[Cover photo credit to Cam Jones]
Portland, Maine-based Indie trio LOVE BY NUMB3RS released their sophomore album Earth Needs a Moon on September 30th, 2022. Featuring co-vocalists Dan Connor and Anna Lombard and multi-instrumentalist Jon Roods, the album follows their 2021 Colours EP and consists of all-new tracks. Embracing Alternative, Americana, and Roots Rock traditions, the album was was recorded at Fisher’s Waterhouse on Peaks Island as well as at the band’s South Ranch studio in Maine. The band will also be holding an album release show on November 19th, 2022 at Portland House of Music in Maine.
Previously, LOVE BY NUMB3RS released the single and video for their title track, “Earth Needs A Moon”, shot in Industry, Maine where hills and back roads set the stage for a song based on story and art by artist and friend Pat Corrigan. Another single that received a video was “Don’t Be So Hard on Me”, taking in a rustic barn location for the video and using distressed footage to match and evoke an equally fractured relationship.
Today, Wildfire is pleased to premier the video for “Ashes” from Earth Needs a Moon. The song reflects on what we’re left with when relationships have died away and what we can recover from that transition, also calling up specific locations and moments to show the way that memory impacts us. The video was directed by the band’s Jon Roods and brings in locations, some of which are mentioned in the song’s lyrics, to blend with past memories and create a dream-like, reflective quality.
The video was filmed this past September and captures that early autumn feel. It takes in 15 different locations, including four spots on Peaks Island in Casco Bay including Fisher’s Waterhouse, where the band started the album in January. The video was also filmed all over Casco Bay, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, outside the historic Middle East Club, which is, unfortunately, going to be closing.
Co-vocalist Anna Lombard shares about the song:
A friend of mine sent me an email with some poetry and writings that were both stream of consciousness and autobiographical. This one line, “We’re just ashes of feelings that once were felt,” struck me and stayed with me over the course of the last few years because everyone can relate to that. We had only a wood stove out at Peaks Island to heat the Waterhouse studio while writing and recording the album–it was 18 degrees with the windchill–in the dead of January. We may have dabbled with some edible fungi (laughs)…and it kind of took on a life of its own from there.
Relationships can be difficult because humans really suck sometimes. However, whereas some of the lyrical content of our songs tend to be kind of sad with this underlying and sometimes not so subtle notion of desperation, this song is more about reminiscing on the rollercoaster of the experience and feelings after a relationship is over…which is sometimes all that you’re left with in the end. Embers…ashes…of what once was.
Lombard also shares some information on the locations that appear in the video:
Peaks Island is very special place to us for a multitude of reasons. It’s only a 15-minute ferry ride from downtown Portland, but when you get there, you feel like you’re away from home. It’s also known for being a safe haven for artists. Peaks is only about 720 acres but is packed with so much history and some of the most beautiful, private beaches. It’s the spot where I almost blow myself up with fireworks, and was shot inside a tunnel at Battery Steele, which was a World War II military fortification. We also took Alex’s boat out to Fort Gorges which is about a five-minute ride from Peaks.
We also took Alex’s boat out to Fort Gorges which is about a five-minute ride from Peaks. After the War of 1812, the United States Army Corps of Engineers proposed that a fort be built on Hog Island Ledge, in Casco Bay at the entrance to the harbor in Portland. It’s only accessible by boat–Congress didn’t fund construction of the Fort until 1857 and when the Civil War began in 1861, they worked quickly to finish it over the course of the following four years, but when it was completed in 1865, right as the war ended, it’s said that modern explosives made the fort obsolete. The last time it was used by the army was when it stored submarine mines during WWII. There is still a 300 pound Parrott rifle out there–and it is one of the biggest and only remaining specimens of civil war vintage artillery. It’s kinda wild.
