“Volcano”

Tonner is Matthew Tonner, a musician from Shorewood, Wisconsin, who studied music at Rollins College and made his name in Florida on other people’s records. He produced The 502s’ first two albums and played keyboards and guitar in the band. In 2020 he started releasing songs under his surname and put out the EP Whispers in the Dark that September. “Volcano”, released on 13 May 2022, was his third single of the year, and its video went up on his YouTube channel the day before.

He wrote the words and the music. By his account, the lyrics came directly from the fires on the Gulf of Mexico the year before: in July 2021 a burst Pemex gas pipeline set the surface of the water alight for about five hours. Tonner swims for exercise and sometimes gets song ideas while he swims, and “Volcano” was one he had to keep in his head until he could get it down. Living in Florida, he said, put him very close to the effects of climate change, and he called the song’s tropical touches a bit ironic given the subject, but also a reflection of where he lives.

The lyric stacks up disaster images: fire on the mountain and smoke on the water, a prayer for Vesuvio, blood on the altar, ash falling on virgin snow. The chorus admits “we’re not made to last” and throws the sacrifice into the volcano. The video was made by Shelby Bennett and Sara Lyon. The blogs that picked up the single heard a light, feel-good pop song; Music Crowns pointed to its laid-back atmosphere and playful melodies.

It became the third track of Walls Come Down, his first full-length album, announced for September 2022 and released on 14 April 2023, with singles going back to 2021. In May 2023 he posted a guitar version, recorded and filmed live at Castle Door Studios in Orlando with Justin JB Braun on percussion. Tonner described climate and pollution as problems swirling around everyone that no one person can fix, as if we were all waiting to be sacrificed to them. His answer, in his words: “All we can do is keep swimming.”