Atelo Songs Explores Past, Present, and Future with “not in the mood”

ALBANY – Not everyone is able to look at their past, present, and future self simultaneously – let alone craft a dialogue between the three. But that’s just what Sam Gleason, performing under the moniker Atelo Songs, has done with his latest single, “not in the mood.” A barn stomper of a tune through-and-through, the single propels itself forward the entire time, with bass, drum, and guitar parts that perfectly complement one another.

I had a chance to catch up with Sam this past week to discuss the single and more. What follows is our conversation.

Lucas Garrett: Thank you, Sam, for sitting down to talk. It’s been a minute. How’re you doing?

Sam Gleason: I’ve been good; keeping busy. How’ve you been?

LG: I’ve been keeping busy, myself, but not as busy, arguably, as you. You’ve certainly released a lot under Atelo Songs, and now you have another song out, “not in the mood.”

SG: Yes, I just released the single [Dec. 12^th] which will be off the new album releasing in 2024.

LG: As always, you have a lot of stuff going on in that song. Let’s talk about the vocal.

SG: Yeah. I have, on the verse, a bit of a high-pass filter, distortion, to give it that radio-esque kind of feel.

LG: The lyrics are rather personal.

SG: Yes, most of the lyrics for this project tend to lean in that direction. That’s what I know how to write about.

LG: I’d like to learn more about the process behind the song, in general. How do you find the words to these songs you’re writing?

SG: Usually when I’m writing lyrics, I can’t really write words without some kind of rhythm or melody already going on in my head. If I’m writing out on a piece of paper something poetic, there’s a pattern going on in my head. The words to “not in the mood. . .” I was in an accident earlier this decade that gave me a bunch of very life-altering brain injuries. It gave me the opportunity to view myself pre-accident, almost as a different person.

When I started writing lyrics to “not in the mood,” I was writing the interaction between my past self, my present self, and my future self. I built it based off of that; none of those three versions of me get along – they all hate each other.

LG: How was it recording this song? How was it putting yourself back in the mindset of “past Sam?”

SG: It hasn’t really left my psyche, because it’s been this thing lingering over me for the past two years. Part of the reason I wrote this album is because I have it still lingering over my head, and it put me in a constant state of anxiety. My behavior changed quite a bit: I became more careful and less chaotic of a person, and I developed ADHD.

LG: How is it dealing with ADHD?

SG: It’s both a blessing and a curse. It keeps my mind active, I would say, but at the same time, I used to hyper-fixate and hyper-focus on things, and now I can’t. I can’t focus on something for more than five or ten minutes at a time… Difficulty focusing on things has been the challenging part. At the same time, I like the rapidness of thought that just happens, now.

LG: As a musician, how do you overcome the inability to focus on one thing for very long? I’d imagine that would affect your songwriting?

SG: It definitely has. Pre-accident, it’d take me a day to write a song. These days, I spend weeks on a single song. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t release any music in 2023. Now, I’ll sit down, come up with a chord progression that I think is cool, and then not look at it again for a week or two. These songs got strewn about throughout the days, and I’m then able to find the pieces to put it together.

LG: Let’s talk about the pieces of “not in the mood.” Tell us a bit about how you picked what was going to be in the song.

SG: The chord progression has been something I’ve been messing around with for many, many years. I don’t think this now, but at the time, I was obsessed with it, like, “I think I just discovered a new style of guitar playing!” It’s really just hammer-ons with barre chords. I sat on it for a while. I finally put it together in a song that I was content with. It had always been a sloppy way of playing it, the way I play the riff in the beginning. So, that sloppy vibe is what made me think the cigar box slide guitar would be a good fit.

I went through a phase where I was obsessed with grimy, dirty, blues guitar. It’s a three-string cigar box guitar, with a yard stick for a neck. I played a stand-up piano to give it that honky-tonk, punky-tonk vibe to keep the feeling going. There’s a theremin in there as well!

LG: And, not only that, there’s a pretty kickass bass part on there!

SG: Yeah! That’s my friend, Alan Sweet. He was my first roommate in college. The first person I ever shared a room with that wasn’t my brother. Hahaha. He moved back to Boston, so I hadn’t seen him in six years. When he came to visit, recently, I had just been starting to record this song. I had the rhythm guitar and drums recorded. I said, “You wanna play bass on this track?!” He wrote a really funky bass line, and I’m very thankful he played for me.

LG: What else do you have going on?

SG: On January 18^th, a music video for “not in the mood” is coming out. It’s a stop-motion music video that I’ve spent nine months making!

LG: That sounds like agony!

SG: Hahaha. I got it done!

LG: Well, thanks again for your time, Sam! It’s always good talking with you!

SG: You too, Lucas!