he felt inspired to apply a sonic narrative. “Like in your day to day life, you don’t think about death much, but it’s something everyone has to experience. [This] is a good excuse to think about it for a sec.

“You put it out of your mind but it’s always still on your mind. Maybe it’s scary to think about, but I think it’s something everyone can relate to.”

Cedarsmoke have done some pretty cool things since their formation in 2016 and drawn plenty of industry attention, and there’s plenty more on the cards for the band throughout the rest of 2020. “We’re definitely getting into the studio again,” says Cloumassis, “we’re thinking about doing an album, which would be our first. We just want to keep going with things.”

Cedarsmoke’s brand new single Keep Passing Open Windows is out February 28 2020. The new EP Everything Is The Worst is out March 20, 2020.

Catch Cedarsmoke’s Everything Is The Worst EP launch in Brisbane at The Bearded Lady on April 9 2020.