Adam Melchor opens his soul on ‘The Diary of Living,’ a breathtakingly honest, emotionally expansive, and achingly raw album that transforms grief, memory, and growth into some of the best folk music this side of the 21st Century. The singer/songwriter sat down with Atwood Magazine for an intimate conversation about honoring lost friends, stepping into his true self, and crafting a record that’s as unfiltered as it is unforgettable – a vulnerable, deeply human tribute to the people and moments that made him who he is today.

Stream: ‘The Diary of Living’ – Adam Melchor

There’s something quietly radical about calling an album The Diary of Living.

Not a snapshot of love, heartbreak, or some curated, social media-ready slice of experience – but a full, messy, complicated reckoning with what it means to be here right now, alive, carrying memory and meaning in every breath. For singer/songwriter Adam Melchor, his second studio album is more than a creative step forward – it’s the sound of someone finally stepping into himself. The songs on The Diary of Living don’t just share stories; they embody them. They remember. They hurt. They heal. And above all, they live.

This is Melchor at his most vulnerable and honest – singing not only for himself, but for the friends he’s lost, the family he loves, and the person he’s become. There’s no veneer, no filter here. Just a man and his voice, guitar, and feeling – raw, unflinching, and full of heart. “This is the first album I’ve made where I’m like, ‘Oh, this is who I am,’” Melchor tells Atwood Magazine. “It’s the most ‘me’ thing I’ve ever done.” Across ten breathtaking tracks, the LA by-way-of New Jersey artist invites us deep into his world, handing us the keys to his soul in the process. The Diary of Living is an album, and then some: It’s a manifesto. A homecoming. A practice. A promise.

living on stolen time
hoping you make 18
don’t it feel like a crime
you barely got a daydream
And it cuts me

sharper than a razor blade
driving towns with native names
two crooked smiles
laughing in the headlight
light leaked through the barren pines
when i asked are you scared to die
you said you gotta live up
’til you’re dead, right?

And i think you were dead right
i think you were dead right

– “Dead Right,” Adam Melchor

Released May 2^nd via R&R and Goodboy Records, The Diary of Living is, true to its title, an intimate, emotional, and deeply human record – one that turns grief into grace, memory into melody, and pain into possibility. Written largely in the wake of a solo cross-country drive while recovering from COVID, the follow-up to 2022’s debut LP Here Goes Nothing! was born from isolation, reflection, and the urgent need to honor stories that hadn’t yet been told. “I have to sing for the people who can’t sing anymore,” Melchor says. “If I can make their stories immortal – that’s so cool. So why haven’t I done that yet?”

From that centered conviction came a record that stuns not with flash, but with feeling.

Opener “Boardwalk Royalty” sets the tone with a sense of longing and rootedness, pulling listeners into Melchor’s world from its very first breath. “Where the hell are you? / I thought you’d never ask / I am somewhere in between / the distant future and the past,” he sings, instantly stretching time into something both haunted and human. It’s a gut punch of an opening – the kind of lyric that pulls your heart and soul apart in one fell swoop. “I’m thinking ‘bout what coulda been / and what is done and did,” he continues, caught between motion and memory, “while I’m chasing both the desert sun / and staying off the grid.” There’s something beautifully dramatic about it – a portrait of searching, of belonging, of becoming. It’s not nostalgia he’s after, but connection – a home not in place, but in people and presence.

The song closes in cathartic fashion, repeating the line like a mantra: “This where I belong.” It’s not a question, but a declaration – one that reframes the entire album from the outset. The Diary of Living doesn’t begin with a search for home; it begins with the revelation that home has already been found. What follows, then, is a meditation on what it means to stay – to hold space for love, for grief, for memory, and for growth. Melchor isn’t lost in these songs. He’s grounded – and he’s choosing, day after day, to live.

oh there’s holy rollers men of god
playing frisbee on the lawn
won’t you say a prayer for me
to keep it in one piece ‘til dawn?
oh I gotta get to California
I can’t stay for long
and my sister’s got a brand-new baby
tucked inside her arms
and I know that’s where I belong
that’s where I belong

– “Boardwalk Royalty,” Adam Melchor

And yet, even from that place of grounding, The Diary of Living never shies away from pain; instead, it leans into it – confronting the past with tenderness, honesty, and earnest resolve.

