25-year-old Tyler Fortier is Eugene, Oregon’s go-to man for good, honest folk/rock music – well, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after watching Fortier perform at Luckey’s Bar and the Whiteaker Block Party. “Fear of the Unknown” is currently in the running for Eugene Weekly’s Next Big Thing contest, and will be featured on one of Fortier’s next albums. Here, he shares how this song came to be and why he thinks people have a “fear of the unknown.”

The creation of this song happened sometime in June after I had gotten back from tour. I was sitting in my living room, trying to think of either a title or a bridge for a song I had written in Boise, ID called “Might As Well Get Saved.” I had started writing a post-apocalyptic novel in May 2010, but instead of finishing it (or even getting farther than a paragraph) I began channeling the ideas I had through song. The song, “Fear Of The Unknown,” was originally supposed to sit in stark contrast to the condescending and very apparent religious (or anti- religious) undertones of the song, “Might As Well Get Saved.”

“Fear Of The Unknown” is supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, and provide hope to the characters caught up in this end-of-days scenario. What this hope is, exactly, is supposed to be left up to the listener. One of my favorite quotes about religion is by a 16th century philosopher named Machiavelli, who says “religion is but a childish toy,” meaning people use religion for any purpose they want. They take what they need or want, skew meanings to fit within their life and live blindly to apparent contradictions that exist. I like to think that this song (or a lot of my songs for that matter) can evolve into whatever the listener wants or needs it to be about. “Fear’s” chorus is purposefully left ambiguous (“We’ve got a world to believe in but this world is sinking slow / We’ve got something to believe, something we ain’t seen in years”), while the verses are straightforward, touching on the cyclical nature of life and the people who are caught up in its’ cycle. Johnny and Julie are characters I have portrayed before, but not since 2006; in this song, they merely represent every man and every woman.

A fear of the unknown encompasses all the questions that we can’t answer but, for some reason, insist on answering. Generally speaking, if someone doesn’t know something, they will convince themselves of anything to fill in the blanks because, as a society, we have to have an answer for everything. It makes people feel uneasy if they do not know. In turn, I think a majority of people live unconsciously and neglect to challenge themselves and the things they have grown up with as “tradition”. “Julie don’t write, she don’t cry anymore” [means] she doesn’t take the time to learn or question the unanswered parts of life because she feels unafraid and/or a sense of numbness to these questions because, as a little girl, she had already succumbed to the teachings of the many unconscious traditions that she grew up with.

This song takes a jab at every Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, and/or every man-made religion that exists in the world – but not in a hateful or angry way, just in a questioning way. I think the cyclical references, like getting up and going to work day in and day out, and people being born as other people are dying help fuel the point I try to make, which is [that] we get stuck in routines, only to perpetuate the feeling of being in a state of cruise control or mindlessness as we continue our days.

As far as the production of the song goes, I originally intended it to be just an acoustic track. After showing my drummer (Ben Klenz) and my bassist (Joe Intile), Ben insisted on playing drums and once he did, the bass line quickly followed. From there, the song turned into something bigger. I knew at that point I had to get a horn section, electric guitars, organs, hand claps, and backing vocals. I wanted to have an E Street Band type of feel, which I think we achieved. I’m working on two different records right now, with the idea of releasing both of them in 2011. There are 15 songs recorded right now and in the next two weeks we will be recording more and starting to finish these songs up. This song is definitely my most upbeat out of the new ones, but other songs will include similar backing arrangements (horns, organ, guitars, vocals, strings).

Check out Tyler Fortier’s performance of “Fear of the Unknown” at the Whiteaker Block Party, or listen to the recorded version on EW’s Next Big Thing website

BestNewBands.com