Today, Los Angeles quartet Harriet — fronted by former Dawes and PAPA keyboardist, Alex Casnoff — share a new dark, dramatic and harrowing tale. “No Way Out,” full of daunting, pounding piano and Casnoff’s weathered and pained vocals, is a song about a close-call, near-death experience with an unlikely drug… marijuana.
It’s a drug that could require joining a 3 month drug rehabilitation program for others, or nothing at all for some hardcore users.
With hints of folk’s twang, rock’s bite and electronica’s shine, it’s a beautifully intense, elegiac anthem born out of fear and suffocation.
Casnoff shares the story behind the song:
“Two years ago on the holiday known as 4-20 I overdosed on weed. My heart stopped. What I thought was half a dose of a hash oil candy bar, was three doses of the strongest edible the club had.”
To read more and see Harriet’s upcoming tour dates with The New Pornographer’s A.C. Newman, continue after the jump…
“Two years ago on the holiday known as 4-20 I overdosed on weed. My heart stopped. What I thought was half a dose of a hash oil candy bar, was three doses of the strongest edible the club had. Marijuana is legal in Los Angeles, but my heart stopped. Literally. Flat line, beeeeeeeep, doctors rush in, everything. I could have single handedly taken down the industry. The first weed-death. The no-addiction, no-harm drug, now lethal. Of course a little Ativan in my veins and I was back a few moments later. But for a second I was really gone. I stopped breathing. I had no control over anything. I just sat there in my body, waiting and watching and vomiting and choking until I died. After, I remember a bro-nurse, tatted up the sleeve, handing me a giant cup of ice water in a plastic bucket, and all I could say was “Biiig Waaater”, but nothing’s ever tasted better. It’s embarrassing to have died from weed. It doesn’t inspire feelings of strength or masculinity. The only consolation was that when my friend and I brought back the chocolate to the club to complain, they mentioned that the same thing had happened to, not gonna name names, and I obviously can’t confirm the sources reliability, but, an important member of the Wu-Tang Clan. I feel like that puts me in good company. Pot is a fantastic thing. There are no warnings or doctrines in this song, besides, don’t go to a club on 4-20 and ask for the strongest edible they have, like, something thats literally gonna make me hallucinate, and then accidentally imbibe three of them. It’s a recounting of where my head was at, when I lost complete control of my body. Nothing’s ever been scarier for me. And, nothings ever been so overpriced as a hospital. At least we got a song out of it. No Way Out.”
Tour Dates with A.C. Newman:
11/8 – Vancouver, BC – The Biltmore Cabaret (Exclaim! 20th Anniversary Concert Series)
11/9 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
11/10 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
11/12 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent
11/13 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echoplex
11/14 – San Diego, CA – The Casbah
