Zaq Baker Blends Music, Humor, and Storytelling on ‘Fact and Fiction’

Zaq Baker just dropped a new three-track release, Fact and Fiction, and it showcases everything people love about him: honest songwriting, quirky humor, and a world that could only come from his mind.

The EP opens with “everybody needs a jean,” a soft and emotional piano-led song about the person who helped him through bouts of depression and doubt. It’s a love letter to a mother-figure who always knew when he was falling apart and had the right words at the right times.

Track two, “isolation chic,” flips the mood. It’s a funny-but-true look at a writer losing his mind while trying to finish a book. He jokes about being a genius, calls his own pages garbage, and admits he hasn’t kept up with shaving or showering. It’s messy, dramatic, and something those who’ve ever tried to make something perfect would find familiar.

Then Zaq closes the collection Fact and Fiction in an unexpected way, by reading Chapter 1 of his novel, Unspectacular. The book was printed earlier this year and has been making its rounds on the shelves of various bookstores. Him reading the opening chapter gives the EP a blended media, story-driven twist. It introduces the main character, Mae Strand, and sets up a mix of family drama and emotional chaos.

Short, strange, and full of personality, Fact and Fiction feels like Zaq Baker showing every side of himself at once, and inviting listeners into his own little universe.

Listen to Fact or Fiction, out now.

Fact and Fiction by Zaq Baker