Achingly intimate and beautifully raw, Joh Chase’s “Risking It With You” is a surrender to vulnerability and letting love in.
Stream: “Risking It With You” – Joh Chase
There’s nothing I can control that makes the hard parts easy. But something I know for sure: I’m devoted to risking it with you…
If love is about taking the ultimate risk and jumping into the deep end with another soul, then Joh Chase’s latest release is the soundtrack to that visceral experience. Achingly intimate and beautifully raw, “Risking It With You” is a surrender to vulnerability and letting love in.
Because whatever happens to us in the future, the love we have today, in the present, will always be worth its potential loss down the road. In essence, Joh Chase is proclaiming themselves a steadfast believer in that evergreen Tennyson phrase, ’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. And that’s a message we can all get behind.
You might fall in love
with someone in group therapy,
They might see you more clearly than me,
Or turn you on like I used to.
I could get sick and lose my mind.
Leave you in a cloud of dust behind;
Turn in to someone else.
There’s nothing that I can hold
that will promise me we’ll always be.
There’s nothing I can control
that makes the hard parts easy.
But something I know for sure:
I’m devoted to risking it with you.
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Risking It With You,” Joh Chase’s churning, emotionally-charged fourth single on Kill Rock Stars. Since re-“debuting” earlier this year with their new name, the Seattle-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has quickly reestablished themself as a wellspring of potent, powerful, and deeply moving indie rock,
Don’t let their lack of available tracks on Spotify fool you; Chase is no newcomer to the scene, with a resume that spans nearly two full decades in the industry. Touring nationally and regionally since 2006, they have opened for everyone from Noah Gundersen and David Bazan to Robert DeLong and Barcelona, and independently funded several full length records over the years.
That wealth of experience is immediately evident in Chase’s latest batch of songs – ostensibly their reintroduction to the world as they found a new home in Kill Rock Stars this year. Chase released their gentle giant of a debut single “Lucky Penny” in February of this year; warm and wondrous, this groovy alt-folk track is at once fun and fervent, highlighting Chase’s ability to marry sweet, lilting melodies with the deeper aspects of their songwriting.
Following “Lucky Penny,” the stirringly soulful “Another Lover,” and this past July’s sonically seductive “Sometimes,” “Risking It With You” is Chase’s fourth track of the year, and arguably their most intimate offering yet (though one could argue the same of “Another Lover”). Sporting a self-produced and directed music video that places Chase front and center, singing (and looking) directly into the camera at various locations around the city, “Risking It With You” is perhaps best appreciated as a declaration of intent: It’s a song of steadfast love and heartfelt devotion, with brutally honest lyrics and an equally vulnerable, raw performance.
We could buy a house but lose it in a fire,
Try to start over, but we fall apart.
We never could agree on the paint.
You could find something new about yourself,
Realize you can’t be with me now.
You need some space to understand.
“‘Risking It With You’ was one of those songs that came to me all at once during the 2020 lockdown,” Chase tells Atwood Magazine. “Amidst the craziest of times, sharing a one bedroom apartment with my partner, our two cats and joint custody pit bull that don’t get along, both working from home, there were many moments where I wanted simpler solutions for the chaos, but they were not so quick to appear.”
“At one point that summer, I went up to my parents’ house for a while to write and get my head together. This song was the aftermath of that writer’s retreat and time on my own, away from my partner. The production is guitar driven, but shaped into a lo-fi bedroom recording, stripped down version of my sound.”
Chase expresses everything that needs to be said in the chorus, whose beautiful sentiments – worthy of the best wedding vows – face life’s inevitable turbulence and left turns not with hesitation, fear, or doubt, but rather, with wholehearted, unapologetic acceptance:
There’s nothing that I can hold
that will promise me we’ll always be.
There’s nothing I can control
that makes the hard parts easy.
But something I know for sure:
I’m devoted to risking it with you.
“There’s nothing I can control that makes the hard parts easy,” they sing, “But something I know for sure: I’m devoted to risking it with you.” This is love done right. Stream Joh Chase’s “Risking It With You” exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and stay tuned for more from the artist as they break us down, only to build us back up again.
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