ifitbeyourwill S06E16 • Tiberius

A clarinet in fourth grade doesn’t usually lead to fuzz pedals, pedal steel, and a packed tour van, but that’s the path Brendan Wright of Tiberius traces on Troubadour. We start with the spark—how a quiet kid found a home in melody—and follow the trail to the moment those bedroom songs finally stepped into stage lights. Through it all runs one through-line: honesty. The kind that feels safe when you’re singing alone, and the kind that feels a little dangerous when a room goes silent to hear it.

Brendan talks about walking that line between catharsis and the reality of sharing their work. They used to write like they were passing secret notes to themself. Now the notes have to breathe among strangers. They open up about shifting from super-specific diary lines to lyrics built around wider feelings—anxiety, persistence, the weird fog of transition—so more people can slip inside the songs. It doesn’t dull anything; it actually sharpens it. You can hear it in a line like “Why do I try to keep on trying?” and in the way the band lets silence hang before a chorus hits.

We dig into the making of Troubadour, from the piece-by-piece construction of Fish in a Pond to focused sessions at The Record Co. in Boston. Drummer Ben Curell, bassist Kelven “KP” Polite , and guitarist Christian Pace helped pull the songs into their live shape, with Nate Scaringi behind the board helping the drums land just right. The result is a sound Brendan jokingly calls “farm emo”—folk bones, a little country dust, and an emo heart—wrapped in those loud-quiet-loud dynamics that feel as much Neil Young as they do modern indie. It’s tender one moment, towering the next, built for small rooms that don’t stay small for long.

We close on motion. The northeast run—Burlington, Portland, Boston, Albany, Philly, New York—feels like both a celebration and a goodbye to a set they’ve lived inside for two years. New songs are forming. Brendan’s headspace is shifting again. That’s the promise here: a record that captures exactly where Tiberius is right now, and an artist already leaning toward whatever comes next.

If this one hits you, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs a cathartic chorus, and leave a quick review—it helps more listeners discover Tiberius and stories like this.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Brendan Wright Of Tiberius
• 2:10 Early Music Spark And Clarinet Days
• 5:02 From Teen Angst To Songwriting
• 8:25 Private Coping To Public Sharing
• 12:05 The Cost Of Vulnerability In Music
• 15:30 DIY Roots And First Collaborators
• 18:30 Building A Band And Evolving Sound
• 21:20 Writing And Recording Troubadour
• 25:10 Defining “Farm Emo” And Dynamics
• 28:20 Tours, What’s Next, And Goodbyes

Transcript

colleyc: 0:36

Alright, people, here we are, another episode of ifitbeyourwill podcast. Brendan Wright, Tiberius, singer, songwriter, musician. This music is it's just damn good. It's you know indie, rocky, it's emo-y, it's uh it's got so many different layers. At times you get the shoe gazy like uh punch in your face. Uh and uh interestingly called uh farm emo, which we'll get into with Brendan in a minute about uh where that term came from because I find it like I love it. Uh I mean I'm a country guy, so anything around farms and emo, boom, bring it on. So, Brendan thanks so much for taking some time out of your your day here to share some of your thoughts about uh your new record coming out, uh Troubadour November 14th. People check that out. It will be uh we'll talk about that record a little bit and also how he's gonna be supporting that record. Uh probably at a place near you soon. We'll see. So, Brendan, thanks so much. I really appreciate uh you taking some time and sharing uh sharing with us. Thanks so much for uh well I appreciate that, and I appreciate too this record. Uh I just mentioned to you as before we hopped on that uh your PR guy, Jamie, who's just a uh a a swell guy. I I just love this guy. So like he just is selfless, you know, just totally for you guys, and I just feel that he like uh you guys are a family there at uh because it's being released on audio anti-hero records, just by the way. So Brendan, kind of I heard on a podcast that music for you started at a very, very young age, and it almost seemed like it was intrinsic that that was something that you were gonna do. I heard a story of in grade four when you uh wanted to start an instrument, right? You're like, I want to play an instrument. I think you went with your mom to check some instruments out, and in the end you ended up getting a clarinet or something like that. Yeah, just because you wanted to play. Open that box up a little bit and like what was it about music that just grabbed you by the heart and your emotions and were just like, I want to produce music. I want to that's really interesting.

