Thunder And Rain’s Erinn Peet-Lukes Goes Track by Track New LP ‘Start Believing’

Cut the Wire
I was inspired to write this song after watching a friend of mine struggle to figure out what to do with her life fresh out of college. I thought about how I moved to NYC right after I graduated without looking back, and how that kicked my adult life into gear. I used our modern sense of “disconnecting” since all of us are online and connected through wires and waves. This song urges the young friend to cut off ALL contact.

Once I Was
I wrote this song when I was in college. It’s been waiting a long time to get recorded. I wrote it right after I had moved into my apartment in Italy for my study abroad program in college. Being somewhere foreign, alone, watching a storm roll in over the little Italian town, brought out a loneliness in me that I had never before felt. The song tumbled out of me that day and stayed that way.

Start Believing
In “times like these” of apathy, boredom, and cynicism, I think a lot about how a lot of people I know have zero beliefs in anything religious or spiritual. I was raised in a non-religious family. When I was in middle school I attended church all on my own and went to youth group. That has faded over the years, but my feeling that spiritual belief of any kind is important has stuck with me. I wrote this song about believing in your soul, in something bigger than us, because that will keep us going through hard times.

Otherside
My co-writer, RP Oates, sent me the melody to this song and asked if I had any lyrical ideas. I was in the band van reading a book about a guy who had lost his best friend to AIDS in the early 90’s. In one scene, he’s walking own the street in NYC and sees a streetlight flickering, and he knows that his friend is trying to communicate with him. This inspired me to write a song about grieving and how our loved ones try to communicate with us post-mortem.

Babe, You’re Gonna Leave Me
I was on a walk when the chorus of this song popped in my head. At the time, a bandmate and beloved friend was showing signs of wanting to leave the project and go on to other things. All I needed was a title, and I thought about the Led Zeppelin song “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You.” I decided to flip the title and write the song.

What Am I Gonna Do
I was going through a difficult moment in a relationship when I wrote this song. During a particularly awful fight in a car, I said out loud “What am I gonna do with you?” How do you get over someone you have to see every day? When people get divorced, they can’t cut that person out of their life. I wrote a song about what it feels like to break up with someone that you still have to interact with regularly.

The Reckoning
This song started as a poem that I wrote in our band van. Climate change has been a huge worry for everyone I know. My friend George and I were talking about a festival and how it should be moved to a different month so there would be better weather. “Doesn’t matter,” George said. “The world isn’t going to last that long.” That, combined with the scene of being stuck in ugly traffic in a gas guzzling van on a beautiful mountain pass, inspired the poem that became the song.

Days Before
My co-writer RP wrote most of this song. He was inspired by a visit from an old friend from college. He talked about how those visits always went by too fast, and how it can never be quite the same as when the friendship was new.

Wyoming is for Miles
The band spent a lot of time in Wyoming for two summers in a row as the house band on a luxury dude ranch. Though it wasn’t our ideal summer job (we wanted to be doing national tours) it was beautiful for what it was. We had to constantly remind ourselves to enjoy the journey, to look up at the stars, and appreciate what we do every day.

Tennessee is Burning
I had a friend visit from Tennessee fall of 2016. She stayed on the couch and one day woke up to news that the area of TN that she came from was under threat from catastrophic wildfires. We drank tea at my kitchen table and she described the hill of her childhood, all up in flames. It made me wonder what it would feel like to watch your home get destroyed by a natural disaster from far away.

I Won’t Try For You, LA
On Facebook, I saw an old friend of mine from High School got engaged. We had lost touch a few years ago, and it made me think about how intense our friendship was in high school. We were both seniors and over the LA scene where we grew up. We both vowed we would move elsewhere. She stayed in LA and got a job and a fiance while I traveled around playing music. Over time, our friendship spoiled. This is my song about not trying to mend it anymore.

Wrong or Right, TN
This song is 100% written by my co-writer, RP. I felt very lucky to sing this achingly honest song. He broke up with his first love in a car in Tennessee. They loved each other, but they just couldn’t agree on anything anymore. Their fights never ended in any kind of solution. So even though the love was there, it wasn’t enough to keep them going.

Breaks My Bones
I only helped RP out with a few lines in this song, but I understood its meaning as I sang it in studio. This could be a prequel to Wrong or Right, TN, where you’re trying to hold on to a relationship with someone but the effort is straining. You try to love each other but the criticisms and fights linger like monsters in a cage. This song is one person’s plea to be heard and to be understood about how the weight of the relationship is affecting them.