Photo courtesy of Elina Pasok

As Plastic Barricades vocalist and guitarist Dan Kert began creating his upcoming album, We Stayed Indoors, he found himself using his music as a diary to vocalize what he called “the two most bizarre years of our collective lives.”

“Writing this album wasn’t an easy task, especially considering that creating new songs was always about being in the same room with other musicians and seeing where the jam leads us,” he said. “This time around all the songs were conceived in a solitary confinement, so there was definitely a lot of soul-searching before I could figure out what I want to say with this record and how to say it in the most expressive way.”

Kert admits that spending an excessive amount of time in his own company was a new concept for him, but it helped him realize that there is a certain amount of productiveness that can come from that.

This time around, he spent more time creating demos and perfecting them before reaching out to collaborators to record the final track. Although he misses the unpredictability that can come from a recording session, he finds this new approach just as rewarding.

Kert always tries to see where the songs take him, and this album was no exception. The first single to be released, “Lucid in the fall”, is the perfect look into what he says is his most introspective and most sincere album yet.

The song was inspired by the beginning of lockdown, where he saw so many people turn to online shopping as a way to relieve stress. It got him curious: What happens after we buy everything we’ve ever wanted?

“‘Lucid in the fall’ was an important song for me, because it was written as a reminder that even during the pandemic we cannot keep living out our consumerist dreams,” Kert said. “Mindless consumption is destroying our beautiful planet.”

He hopes that listeners are inspired by “Lucid in the fall” to live life to the fullest every day but to do so without wasting money and damaging the environment. The song is a reminder that change starts with one person, no matter what that change is.

“We Stayed Indoors is an album about hope in a seemingly hopeless world, about being connected to so many people online but feeling very alone,” Kert said. “Topics of consumerism, ecology, someone else’s dreams, courage and adversity also come up fairly often.”

With the album set to release in 2023, Plastic Barricades will continue to challenge themselves and their listeners to unpack how the last two years has affected the human race. Tackling these important subjects in their music is how conversations start, and they hope these conversations lead to change.