‘Anything Can Come Apart’ — The Ruminations of Buffalo Musician JOEYB

Prolific Buffalo songwriter JOEYB — aka Joe Bastian — is out with a new solo album, “Anything Can Come Apart,” an honest and heartfelt self-reflection on his life, mistakes and all.

“There are a lot of things, especially now in my twenties, where shit just comes up and falls apart,” said Bastian, who played all instruments on the record. “Nothing is sacred. Nothing.”

Recorded by Bastian partly at home and the other half at Mammoth Recording Studio in South Buffalo — where, at the time, he was interning — the 11-track LP was released June 20 on streaming platforms.

But ever the perfectionist, he’s decided to since undertake a remix of the album.

“Some drums are ‘home drums,’ some are studio. Some basses are home, some studio,” said Bastian, who since graduating from Buff State has been working on contract as an engineer at Mammoth.

The initial mixes, he said, were too “rushed on my end. I wasn’t in a professional headspace. Now, after it’s been released, I’m in a professional headspace and so I’m going back. I’m giving everything a reboot.”

As for the songs themselves on ‘Anything Can Come Apart,’ Bastian embarks on a

'Anything Can Come Apart'

personal exploration of his relationships, breakups, severed connections and a litany of consequences stemming from his own making. The first track is called “the murder of john lennon,” which Bastian describes as a “big, atmospheric, emotional intro song,” which sets the tone for the entire project.

The song, he said, was written about leaving a job where he had been working for three years after being offered a demotion. Initially thinking the decision wouldn’t matter to him, when Bastian finally did walk out the door for the last time, he acknowledged it brought out more feelings than he expected.

“It was a deep cut,” he said. “As I was walking out, all sorts of emotions came up. I was like, ‘holy shit!’ So, ‘the murder of john lennon’ was about a job, but it could be anything. There’s sometimes where you’re the windshield or the bug, and that’s the song where you’re the bug.”

Besides his decision to leave his job, Bastian also recently broke from the band ‘Twin Affairs,’ which he’d been playing and performing with up until the beginning of June. Now, he’s back at “square one,” he said.

“The week after I had left the band, I was like, ‘anything can come apart!’” Bastian recalled. “I just put that (line) in as a lyric in ‘the murder of john lennon’ because of the job, and because of past relationships I had been in.”

The release of ‘Anything Can Come Apart’ comes 10 months after Bastian’s last release, “Max,” which was written for a musical capstone program at Buff State from where Bastian graduated with a B.A. in music, and a minor in digital music production.

A frequent performer around the city, Bastian noted the indie music scene in Buffalo is not an easy path to navigate. While more heavy genres like hardcore and metal have built-in audiences, the crowds are less likely to be inherited by indie bands and musicians like himself.

“I can see why people give up. I can see why it happens,” he said. “I don’t think I would, but I can totally make sense of why people would want to give up, because I hear stories — ‘Oh I was in a band and this…’ and ‘I was in a band, and then…’ — from people all the time when they meet me. I know what possibly could’ve happened. But I’m not going to take that bait.”

Instead — knowing full well that at any time ‘anything can come apart’ — JOEYB, no matter the challenges that may stand in the way of indie artists, continues to persevere.