Songs like “The Hopefuls” and “Lightweight” ache with lived experience, their lyrics straddling the fragile line between hope and hurt, survival and surrender. In “Lightweight” – one of his personal favorites – Melchor reflects on past substance use with startling candor: “I never took enough to die / I guess I’m a lightweight,” he sings, his voice soft but searing. It’s a matter-of-fact admission wrapped in years of pain, growth, and grace – a statement that carries the weight of words unspoken.

“This record is me getting to a place where I can say, ‘Yeah, these songs are about some sad shit… but they’re kind of happy, too,’” Melchor explains. “That’s what I wanted – not to be one thing, but to be everything that I am.”

That ethos pulses throughout the record – not as a clean arc of redemption, but as an honest accounting of what it means to carry your scars with care. “The Hopefuls” echoes a similar sentiment, chronicling grief, recovery, and the courage to keep dancing in the face of despair. “I’m trying to be one of the hopefuls,” Melchor sings – and you believe him, because every note feels earned.

That same sense of resolve – to live in full view of life’s hardest truths – courses through “Suburban Siddhartha,” a searing elegy for a friend lost to overdose and one of the album’s most emotionally devastating tracks. The song unfolds like a eulogy in motion, tracing addiction’s brutal escalation from “the bathroom cabinets / scripted by the family doctor” to “upstairs after breakfast / never came back down from heaven.” It’s Melchor at his most vulnerable and most precise – detailing the ache of loss with a tenderness that refuses to look away. “You didn’t have a casket / Just a picture and some scripture / Sitting by your ashes,” he sings, letting the weight of absence settle in. And when words begin to falter, emotion takes over. The repeated chorus of “hey hey hey / na na na” becomes its own language – a raw, wordless expression of grief and remembrance. Sometimes, when there’s nothing left to say, love still comes through the cracks.

Melchor’s strength as a songwriter lies in his ability to hold multitudes – and throughout the album, that range is on full display

in standouts like “Dead Right,” “Change of Heart,” and the record’s namesake, “The Diary of Living.” “Dead Right” is one of the album’s sweetest surprises: A song about mortality that feels strangely alive, with a bright acoustic strum and a singalong hook that belies its sorrow. It’s a celebration as much as a farewell – a way of honoring those who are gone by singing their names with joy. Elsewhere, “Change of Heart” erupts in a dynamic folk rock fever, finding Melchor at his most defiant. “Time and time you’ve been let down / why oh why’d you stick around,” he belts, each repetition building like a storm – cathartic, insistent, and impossible to ignore.

And then, anchoring the entire album in its quietest kind of strength, comes the title track: A soul-stirring reverie, co-written with Bruno Major, that stands as the album’s emotional cornerstone. Stripped-back and tender, “The Diary of Living” is gentle but unshakable – an acoustic hymn to resilience, empathy, and the messiness of growth. “Let the choirs of fallen angels sing the hallelujahs / Let the devil on your shoulder try their best to fool ya,” Melchor sings, letting the melody float like a feather, soft but purposeful.

“I wanted this record to feel like a journal – pencil marks, crossed-out lines, little things happening in the background. I wanted it to still feel like me. Personal. Honest. Having a title like The Diary of Living felt like a challenge,” he reflects. “Like, ‘Okay, what would my diary of living actually look like?’ And then I had to rise to that.”

He rose to it – and perhaps nowhere more powerfully than on “Room on Your Shoulder,” the emotional centerpiece of The Diary of Living – a standout among standouts and the song that, in many ways, set the tone for the entire album.

Co-written with Mt. Joy’s Matt Quinn and Sam Cooper back in 2018, the track spent years on the shelf before finally finding its home here – and it’s well worth the wait. A soul-stirring folk anthem, “Room on Your Shoulder” captures the essence of human connection with poignant clarity. From the moment it begins, the song feels like a balm: Gentle and achingly beautiful, it embodies the kind of closeness that’s rare and hard-earned – the kind of friendship that makes the world feel a little softer, a little safer. Melchor’s vocals are hushed and heartfelt, carried on a breeze of acoustic guitar and openhearted vulnerability as he asks, again and again, “Is there room on your shoulder?” It’s not just a question – it’s a lifeline.

Everything about this song feels timeless. It’s the kind of track you want to wrap yourself up in, to sing at sunset with your closest friends, to carry with you on the days when the weight of the world feels too heavy to bear. And it’s personal, too – a song that has lived with Melchor for years, that has held the memories and meaning of a moment he never let go of. “I’m not exaggerating when I say I think it’s the best song I’ve ever written,” he smiles. “I wanted it to come out so badly because I want to end every show with it.”

