Singled Out: Valerian Sun's The Burnout

Keavin Wiggins | 05-20-2022

Single art

Valerian Sun, the all-star trio featuring James Wolpert (The Voice season 5, Jon-Mikel Valudes (From Ashes To New), and Trek Alexander (Guitar Hero 2006) just released their new single "The Burnout" and to celebrate we asked James to tell us aobut the track. Here is the story:

It might seem like a pretty straightforward glam-rock explosion, but there's actually a bit more to it. We started conceptually at the (pretty ubiquitous) idea of garden variety 'burn out' -- laboring too hard, for too long, at unfulfilling work. However, as we moved deeper into the lyric-writing process, we started to touch on some subtler ideas in that vein.

We started talking about how and when burnout creeps into the band-starting and song-writing process. We started asking questions like, "what is the real return when the end-goal of creative work, or any work for that matter, isn't (at the core) for its own sake? How long/far can a person really go chasing superficial rewards (the means to fulfillment that is usually and suspiciously just out of reach -- 'well, the REAL good stuff is at this NEXT precipice') in exchange for things that are themselves meant to be the reward?".

We bounced between the lyrics "Chasing Clout" and "Chasing Clouds" as the main refrain in the chorus. Both work thematically in one way or another -- 'Chasing Clout' for its obvious contemporary application, and 'Chasing Clouds' to mean a sort of appraisal of the act of clout-chasing and career-mongering; it can be a lot like trying to catch smoke -- the harder you cling, the quicker it slips through your fingers.

Writ large, the song is about the frustration of feeling the "need to get somewhere" while being unable to see that we've already arrived! Might sound like a load of baloney, but it's OUR load of baloney

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the band here