Tiberius: 2:51

Um, I don't know. I think well, the thing with that, I think there was in fourth, third and fourth grade in the Rutland City Public Schools, you could you could start to play an instrument, and I think third grade was the the orchestra. You could start with like violin, viola, cello, bass. And I kind of missed that train. And I I think it was like fourth grade. I was like, I really want to do something in the band, like the Woodwinds. And I wanted to do, I think the saxophone was the thing that stood out to me the most. And I think my mom was looking at a catalog and was like, well, the saxophone's a little expensive. Maybe we'll try the clarinet. It looks like it's a little a little cheaper. Because you know, she didn't know if it was gonna like stick or not. And so we went and started a clarinet. And I actually met waiting, I remember in line, one of my best friends who became my my best friend in in high school and lifelong best friend. And first band mate was my pal Jordan Tannen. And she she and I grew up playing in clarinet together. And then eventually, when we kind of like got into middle school and we both kind of had our musical awakenings and kind of started to develop our own tastes, we ended up playing, we learned the guitar together. And along with her brother Noah, we uh formed a little band, a little garage band, and that's kind of when like we really got into the music thing. Amazing.

colleyc: 4:15

And like, can you like like what was it about music that still today, I mean, uh it's I mean, music is not an easy business, you know? Like if you're looking like to expand and you know, yeah, conquer the world, right? What was it about the music that that allowed you to look beyond all of that and that it was a very I mean it must have been a very intrinsic internal thing that you were just told to do. What was it about music like when you were younger that was so so appealing for you and and that kept it alive into high school and then onward and onward and records, and now you have a new record coming out November 14th? Like, can you can you put a little meat on that bone for us?

Tiberius: 4:57

Yeah, I think music was, I think I was I think I was always a pretty sensitive child. And music, I think, especially in when I kind of got to that age of like 13, 14, music was so it was kind of like the first thing that I had that felt like it was really my own. And I was able to like I I remember, I think, I think everybody has this phase as a teenager, but like I got into Nirvana and Kirk Cobain and feeling this real sense of like teen angst in connection with that. And it was kind of like the first opportunity for me where I'm like, wow, I really feel like I'm connecting with you know people who have been in my position before. And music for me was always like had this this therapeutic and cathartic element to it. And so when I I was like, I really wanna get a guitar and I really wanna like try writing songs, and I think immediately just kind of started to do it in my bedroom and it just became this it became this therapeutic technique for me. It just became really like something special and something that I I don't know, it became part of my my coping strategies as as a young person and and it and it always has been at this point. So I just kind of grown and grown and it it's really hard to imagine a life without having that outlet uh for my feelings.

colleyc: 6:31

Yeah, totally. And when did it when did the transition happen between kind of using it, you know, to deal with your anxiety to well, I want to share this with people because it's I mean it's kind of two different uh ways of seeing things where it's a a personal thing, as you said, where I'm you know I'm dealing with things and it it it's it's a way for me to kind of vet it out. When did it switch over or did it that uh now I want to start sharing these kinds of experiences or thoughts that I'm having with a greater audience?

Tiberius: 7:04

I don't know. It kind of felt like it was always I I don't know if I was ever really conscious of that. I guess like, you know, I think it's always nice to think as like a teenager, it was like this is my way of communicating things that I wouldn't be able to communicate otherwise to like friends and family and people that were around me. And then I think it just became a thing where I just realized that that process was something that was kind of addicting. And as as I've gotten older, it's weird. Kind of doing it at a point now where like you know, my my conversational skills and my ability to be vulnerable to people is a lot better than I than it was as a child. And I think that a lot of I think I think my communication can be, you know, it it's it's much better and more appropriate to communicate it kind of more at face value for like, you know, I'm trying to tell someone oh I'm upset about this. But there's something about that like cathartic sharing and trying to like before it was like almost like sharing journal entries, and now it's more like I'm trying to write songs that feel like speak to maybe something that is a little more broad or a little more general that I relate to and that maybe anyone else who's in that area could also maybe grab onto probably like half the world or more than half the world, really, right?