“That’s all I want,” he adds. “Everyone singing ‘Room on Your Shoulder,’ arms around their friends, the sun setting. It’s that 7:00 PM at Coachella moment. That’s the dream.” And with this song – this powerful, raw, resounding anthem – he’s already made it come true.

Musically, The Diary of Living is refreshingly organic – rich with acoustic instrumentation, warm harmonies, and unvarnished vocals that foreground Melchor’s strengths as both singer and storyteller.

“I wanted people to hear this and know: Your favorite singer-songwriter is the second-best one,” he says with a smirk. But behind that confidence is clarity: A sense that he no longer needs to chase trends or fit into anyone else’s vision. “There’s no Auto-Tune, no tricks,” he says. “Sometimes it might sound a little crazy, but it’s me.”

That ethos – of embracing the cracks in the voice, the imperfections in the take – permeates the record. It’s an album that bleeds empathy and intention, where even the quietest lines (“I’m not lying, but I might be wrong”) feel like lifelines. Whether he’s paying tribute to family on “Change of Heart,” reaching across time and distance in “Room on Your Shoulder,” or revisiting his younger self on “Good Kid Bad Decisions,” Melchor grounds each moment in love and presence. These songs listen. They linger. They remind us that every scar tells a story – and every story is worth singing.

More than anything, The Diary of Living is a triumph of self-definition.

It’s the sound of an artist who’s no longer asking permission, but planting a flag.

“I’ve been using the word ‘rebuild’ a lot,” he says. “Whether that’s rebuilding confidence, rebuilding my songwriting, or rebuilding my sense of self. This is the album I wish had been my first.” That’s not to disown the past – but to recognize just how far he’s come. Melchor isn’t just surviving anymore. He’s living. And these songs – this diary – are the proof.

“I think the story of losing people to drugs, or growing up in small towns, or holding on to hope – it’s about reframing trauma and using it to become a better person,” he reflects. “That’s what I wanted this album to do. Not a ‘woe is me’ thing. Not, ‘My friends are dead.’ But more like: ‘My friends aren’t alive in this world, but they’re still here. They’re part of the way I move through the world. They’re paradigms in how I act and how I treat people. That’s how they keep living. And that’s how we all keep living.’”

That’s The Diary of Living. That’s Adam Melchor – not just as a songwriter, but as a witness, a vessel, a son, a brother, a friend.

These songs will stay with you. They are, after all, pages from a life still unfolding.

Read our intimate interview with Adam Melchor below, and dive into The Diary of Living – a triumph of heart, honesty, humanity, and healing.

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:: stream/purchase The Diary of Living here ::

:: connect with Adam Melchor here ::

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Stream: ‘The Diary of Living’ – Adam Melchor

A CONVERSATION WITH ADAM MELCHOR

Adam Melchor: This is the most calm I’ve ever felt before an album coming out, which is good. It really is like a diary in so many ways – just the experiences I’ve had. I don’t really talk about them too often. But for some reason, I felt like it was the time to do it. And now, reflecting back to when I was first writing it, I’ve felt the same the whole time, which is very much like, “Oh yeah, this is just who I am.”

I think this is the first album I’ve made where I’m like, “Oh, this is who I am.” There were different things about the previous albums that were very much who I was – but then also not exaggerations, just other people’s stories and other people’s visions and whatnot. This really felt like my personal writing at the forefront. And that, to me, instills this sort of peace – that no matter what, it’s just going to be me.

Anyway, it’s not that much different today than it will be on Friday in terms of how I feel about the music and how I feel about myself. I actually feel really calm. There’s a great Jeff Tweedy quote that really pushed me through this album: “The way you feel about a song before it comes out never changes once it’s out.”

There were so many times in the past where I felt a little strange about the music I was putting out. I’d think, “Well, I have a good team, all this stuff, whatever – I’ll be fine.” Then the song would come out and I’d still think, “That song is still a little bit strange… I don’t know if it’s exactly me.” But for this one, it really feels exactly me.

Adam Melchor: It’s a great question. I had goals – real goals – going into this album. One was to sing my ass off. Another was to make it sound as live as possible. Across the whole album, we didn’t really use any non-organic instruments. There are things we did – like running organs through amps to make them sound like synths – but everything is truly happening in the room.

