Townsend’s Solitaire Premiere Their Sentimental “Dear Old Friend” Music Video

In a world full of negativity, dread, and uncertainty, we can be thankful to have artists such as Townsend’s Solitaire to help us keep things in perspective. Today, the band is excited to premiere the music video for their new single, “Dear Old Friend.”

Both emotional and touching, the band’s realness and sincerity burn bright on this impressive new track. Based in Seattle, Townsend’s Solitaire is a chamber-folk sextuplet starting to make some noise. “Dear Old Friend” is off of the band’s debut full-length Glad To Be Alive. Led by lead singer Bobby Odle, that title says it all when it comes to the thematic backdrop of this record, inspired by events and experiences in Odle’s life growing up.

Discussing the meaning of “Dear Old Friend” and the background behind the video, Odle states:

“Fundamentally, the song ‘Dear Old Friend’ is about my childhood best friend Tanner James taking his own life, telling stories of our youth, and expressing my grief/empathy with what his family is going through, remembering what it was like to lose my older brother to cancer when I was 13.

“For the music video, I worked with Tanner’s family and old friend/Seattle filmmaker Amber Litz to create a more abstract music video that expressed grief through nature and photos from Tanner’s childhood. Amber printed these photos, chosen by his family, and set them to shots in nature and filmed in areas of the state that were important to Tanner and his family. This was also our filmmaker Amber’s first creative project since losing her husband Adam Thompson suddenly in 2022. They were both filmmakers and she used not yet used shots that the two of them made together in this music video as well.

“Amber Litz directed this music video and worked with friends/cinematographers Josh Glaser and Cade Feldmeier to get all of the shots!”

To really capture the heart and soul behind these songs, Odle and his bandmates recorded Glad To Be Alive on 2″ 16 track tape. It’s the right kind of approach for an album as emotional as this. The record is a meditation on grief and suicide, sussed out through raw and honest stories from Odle’s past. He and his family have been no strangers to grief in their lives. At the age of 13, Odle lost his older brother Chris to cancer. Last year, his uncle Agung died while living in Indonesia. Then Tanner committed suicide soon after. These events really tore at Odle and have really shaped the way he views the world. He himself deals with bipolar disorder, which has made these events even more of a challenge to face up to.

As a whole, Glad To Be Alive is a delicate and profound collection of tracks that really hone in on the emotional essence of what it means to be human. The band feels that listeners can find a lot of relief and understanding within these songs. There are rays of sunshine within them and a catharsis easily retrievable in knowing that you are not alone. Even if you’re not happy, you can still be glad to be alive. Townsend’s Solitaire hope that you can at least take that sentiment away from this poignant new record.

Tour Dates:

07/03 – The Lost Church SR, Santa Rosa CA
07/06 – B&B Studio, Orange CA
07/07 – The Lost Church SF, San Francisco CA
07/09 – Rhythms Coffee, Olympia WA

Townsend’s Solitaire ‘Glad To Be Alive’ album artwork