You know that song that was sick in your head back in 2012. It went a little like, “ho, hey….ho hey…ho…hey.” and then it went, “I don’t know where I belong / I don’t know where I went wrong/ But I can wrote a song.” Ya, that was a good one from The Lumineers.

Over the years they have been releasing more music but since the pandemic, Jeremiah Fraites, the co founder, drummer and songwriter, has ventured out on his own. The Lumineers tour was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19, which allowed for a great opportunity. His debut solo album, Piano Piano, is out tomorrow with a collection of instrumental music which includes strings, permission and guitar.

While being at home in Denver quarantining, Fraites recorded his album but it wasn’t that easy. There was a lot of noise going on at his house during that time. He has a 2-year-old, a dog and a construction project happening around him. He told Colorado Matters, “When my son would take his nap, I’d have anywhere from an hour to two hours to record these takes. it added a lot of pressure.” In an interview with NPR, he says, “I don’t know if I’d ever want to work that way again.” Which definitely makes sense.  

Through the past decade of working with, The Lumineers, Fraites did a lot of writing but some of it did not always work with the band. He kept it all in a drop box and used some of it for this album. In high school, he never actually wanted to be in a band with a singer, “really complicated instrumental music is what spoke to me,” Fraites told 5280, “words and lyrics went in one ear, out the other.” That was until he met Wesley Schultz, the other co-founder of The Lumineers and the lead singer.

The song Maggie is about his wife’s dog dying. Fraites says this song gave him the most trouble. With the album being all instrumental, he had to figure out how to “say something without actually saying anything.” 

He wanted the album to “flirt with the idea of it being really intimate and then also, at times, it feels very world class-high production.” That was the most difficult part of making this album for Fraites.

And as for The Lumineers, they are “conjuring some new ideas.”