Austin, Texas-based duo MISSIO entered the studio late last year to record new album Can You Feel The Sun with longtime collaborator and producer Dwight A. Baker (Brandi Carlile, Bea Miller, Bob Schneider) feeling inspired to write new music after a sold out headline tour in the UK helped them realize the global impact of their music. Across the 10 tracks, MISSIO grapples with addiction (singer Matthew Brue is in recovery), anxiety and depression – topics that reverberate with their tightknit community of diehard fans (the band launched a site this month to provide a safe space for fans to support each other online). With guest appearances from hip hop icons Paul Wall and Esoteric of Czarface, Can You Feel The Sun focuses on the drive to heal after acknowledging and accepting your personal struggles.
(Photo Credit: Alexandra Thomas)
Three Great Things is Talkhouse’s series in which artists tell us about three things they absolutely love. To mark the release of Can You Feel The Sun, MISSIO lets us in on the things that are bringing them “hippy” joy these days.
— Josh Modell
1. Gardening
Nothing has satisfied my soul more during this pandemic than gardening. It has grown from just a hobby that my wife and I enjoy together into something that I believe has been healing to me mentally, physically, and spiritually. My morning now involves a 45 minute walking meditation around our garden as I water and tend to the plants. I have formed relationships with our plants as I watch them grow and respond to their environment. Some provide food for us to eat and others have pretty flowers to inspire. One of our first major projects that we took on during lockdown was building a chicken coop and we now have a property that is exploding with plant and animal life. If I feel depressed or let down by people or the world in general, I look to my garden to ground me and remind me that everything is connected. There is a great peace that can be found sitting quietly in nature and letting it heal you.
— David Butler
2. Yoga
Like most things in my life, I had no idea what I was doing when I started doing yoga. I thought it was sort of like a workout. I had tried a few group classes and they were always just okay. Then after MISSIO started touring in 2017, I started to struggle with pretty horrible back and neck pain, likely caused by scarring from a neck surgery I had back in 2003. I tried MRIs, acupuncture, chiropractors, orthopedic surgeons, massage therapy. I tried everything I could think of to “fix” my back but nothing really worked. I started doing yoga multiple times a day. It wasn’t immediate, but I started seeing progress. The reduction in pain and inflammation led to me wanting to find out more. At that time we were basically living on the road and Jaydon (our drummer) has always been into mediation and yoga, and was hugely helpful in our early discovery of the power effect that yoga can have. When we are on the road now, the three of us do daily yoga sessions together. It’s usually quite the unexpected scene to find as you walk backstage at a big rock show to find the band spread out on yoga mats holding downward dog. Yoga has become a part of our daily practice.
— David Butler and Matthew Brue
3. Dancing at Sunset
God, all of our responses are so fucking hippy now. Sorry in advance. Haha. I’ve been the type of person to really value time. I hate wasting people’s time and I HATE when people waste my own time. I like to check things off of lists. I like to have plans. I’m extremely OCD and I tend to move through life without appreciating the full extent of each moment due to my constant overthinking of “what’s next?” I’ve rarely spent time appreciating sunrises/sunsets because I’m always trying to get shit done. I happened to move this year and stumbled into a place that literally forces me to look at the sunset each day because my back windows look out to the west. On most evenings I turn on some Euro beats playlist and I dance as the sun sets. It heals me almost daily from my own anxiety, stress, depression, general mood swings, or anger that I might be carrying around on a particular day. It keeps me motivated by gratefulness and not by materialism or other shallow things. The sun at sunset makes me feel small, but also a part of something so much greater. Most importantly, it helps me to stop and to find approval and genuine love for who I am as my authentic self.
— Matthew Brue
(Photo Credit: Alexandra Thomas)
