Illustration courtesy of Rachel Nanos.
From the woodsy terrain of New York’s Hudson Valley comes a wayward songwriter with a seemingly infinite flow of inspiration: Justin Vreeland, a now-Savannah resident and sound design student at SCAD. Whether he’s plucking acoustic originals at The Sentient Bean or rocking out at El Rocko lounge, he and his music are taking Savannah by storm. In essence, the singer-songwriter has an ever-growing catalog of heartfelt, lively tunes, and he shows no signs of stopping.
In 2020, Vreeland released his debut EP, This is Justin Vreeland, and shortly after, his debut album, Death to Alt Rock, a spin on the punkish soundtrack of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Death to Alt Rock includes songs that parody the local New York alt rock scene such as Woodbury Commons, which pokes fun at the serious tone of the scene while alluding to the titular Orange County mall. “And that was just made in my basement in 2020,” Vreeland told me. “I had very little knowledge of recording.”
Vreeland made his humble voyage to Savannah shortly after the peak of the pandemic. Little did he know his musical journey was only just beginning when faced with the vast environment of the Hostess City. “Coming out of New York, I thought I was hot shit. I got a band together in middle school and we played a bunch of school functions…I played one show in New Paltz, and I played one or two graduation parties. So I thought I was pretty good,” he told me. “Then I came down to Savannah, and I realized, no one’s hiring this underage kid…I had to start busking on the street. I was a busker on River Street for about four months from September 2021 to about May 2022.”
His most recent album, I’d Be Invisible, showcases notes of southern rock and classic blues with folky, intimate, singer-songwriter lyricism, a contrast from his previous alt-rock and punk records. “There [were] a lot of recordings that were built into that. Some of them were made when I was in high school,” said Vreeland. “I wanted an album that represented my live sets, what I liked to play. Before that record came out, [at] most of the shows I was playing, either in New York or Savannah, the only reference people had was my very first EP, and then just Death to Alt Rock and A Space Tale.” In essence, I’d Be Invisible is Savannah’s formal introduction to Vreeland’s music. Songs like King of a Ghost Town, a lonesome bluegrass tune, was written years before the recording itself. “Lyrically, I think it’s a song about growing old,” Vreeland said. His inspiration stemmed from seeing Gordon Lightfoot for the first time, applying his storytelling approach to lyricism and “metaphorical voice” to the record.
I’d Be Invisible is story-driven, and while one might expect the album to be autobiographical, that’s not the case entirely. “A lot of my songs are based on pure fiction. You know, if I wrote songs totally about my life, then my discography would be pretty boring.” The authenticity stems from his fluid songwriting process. “A phrase pops into my head,” Vreeland said, referring to his ideation. “I mean, you know, a lot of [my lyrics] come from watching around me…sometimes you gotta just see things. You pick it all up.”
His observational, semi-fictional method of songwriting dates back to his first EP, This is Justin Vreeland, particularly on the track It’s A Tragedy. “The second verse kind of parodies my first ever meeting with Patton Magee, who’s the lead singer of The Nude Party…I remember talking with him and you know, what do you do when you run into a musician and you’re a musician too? You don’t know what to say, so you start talking gear. So Shaun Couture, his lead guitarist, had this Danelectro DC ‘59 12 string. And I said, ‘hey, man, is that your guitar?’ He said, ‘oh no, that’s Shaun’s guitar.’” As Vreeland wrapped up the conversation, a run-of-the-mill musician-to-musician exchange about the struggle of finding gigs, “we shook hands. He walked off. He didn’t say it’s a tragedy, but I said it.” And a songworthy story was born from there.
With Vreeland finding inspiration from every angle, his discography is staggering, in fact, it’s so jam-packed with songs that he keeps a second Spotify account as an archive for demos and unreleased tracks: Justin Vreeland’s Workshop. When asked about his drive to produce such an impressive quantity of music, he told me, “It’s feverish…I just love writing, seeing if I can outdo myself. For the past three years, I’ve set a quota for myself, that I have to write 100 songs a year. And I’ve been doing that, I think, successfully. The idea is not 100 record ready songs each year. It’s kinda like working in a brewery. You’re throwing it all together, getting this massive vat of it. And all the cream that comes to the top is maybe those eight songs out of the 100 that you [put on the album].” And how do you even know which songs to include from such a collection? “It’s just whichever ones stick in your head the most.”
Justin Vreeand is a musician in every sense of the term: a singer, drummer, harmonicist, bassist, guitarist, and songwriter. A storyteller at heart with an uncontrollable urge to create, his current rig is stationed in SCAD’s own Barnard Village, where, naturally, more music is in the works. In terms of what’s next, Vreeland told me, “I’m going to try and parody all those old records from the 50s. I love those old blues players, like Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, the old Muddy Waters records.” Vreeland is always creating, driven by his nonstop passion and mighty need to rock. In other words, there’s always something new brewing inside the mind of Justin Vreeland.