Having those kinds of goals made the process easier. They felt meaningful. I’m not sure my goals for my last project were as honest, or even ones I fully believed in. But this time, I had this mindset: If I had to show ten songs to my favorite artist, would these be the ones? That became the bar. I’d think, “Okay, I like this song… but would I show it to Rufus Wainwright?”

Honestly, Rufus Wainwright’s face probably should’ve been up on the studio wall. Just asking, would I show this to him?

And then there’s this thing my friend Mike said to me once: “Adam, you’re the best singer I know, the best guitar player I know, and none of your music proves it.” I was like, okay – challenge accepted. I wanted people to hear this and know: Your favorite singer-songwriter is the second-best one. I’m better than them.

It’s a weird competitive thing, but I feel that way when I play live too. When I open for people, the audience doesn’t know anything about me – so I just try to blow them away. I want their jaws to drop. It’s fun to try to be better than the headliner.

Most of the time, it’s all pretty arbitrary anyway. But if I can sing my ass off, play the guitar really well, and give people a real show, they’ll come back. I can do that. So I wanted this album to be the arrival of that.

I think my earlier projects were more like introductions to my own confidence. I was very grateful – like, “Thank you so much for listening,” kind of in awe that people were paying attention. Now, it’s like… this is the third record, maybe fourth or fifth soon – and you have to make something that makes people want to stay. Something better than what came before.

That became the goal: To make something that delivered on all of that. I don’t love getting competitive, but I feel it in my bones – and that feeling helped bring this album to life.

Adam Melchor: Yeah, absolutely. My goal is to be the best white guy with an acoustic guitar. And I genuinely feel like I’m better than all of the white guys with acoustic guitars. If you put me on stage with any of those freaks, I could sing with them – sing their songs better than them.

It’s just about finding a way to do it and having the confidence to actually do it – to know that I belong here. This is where I belong. I deserve to be in this space. It’s not, “Oh, thank you for having me,” anymore. It’s more like, “You’re welcome at my house.” That shift is huge. And I’m still on that journey.

I’ve opened for a lot of people, and for a long time I had a real opener mindset – even when I was making music, even when I was fully being an artist. The goal of this year – and last year – has been no more opening for people until I’m fully grounded in what I’m doing as a headliner. Until I feel like, “Yeah, I can do my thing in front of this person, in this place.”

It’s been a rebuilding of confidence, and I’m still working on it. But this music is a big step in that direction. I think the streams and whatnot will come – but that’s different from the music itself. I’m singing in a way I’ve never sung on record before. It’s just how I sing live. We’re not using Auto-Tune, we’re not using tricks. Sometimes it might sound a little crazy, but it’s the most “me” thing I’ve ever done.

Adam Melchor: I found people who want to have a stake in it. That’s it. Someone like Noah Conrad, someone like Elie Rizk – the way they show up creatively and personally. I’m signed to RR Digital and Good Boy Records, and Elie is an owner of Good Boy. He also helped write so much of the music. He was the one who said, “Dude, this is the thing you should be doing.”

Anyone else might’ve heard that song and said, “That doesn’t make sense with what we’re doing – let’s keep doing the same thing.” But Elie saw it for what it was. And Noah – Noah was a fan of my music before I even met him. He came to the shows. So it was about finding people who have a stake in it. Because then, if I had a bad idea or started to doubt something, they could say, “You’ve got to trust me. I’m usually with you, but this – this is the thing.”

I remember when we did “Change of Heart” – I got the bounce back and thought, “I don’t think this is the right thing.” And Noah said, “Here’s what I need you to do: Give it 24 hours. Don’t listen to it until tomorrow. Then see how you feel.” So I waited, listened again, and thought, “Dude, I love it.” It became one of my favorite songs.

There were a couple songs like that. Times when I was the one pushing – like with “Lightweight.” I kept bringing it up, and Noah would sort of put it off. But then we finally did it, and he was like, “Yeah, this is what we should be doing.” It has jazzier chords, but the subject matter is so honest and ties into the story of the album. That’s what made it work.

And you’re right – I talk with my label and my team about this all the time. Before I made this album, the mindset was: “You can do anything.” I’m lucky to be good enough to write all kinds of music. But the real question was, “Who are you? What is your thing?”