colleyc: 8:34

I mean we're seeing like anxiety rates anyway in our in our youngest people, you know, how they're dealing with it, and it's uh it's it's I appreciate that because I I'm in education and I believe you're in education as well, and we are exposed a lot to these young people and uh just the stresses and it uh some of your story is ringing true to me also. So I mean I think these are universal feelings that uh that we at times feel like no, it's just me, but in reality it's thousands, millions of people that are uh have these similar feelings. Totally. Yeah, totally and uh it brought me to this lyric too, which I loved and it comes from SAG. Why do I try to keep on trying? Yeah. Can you is that kind of like where uh the headspace you were in, kind of like uh figuring out you know, uh should this be personal? Should I open the doors up? Should I not? Like it sounds like you're kind of still like battling, even in this latest record, of uh your place or uh what's too far, or is this too you know personal? Should I hold back a little bit? How do you how do you manage all of uh that? Like when do you know when a song can be like, okay, I don't mind if everybody listens to this and sings along to it at a show, as opposed to a song that you'd be like, I just don't know if people are ready for this. Like I well navigate that.

Tiberius: 10:04

I feel like this is yeah, I think this particularly is one of those records where I'm feeling that a lot throughout the whole process. I think I still struggle with it. I think there's times where I feel like comments makes me a little nervous to put out there in front of everybody, or like I there's this joke with someone who's come to some of our shows where like I'll we'll play a we'll play a set and I'll feel like especially if the songs are really fresh, like I've just like kind of like confessed my heart out, or I've like got naked on stage, and then people come up and be really nice and be like, oh nice job, and they're really positive, but I'm just like feel totally embarrassed and naked. And we were joking, we were joking about it's like it just feels like it's weird if people are so positive about it after, and then this person was like, Well, next time I see you, I'm gonna say, Oh, I'm so sorry. And so every gig I see them when we play, they're like, I'm so sorry. But but yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I I think it's hard. I think it's hard to I'm always I think the idea the concept of songwriting is something that I'm always kind of like thinking about. And I think particularly in relation to you know, the music industry or like the practice of releasing music and how when you really think about the semantics of all of it, it it's really strange to kind of be like, okay, here's this like really personal thing that I experienced. And you know, I think on one level, I think it's really beautiful to to share that maybe vulnerable experience or that creative experience with an audience. But then there's this other level of like being like, okay, like this is terrible thing that happened to me. And like if you could just like stream it and share it and play it and you know, market it, and it that gets to a place where it feels really like you're taking something and really commodifying it in a way that feels really weird.

colleyc: 12:11

I think I struggle with that a lot. A bit more removed though from that, you know, because I mean you write a lot of songs or you started writing a lot of songs on your own, right? You're pretty much a do-it-yourself artist and you were in control of a lot of what was going on. When did the evolution start where you wanted to open those doors up to other collaborators come in? And you had mentioned that you you had a very, you know, one of your best friends that you guys eventually became into a band with. And like, how do how do you know when like what was the timing knowing that I I want more collaborators to come in because I don't, you know, was it too intimate? Was it like too hard to remove yourself from what you were doing? Or I don't know. I'm just uh can you can you fill in on that?

Tiberius: 12:58

Well, I started doing Tiberius when I was, I guess I was like 18, about 10 years ago. And I was just I I had this band with my my friends in in high school, and we we were all going off to different schools, and so I I wanted to keep doing music in in college and started kind of doing Tiberius's like, I'm just gonna, you know, I had recently discovered oh, I can do garage band loops, and I thought that was the greatest thing in the world, and really just started making all these demos in college, and the songs could get really I was really like there's no limit limitation of these things. They can get really out there at this point. And so really digging deep. And then I think towards the end of college, I I felt really uncomfortable with the idea of dictating parts to people or being like, you know, for people to take up their time to play my music felt really kind of selfish or self-centered, self-absorbed. And I I had a friend who was like, you know what, actually, like I think this these songs would be really good to play in a band, and if you want, like I'll get some people together and we can play it. And I didn't think it was gonna work, but I was like, if you get the people together, like I'll I'll give it a shot. And we we did, and it actually was really fun. And one of the people that came to that first session was the our bass player and one of my best friends, KP, who Calvin Polite, who just was just kind of stuck by the project for all of these years. And that kind of first iteration of the the band only lasted like about six months or so because it was towards the end of end of college. But I I moved to Boston, and the intention was like, oh, I really want to keep doing more band-related stuff. And the pandemic happened, kind of slowed that process down a little bit, did it more on my own. But then in 2021, I really started to get some folks together here, and it became a much more collaborative process at that point because it's uh it's hard to it's hard to be a band of people when you only got yourself. So it's it's nice to it's nice to play it with the pals. Yeah, I would I would say so. There was a little bit of a few records, like there was one record in college where I had my friend Noah from my first band come and play drums on. But this was like the first this was the first record that really like I'd had kind of more like bones of songs, and my one of my drummers, Ben Ben Carell, and I kind of started to like workshop stuff together, and he helped come up with drum parts and form. And the person who was playing guitar with us at the time, Christian Pace, added a ton to their like guitar playing and their the parts that they were right, and Kelvin added so much with their bass parts, and all of a sudden it kind of it went from just being these songs that I would just create. And I guess like on the recordings, a lot of it would be overdubs that I do in my room, but like they all had so much more of a they were all birthed out of much more of like a band, more of like a live band experience. And that record and those songs wouldn't have been anything without the people that I was playing with at the time.

