Chris Staples Golden Age

For some time, Chris Staples was longing for things to return to the way they had been. The way they were before he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and his pancreas failed. Before his bike accident and the resulting hip surgery. Before the dissolution of a long-term relationship. He had been left to pick up the pieces, but for a long time couldn’t bring himself to. “I felt for a several years like I was mourning. Mourning a happier time in my life, or a time when I was more youthful. Everything was different for me after that period in my life.” But the myths we build about our past are often gilded: we believe things were innocent, that they were whole. Staples, after feeling the seductive pull of that illusion for years, had enough of it. He was going to tear it down. As he began to pick up the pieces of his life, and coincidentally began to write music for a new album to follow his acclaimed 2014 Barsuk debut American Soft, his songs pivoted forward, becoming the new record, Golden Age.