That became the direction – how do I make these songs sound like they’re just me, but still feel full? A song like “Room on Your Shoulder” does that. It has the band, but it still feels deeply personal. And “The Hopefuls” – that one, too. I can play it on just a guitar and it still hits the same. Nothing is being taken away or added to create the energy. It’s all coming from internal Adam.

Adam Melchor: Yeah, 100%.

Adam Melchor: It started in the summer of 2023. My sister was having a baby, due in early August – I think August 3^rd or 4^th – and I wanted to be there. She’s like my best friend. She and her husband had just gotten a house with a bunch of extra rooms, so I planned to stay with them, help out however I could. Her husband was also going to help me buy a truck. I figured I’d drive the Tacoma around, run errands, whatever they needed.

We got the truck the first week of August. She was super pregnant – ready to pop, really. The next day, I woke up with a tickle in my throat and had a session in New Jersey with my best friend Matt, who plays drums on all my records. I was so tired I fell asleep in the studio. Matt was like, “Dude, I’ve got some COVID tests – you should take one.” Sure enough, it was positive.

Since I was staying with my sister, I had to leave. I called all my family members and said, “I’m going to isolate. I’ll drive my truck back to Los Angeles, quarantine for five days, and then fly back to New Jersey. I might not be able to help out, but I want to be there for the birth.”

So I left the studio, packed light – just a duffel bag and my guitar – and drove to Roanoke, Virginia, where I stayed at a hotel. I crossed the country in about four and a half days, totally delirious, very much COVID-stricken. I didn’t talk to anyone. And by the first day, I was already sick of music. I had to just sit in my feelings.

I started thinking about everything – my sister at this precipice in her life, how much had changed in mine, these personal benchmarks. I was journaling every day because I couldn’t really see anyone. I was masked up, doing the thing. So I started writing about what mattered most – what stuck with me.

A lot of my friends struggled with substance abuse. Growing up in suburban areas in the 2010s, there wasn’t as much access to therapy, and the internet wasn’t widespread enough for adults to use it anonymously. If a parent wanted to get their kid help, they had to ask around – about halfway houses, about treatment – and that felt embarrassing at the time. Because of that, a lot of people didn’t get the help they needed. There were overdoses. There was lifelong pain.

Experiencing that in high school really shaped my life. I started thinking: I have to sing for the people who can’t sing anymore. These are the friends who taught me how to play guitar. Who taught me how to be a person. If I can make their stories immortal – that’s so cool. So why haven’t I done that yet? They still live inside my brain.

Driving across the country, sick, alone, seeing the road pass by – it all just came together. That’s where the story of this album originated. A lot of the songs are odes to different friends, alive and dead. I’ve sent a few to the people they’re about, and they’ve told me they can’t stop listening. They’re like, “This is awesome – that you wrote a song about this.”

I think the story of losing people to drugs, or growing up in small towns, or holding on to hope – it’s about reframing trauma and using it to become a better person. That’s what I wanted this album to do. Not a “woe is me” thing. Not, “My friends are dead.” But more like: “My friends aren’t alive in this world, but they’re still here. They’re part of the way I move through the world. They’re paradigms in how I act and how I treat people. That’s how they keep living. And that’s how we all keep living.”

To me, that’s the diary of living. It’s an everyday practice. You’ve got to do it. You’re not going to get it right. The only thing you do once is die – so you might as well live every day.

Adam Melchor: I think this is a fresh start, because when I talk about honesty being the difference on this record, it’s that I don’t think I was ready to write about the things I wanted to write about back then. On Fruitland, I wrote the easier stuff. That material is definitely more about love and heartbreak. And that’s not to diss that record at all – I love it – but this one is different.

“Suburban Siddhartha” is a good example. I wrote that song without ever planning to put it out or even record it. I just wrote it because I needed to. One day, Noah and I were talking, and he asked what I wanted to do that day. I threw out a few ideas and then mentioned I had this song called “Suburban Siddhartha.” I told him, “It’s kind of weird, but it means a lot to me.” I was being so hesitant about it – saying we could just do something else instead – and he said, “Dude, if you’re being this weird about it, we should definitely do it.” And that made total sense.

That was the second checkpoint for this album. “Room on Your Shoulder” was the first. After we recorded “Suburban Siddhartha,” my manager Will called me and said, “You’ve got to make every song like this. This is unbelievable. This is the truth you live with – you’re not telling someone else’s story here.” From then on, I dove into that world, and it became so much easier. I was like, “Oh yeah – this is what I mean.”

