After a string of releases, including the November arrival of the soul-stirring “Dume,” Indio Downey has officially issued his debut solo EP, Cigarettes In Bed.
Across the captivating 6-track opus, Downey fearlessly delves into the recesses of his being, laying bare his deepest vulnerabilities and past struggles. While the release unflinchingly confronts darkness, he masterfully infuses the EP with threads of hope and self-discovery. Amidst the intricate narrative that weaves together themes of struggle, addiction, anger, and frustration, Downey skillfully navigates his emotions.
Of the new release, Downey shares, “My debut EP is the product of collaboration. Being in the studio bouncing ideas and testing different elements, over the course of many sessions, really helped the songs become more dynamic and tasteful. Each song is about overcoming suffering in a different way, which is why I felt these 5 songs fit well together.”
To mark the release of “Dume” toward the end of 2023, idobi Radio chatted with Downey about growing up with musician parents, his past struggles with addiction, and more. You can read an excerpt about Cigarettes In Bed below and read our entire interview here.
You’ve had some extremely notable releases and tours under your belt. And this project is really your solo. You’re in the driver’s seat of your own music. Did you experience any challenges or advantages while you were going through the transition from having more of a group setting to a more solo setting?
I think one of the biggest changes of being a solo artist is that the songs have become more about songwriting, whereas in the past, a lot of the stuff was much heavier. But now that it’s more about songwriting. I think I have an opportunity to confess more with my lyrics and have it be more intimate, tell more of a story, and have it be more about the song than the guitar.
That actually leads me to my next stop, which was this EP is extremely raw and vulnerable across the entire collection. In your single “Plastic Rainbow,” you described it as a love song about a previous addiction. Now, I don’t want to go into that because everyone has a past, and I don’t think it’s fair to focus on that past. What I want to talk about is how you were able to separate those hard experiences and tap into those emotions.
Well, the EP has a lot of different topics. It goes from pain to disappointment to hate to rejection to freedom. I think that Cigarettes In Bed is more about past addiction. It’s very much an emotional roller coaster. I try to pull a lot from my personal experiences and take from the emotion, the sadness, and the rage of those personal experiences, and then write about that and turn that into a song. There was actually a lot of that on the EP. “Dume,” one of the other songs on the EP, is about past addiction as well. I kind of did the same thing. I tried to take the feeling, that sadness and rage and personal experience, and then turn that into a song. It actually kind of became more about finding beauty in the darkness.
