slothtrop's artists

Paper Arrows

Literate Love Songs

Paper Arrows, a 2011 Chicago Tribune Band to Watch, has been quietly starting fires with their music, which runs the emotional gamut from mourning to hopeful. This slow burn is turning into a massive explosion as the band releases their new EP, Days of Getting By, the first step in a new trilogy for the band, whose records run the musical gamut as well—as Music Zeitgesit said, "One moment they evoke Jack Joseph Puig-produced Canadian band Big Wreck with its thundering 22" kick and triple amped hollow body guitars, the next lead singer Joe Goodkin sounds like the love child of Neil Young and Thom Yorke."

"I'm really into creating a narrative arc between albums. The first three Paper Arrpws records are the cycle of loss (Look Alive), recovery (Things We Would Rather Lose) and redemption (In the Morning)," says Goodkin about these records, released on Quell Music in 2008, 2009, and 2011, respectively. In December of 2010, the band earned a Practice Space residency, playing one album from start to finish each Monday at Chicago's legendary Schuba's for a month.

Paper Arrows formed after Goodkin's stint in Burn Rome Burn (2003-2007). (Goodkin also has solo project that is a 30 minute acoustic interpretation of Homer's Odyssey, available via Quell Records or iTunes.) In addition to Goodkin, Paper Arrows shines with the wizardry of Jay Marino on bass and Darren Garvey on drums and keys, also featuring Drew Scalercio and Luke Schmitt on keys.

But Paper Arrows hardly lives in the past. Their current recordings on Madison, WI-based Slothtrop Records, done at Chicago's I.V. Lab Studios begin a new narrative cycle. "The new EP, Days of Getting By, is actually a reference to a song on Look Alive, SkeletonSkinandSky (the line is "most days I just get by") the idea being that after you get through the cycle of loss, recovery, redemption, you're often times left with a lot of the same stuff you were dealing with before, stuff you put on hold to deal with a crisis, stuff you thought was related to the crisis but isn't: it's just part of who you are and the daily struggle. I'm hoping to make it the first step in a second trilogy that is largely about Love... love in every form possible," says Goodkin.

Days of Getting By is now available on Slothtrop Records.

paper arrow's releases