“It sounds a little crazy but, for me, the two were connected and unraveling my feelings of loss and longing for my mom, really helped me make sense of the decisions and choices I’d made in my relationship,” he says.
The album embraces the ability to feel love, even when the object of that love is no longer there.
“There’s a line in ‘Blue Ink’ in which I say, ‘I know we’ll never say goodbye’ and in the moment that I wrote that, I felt that emotion,” Mire says. ” It was about my mom, my ex, and anyone else I’d ever really loved. You might lose someone but the love remains.”
“Following the Landslide” comes four years after Mire’s last release, “Never Regret the Nights,” which was produced by Clay Cook of the Zac Brown Band.
The songs span more than a dozen years of Mire’s life, from “My Mother’s Only Daughter,” written in 2000 after he moved from New Orleans to Atlanta, to “Gone,” which he recorded in his kitchen after the new album was finished and squeezed in as the final song.
For Mire, music is a form of therapy and healing, which he is happy to balance with a full-time job rather than trying to make his only gig. He credits a conversation with fellow musician Edie Cary, who sings on “Landslide,” with helping him decide that trying to make a living as a “road warrior” touring musician was not his path.
“After that conversation, I knew that I wanted to do this more of an art project as opposed to a second career,” Mire says.
“I’m a practical type who relishes being at my desk and feeling productive and having a schedule, but having music as an outlet really balances me and, over the years, has really given me the chance to find some wholeness,” he says. “Because my music is introspective, it’s been a helpful tool for personal development. It adds a richness to my days, that’s for sure.”
Cary sings on “Blood on Your Hands,” perhaps the most painful lost-love song on the album. Mire also gets a little help from his friends on other tracks, including Girlyman on “ILY,” Lucy Wainwright Roche on “Blue Ink” and GA Voice’s own Bo Shell on “Rings.”
“For ‘Rings,’ I’d originally thought of doing it as a duet with Doris from Girlyman, but it didn’t make emotional sense for a gay man to be singing to a woman. So I started thinking of guy singers I know and thought of Bo,” Mire says.
“He’d opened for my last CD release concert and even though he doesn’t have a CD out, I’ve heard many of his songs and his voice is so unique and unforgettable, I thought it would be a fun idea and a chance to do something different. There aren’t a lot of gay male duets out there!”
To listen to songs from “Following the Landslide” or purchase the digital download, click here.