Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
Some of the best pop songs come from a place of torment. For frontwoman/vocalist Trish Jetton of HIRIE, her latest single “Message In A Bottle” is a new fiery tropical pop tune that tackles the struggle of addiction and indulgence. It’s the fourth single to be taken from their upcoming third album Dreamer, which will be released on Megaforce Records on September 13, 2019.
Revealing the inspiration for the track, Trish explains, “One of the most personal songs on the album, it depicted a time in my life where I was literally drowning in my emotions and bad habits. It was easier to pour the next drink than to face the reason why I needed another. I’m hoping that anyone going through a similar addiction can realize the power they have to turn around no matter how far off the deep end you’ve gone.”
For the accompanying video Trish teamed up with LA-based Director Hans Boysen who took her words very literally and created one of her favorite videos to date. It starts out with a character who is unsettled, writing something of a goodbye letter and then filling up a bathtub with water. The video continues with the character struggling through her emotions portrayed in dance.
“You see the tub filling with water and eventually she steps in and is astro-projected into a watery universe,” Trish explains. “The metaphor behind this was that every indulgence you give into – every pour of the bottle, eventually drowns you. In the video the character gives in, but only to realize she wasn’t done fighting. She pushes on the glass that’s keeping her in the dark only to find as she’s giving up, that her purest self was always there to take her back.”
HIRIE: “Message In A Bottle”
With the release of Dreamer, HIRIE plans to take listeners on their most collaborative and emotionally vigorous journey yet. “This album is about raw honesty. I feel like I was braver with exploring my emotional state and how that swings back and forth—allowing myself to be brutally honest,” explains Trish. Dreamer, is a sonic journey baselined by island beats, that celebrates the bold, joyful, and even messy impulses that drive the female experience.
Dreamer was the first true songwriting collaboration for Trish; she penned the majority of the tracks with The Drive—a.k.a. songwriters Mark Merthe and Nate Evans. “This was my first time writing with professional top liners and it was truly an incredible feat. I was trying to attract different genres even though the basis of this album is reggae.” The writing took about two years, but the recording – which was done at a live-in studio called Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Texas with producer Danny Kalb (Ben Harper, Beck) – took less than two weeks. “Danny Kalb is a genius of a producer. We’ve worked on two albums together. He’s always open to hearing my ideas and is also a great decision maker when there are too many great ideas on the table.”
Trish, who mostly resides in San Diego, has lived an itinerant existence. With her English father working for the U.N., she was raised the Philippines, Italy, then Hawaii. “We never stayed rooted to one place for long,” she explains. “Hirie” is a nod to that multiculturalism, a mix of “Hawaii” and “irie,” the Jamaican term for one’s state of mind. Furthermore, all of her band members all come from different styles of music, including metal/rock, jazz, jam bands, gospel/R&B, and a variety of musical instruments including accordion and didgeridoo. Hirie truly is a melting pot of culture-influence, “I can’t stress enough how many influences we fly through in one set on stage,” she says.
Hirie will embark on a headline U.S. tour in the fall that takes them to Orlando (October 23), DC (October 30), Brooklyn (November 1), Detroit (November 6), Seattle (November 16), San Diego (November 23), and more!
Dreamer will be released on September 13, 2019 via Megaforce Records. The album can be pre-ordered and pre-saved here.