colleyc: 16:29

Yeah. And a solid record too. I mean, I've been listening to it quite a bit, just getting ready for the for our chat. And I mean, I even went back into 2015 and I looked at trial and error. I mean, oh my god, yeah. That was I mean, it's really solid songwriting there, Brendan. Like it has that that seed of what that was to become. I've seen such a beautiful evolution, and even uh like I said, I I had the opportunity to listen to the the new one coming out in November, Troubadour, and I mean the growth in it is is unbelievable. Just from an outsider that I mean this is the first time we've ever chatted, but I feel that through the music. I guess my question is like, how did Troubadour come to be? Because I mean, Fish and Upon was 2023, and then two years in between, Troubadour coming out now. What were the circumstances that brought this record to life? That's a good question.

Tiberius: 17:27

I well, Fish and Upon is kind of created over those like 2021, 2023, was really inspired by doing a lot of these house shows in Austin Brighton with that group of musicians I was talking about. And then Ben and I had kind of started doing some demos for just we'd written a couple of songs, done SAG and SAG and Felt and Tag, and those were kind of the first couple on the record. And then I ended up taking some time, I went on took a few weeks to do some traveling in the summer of of 2023, and I kind of was like, it was like a real like time of transition. Like our guitarist Christian was moving to New York. I was off from I was I work as a as a teacher and I was off for the summer and I just had a lot of time to kind of just do some more songwriting at home. And I also had had like a really nice Neil Young phase going on around the same time. And I just started demoing a lot more of these like I guess I guess more rustic inspired tunes. And a lot of these songs kind of just came really fast. And I it was like fish in a pond was was coming out, but all of a sudden I was like, okay, I have these all these new songs I want to start getting into. And thankfully I had a good friend, Nate Scaringe, who helped engineer the the drums for Troubadour, and then would later come and help do kind of assist with some of the mixing stuff too. But they they were able to get us into the record co in in Boston. And we uh Ben did Ben and I just did a session where they recorded a bunch of drums for the record, and then I filled them in with the rest of the record, and then we did another session with the drums and then filled it in again. So it was kind of like this more it was a much more concise recording process as opposed to I think I guess fish it upon is like every time there was a every time I kind of had a song ready, I was like, okay, you want to try recording drums, and we'd go to the practice space and do a drum recording, and then I work on that one for a while, and then we'd go to the next one. I think that I'll a lot of them start with like a melody and in guitar chords and I'll I'll sing and if it feels good to sing and to play, I'm usually like, okay, this feels like it has a lot of potential, and I'll do that for a bit. And then I think that a record usually comes to be when I've written, you know, a group of songs and I start to kind of notice a a theme or a trend or maybe kind of a topic that's that's going on. And then from there, it feels a lot easier to kind of like put together a body of work. Because I guess I've I've always tried to do more of like I think all the records I I want to make are are loosely conceptual, kind of have like an overarching point to them. And yeah, I guess that's kind of for me, it's like an opportunity to tell a story in longer than like three and a half minutes. So I um So I think with with Tubador, like when kind of that group of songs started to come together, I was like, okay, this feels like it could be a record, or sometimes I'll be like, it could be like a group of EPs, or maybe it'll be like I I I for this record, I thought it could be interesting to release it in three parts, or release like one song and then another song, and then another song, and it was really being like it doesn't have to be a record, but then it just kind of it just felt like eventually it felt like it it could be a a good cohesive one. Right.

