Sean Baker's Recycled Stardust 

• Zach Shaw
• Sean Baker

Sometimes all you need is to start over. A change in scenery, a new job, a new project—all can be a great way to shake life up, especially if you're in a rut.

That's exactly what happened for Sean Baker and his latest project, Sean Baker's Recycled Stardust. Baker detailed how his new project is a fresh start for him, and how he believes his debut EP The Purple House is a change from a life-long losing streak of releasing music.

Baker isn't a Utah native, but has lived here long enough that he happily calls it home. A past relationship brought him here, and he has no plans of leaving. "The relationship didn't work, but the move definitely did," he said. "I've built my own home here in the desert mountains." He's also got years of experience as a singer and songwriter. As soon as he could play guitar and drive himself to open mics, that's where you could find him each weekend. He's been playing and creating music for about 20 years, but Baker said he's never released anything that he's truly proud of.

That's where Sean Baker's Recycled Stardust comes in. "Scientists believe that every single atom that every single thing is made of has gone through the center of long extinguished stars, and we're all stardust, and so the idea that I am recycled stardust, and this stardust will get recycled again just felt very appropriate for my content," Baker said. "And it's a really big, long, obnoxious name, Sean Baker's Recycled Stardust. I'm a very wordy guy. If you listen to either of the EPs, it's very word- and lyric-driven and heavy."

As was true for much work by other creatives, The Purple House primarily came together during the pandemic. "I started in January 2020 recording this," Baker said. "I didn't think it was going to take this long, but life and COVID and a whole bunch of other factors kept pushing it along down the road." The debut EP is also lovingly named after Baker's home, which was a safe space for Baker after a tumultuous breakup left him in a dark place. "I didn't have anything that I was working on or working towards," he said. "I was going to work, and I was keeping that together at the very least, but I didn't really have anything. And I wasn't writing any music. Music's been a big part of my life since I was a little kid."

"I realized that when I get into these relationships, I give all that up so that I can give 100% of myself to the relationship," he added. "But then if you give 100% of yourself to a relationship, what does that leave you? Zero percent. Then you're zero percent of yourself."

The purple house was the first place Baker lived on his own, and where he started writing music again after a hiatus. "I hardly picked up my guitar, and I don't go out and play like I used to," he said. "I started writing songs again, and all five of the songs that are on the two EPs are songs that I wrote in this living room, in this house, as I've moved into a new phase of who I am, what I am."

Listening to Baker's debut EP, this sense of change and finding one's self shines through. It's obvious he put his heart and soul into the songs. Baker promoted the EP before its release, but also surprised listeners with a B-side of stripped-down versions of the tracks the day the EP dropped. Both EPs are an excellent journey to depart on, as Baker was obviously passionate in creating this project. He plays with ferocity and sings like his life depends on it. He's high energy one moment, then he's scaling it back and pulling at your heartstrings.

Before the album was released, Baker hadn't released music he was truly proud to show off. "There's been a lot of attempts and nothing that I've ever been like, 'Hey, do you want to check out some of my music? Here it is,' and be happy about the outcome or being excited about the opinion or review," he said.

A key component to feeling proud of the work is being brutally human and brutally honest, as Baker put it. "It feels natural. In all of my songs, vulnerability is a pretty regular overarching theme, vulnerability and humanness and authenticity," he explains. "I don't write songs because I need people to hear them, I don't write songs because I want to play them and show off anything, I write the song originally because I have a thought or a feeling or a memory or an experience or a combination of all the above. And getting it out of me, getting it out of my head feels natural and it feels good and it feels human."

Sean Baker's Recycled Stardust is streaming everywhere now, and this isn't the last you'll be seeing of Baker going by this moniker. "I got a lot more coming down the pipeline," he said. "I'm really excited to show what else I have to work with. I don't think any of those five songs are my best songs. I've written some of my best work since I started that project." It'll be exciting to see more recycled stardust from Baker in the future.