Los Angeles-based Singer Songwriter Zach Churchill bares his soul without reservation on his confessional, potent new album “Greater Than.” It includes the lead single “Surrender.”
It’s an appropriate precursor to this bold album, exploring difficult feelings and painful trauma with a brave curious spirit. The single deals with addiction and hopelessness, yet there is healing and hope in its underlying music and message. Whether welcoming or foreboding, truth is Zach’s artistic and life mantra.
Zach Churchill’s Greater Than album makes for genuine storytelling.
Churchill elaborates on the album-writing process, explaining how it was therapeutic and encouraged him to trust his inner compass:
“Greater Than,” was written and recorded in Sherman Oaks, CA with my producer and friend, Tom Rasulo. Amidst a bunch of changes and trials in my personal life, the studio was a refuge and safe place for me to process all that was happening. I was able to explore difficult feelings, reflect on my current circumstances, and digest painful experiences. Basically, this album was incredibly therapeutic. It represents an incredibly important period in my life when I finally began to trust myself.
The title track, “Greater Than”, is about making other people your Higher Power and then being disappointed when they let you down, and finally coming to terms with the painful truth that no human being will ever be able to save or fix you.
“Surrender” is about addiction being the result of untreated trauma. “Each day is the same, I wake up in pain, and repeat what I fear with no resolution.”
“The past, it is real, and it’s living inside you. This pain, it can heal, you can change if you want to…”
Fromgirltogirl.com review of ‘Greater Than’ Album
The ‘Greater Than’ album is a splendor of emotions from track to track. We enjoy the story of overcoming struggle. Even if some of the lyrics can have us in our feelings, Zach Churchill keeps the instrumentals on the album upbeat or at a tempo that can be heard when you are having a good or bad day. It’s an easy 50 minute listen.
He pulls no punches: His lead single “Bartender” chronicles a harrowing heroin overdose. “The person I’m singing to saved my life,” Zach explains. “He was closing up at 2:00 a.m. at the venue when I overdosed. Everyone was gone, but he checked the bathroom because the light was on. The door was locked, so he got the key and found me. If he had just gone home I’d be dead.”
In the hospital, after a medically induced coma, Zach was forced to face his family and himself.
“You hit your bottom when you stop digging,” Churchill says.
The song is all about him saying ‘I’m done.’
Heartbreak and Hope was recorded with noted producer, artist, and multi-instrumentalist Julian Coryell who invited key musicians to power the tracks.
About Zach Churchill
On a recent journey Zach traveled The Camino de Santiago, an ancient European pilgrim route leading to the tomb of St. James in northwest Spain, a sacred path with a profound history. “I was surrounded by people who were on the pilgrimage for spiritual reasons, this great family,” he recalls. “With the right attitude, every day of my life can be an adventure like The Camino.”
Stream lead single “Surrender” on Spotify.
‘Greater Than’ Album Tracklist
11 songs serve as musical mile markers commemorating a 10 year journey through Zach Churchill twenties — a decade that he barely survived.
1. Surrender, 2. Greater Than, 3. Living in L.A., 4. Reach You, 5. Love & Terror, 6. I Can’t Stand Myself, 7. Hover, 8. Sonoyta, 9. How To Live, 10. Then We Can Think About Dying
With an expressively vulnerable voice, singer-songwriter Zach Churchill breathes life, love, and gratitude into absorbing narratives. Sophisticated arrangements, inventive modulations, and superlative musicality are hallmarks of the Orange County, California native’s debut collection, Heartbreak & Hope.
Genre(s): Alternative Rock, Singer Songwriter, Rock, Folk Rock, Americana, Alternative
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