colleyc: 21:21

And now kind of and and was this kind of the birth of this farm emo, like because you were saying it kind of had more of a country feel to it, like and it does. I mean, it's so melodic, but it also has this kind of slow, fast play that you uh that that you like to play around with, which I love. Like it has that like pixies, Nirvana, as you were mentioning before, kind of thing where you're playing around with this slowness and then it hits you in the in the head. I mean, not not it's not we're not talking hardcore here, but it has like the emotion just kind of like bubbles up.

Tiberius: 21:56

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean I love it, I love it when things are quiet and really loud and building that contrast as much as possible. Yeah, I I guess the the farm emo thing, I think, I think just like people are always like, what what what kind of music do you play? Like, what's the genre? And like it's always weird to say, like, oh, I play like indie rock, but I think that they're all kind of like if you strip them all back to their bare bones, they're all kind of like, you know, they're like folk songs or like singer-songwritery songs, but they're they're very emotional and they're very like can get very loud and distorted and fuzzy. And I think no matter, no matter what, I think I'm always gonna like there's always that temptation to like click on the distortion pedal or like what would it sound like if it got really crazy here? Right. And I think I'm just I can't help myself with that, usually when it comes to the writing. So I think that the the farm emo thing came out of the idea of like, okay, it's like it's emo-y, but it's not quite like Midwest emo, but it's got a little country folky in there, but it's not quite that either. Someone we were on tour, my pedal steel player and I, and we were playing with some some other like we got on like a bill with some country duos, and they're excellent. And then this this person in Far Wayne came up to us and is like, Oh, you guys are like y'all alternative. And I was like, That's great, actually.

colleyc: 23:28

That's so cool. That's really cool. And kind of like as we come to a close here, uh, running, thanks so much again for the time you've taken to share some amazing stories. Your your your history is very uh engaging. I've just loved listening to your stories about the band and the starting and your writing process. Uh I guess my last question is like, what uh what happens after this record comes out? So November 14th, it hits the the world. What else is in the works that people could anticipate or look forward to?

Tiberius: 24:04

Well, we're gonna do we're gonna do a little northeast run in November, which will be nice. So we're gonna do Burlington, Portland, Boston, and then Albany, Philly, New York to kind of celebrate this book and this little chapter of of Troupador. And my drummer will actually put it really well. Like, we've been playing these songs for like two years at this point, and he was just like, Yeah, like it's like it's an album release show, but it's more like an album goodbye show, like or an album for a wheelchair. Because it's at this point, we're like all like we're really excited to work on some new stuff. And I've been trying to write, and my mind has been much more in a different place than it was when these songs were written, a really different place, actually. But it's I think I'm really trying to start working on writing some new tunes and writing some new music. And hopefully I definitely don't want to stop playing these tunes or or stop doing this record because I'm hoping that we can continue to expand. And I I definitely want to do some more tours next year and kind of in the meantime where we're where we're milk in this era.

colleyc: 25:16

I look forward to the well, I mean, I'm still really loving this because I mean and people are gonna love this. You're gonna love this full record. Uh there's four singles out on it, uh, but listening it to it from start to finish is just uh a real treat. Uh excellent songwriting, excellent bandmanship. Uh you guys sound tight and like on the same wave uh throughout this record. Uh and I hope I get to see you guys live maybe uh down the road you'll head north a little bit and come up visit us. Uh and I just wish you all the best with this release. Uh I know that these are a lot of work, these records, and then it just the day comes and then goes. And it's like, what happened? What's going on? But the effort is is well, the effort is always memorialized forever. So I I'm I'm glad that this effort is gonna be uh a part of our uh world for uh well till it ends, really. So I appreciate that and good luck on the tours too. Uh I hope that that gets the attention it deserves. People go and check out uh Tiberius, uh buy a record or a cassette or a shirt, go see the show, go and say hi to the guys. These are all important things for these bands that are particularly independent and they rely on these live performances. Take care of yourself. Yeah, it's been a real pleasure. I hope that uh when the next one drops, uh, we can continue this conversation.

Tiberius: 30:05

What are you doing?