But there were some days I couldn’t even sing certain songs. Especially during promo for “Suburban Siddhartha” – trying to make short-form content about one of your best friends dying feels sick and twisted. Writing the songs is cathartic, but I think what I knew going into this record was that every song on it would be one of my favorites – even if it never came out. I would’ve kept them on my hard drive and still listened to them constantly.

That’s not something I’d felt with a record before. There’s usually a song or two where you think, “Okay, I need this for the fanbase,” or “This one’s for marketing.” I’ve done that before. But I’m so lucky to have the team around me that I do – people who said, “We want this. This is the best version of you. We want you to be happy.”

That’s where the Fruitland comparison comes back in. I love those records, but I don’t really find myself playing many of those songs anymore. Even with Here Goes Nothing!, it’s the same. But putting together the live show now for The Diary of Living is so much fun – because every song on it is going to be a heater on stage. That’s the biggest difference.

Adam Melchor: That’s a good question. I’ve been using the word “rebuild” a lot when talking about this project – whether that’s rebuilding confidence going from opener to headliner, or rebuilding my songwriting process. On Melchor Lullaby Hotline, Here Goes Nothing!, and Fruitland, I did a lot of co-writing – blending my story with other people’s. But this album is different. I wrote most of these songs myself. Noah and Elie came in later to help tweak melodies, but the lyrics – the heart of the songs – were all me. They say it takes your whole life to make your first album. And honestly, this is the album I wish had been my first. It took two albums to really find myself, but this is it.

People will notice the difference. There’s a different approach, a different level of songwriting, because for the first time, I’m just being myself. The times I connect most with fans are when I’m live – on stage, Instagram Live, TikTok, YouTube – just showing who I am. And I hadn’t really done that on a deep level until I turned in the final master for this record.

It feels like falling in love with music and storytelling again. And it’s freeing. Some of the vocals are out of tune or out of time – and I take pride in that. The music world is so on-the-grid right now, so polished. But with this, you can’t just AI my voice – because it’s flawed. These are my un-AI-able vocals.

It feels really real. It feels like an arrival, but also a rebuild. I use sports references all the time because I’m a huge hockey nerd. The logo on the front stays the same – Adam Melchor – but the team, the lineup, the coaches, even the goalie changes. You have to rebuild to create something that’s competitive, that brings joy. The real competition for me is within – it’s my happiness versus my sadness, my insecurities. That’s what I’ve been working through. This record is me getting to a place where I can say, “Yeah, these songs are about some sad shit… but they’re kind of happy, too.” Like with “Change of Heart” – when I first played it for John at Good Boy, I said, “Yeah, this one’s a barn burner – it’s something you move to.” And he told me, “I played this for my mom, and she cried in front of me.” That was a lightbulb moment. I realized: I can be more than one thing. I can contain multitudes.

That’s what I wanted – not to be one thing, but to be everything that I am. And I think this is my “everything that I am” album.

That’s what I wanted – not to be one thing, but to be everything that I am. And I think this is my “everything that I am” album.

Adam Melchor: How long did we say it’s been? Eight years?

Adam Melchor: Yeah, The Diary of Living came from writing a song with Bruno Major. We were sitting right at this table – my kitchen, which is also my living room – and we wrote it together. I remember thinking, “Man, this title is great.” And then it hit me that there was a lot more in it – a lot more weight and meaning.

I think The Diary of Living includes death as well. That’s such a big part of life. And honestly, those are the things that make me want to live more – when certain things die. Whether it’s a relationship or a chapter of your life, those moments push you forward. A diary feels like that – it’s a record of life as a practice. You’re always working toward something. I keep saying, “chipping away at the diamond.” That’s how I see it.

Even a song like “Suburban Siddhartha” ties into that. The book Siddhartha is about not being satisfied – always searching. And right at the end of the book, the character figures things out… or maybe death is the figuring out of life. That’s the kind of question this album sits with.

I didn’t overthink the title, actually. We wrote the song, and it felt so much like me that I thought, “Okay, this could work.” Then, during that cross-country drive, while I was journaling, it started to really click. I was also reading The Artist’s Way – that book everyone should read – and the concept of morning pages really hit home. That process of daily journaling helped a lot.

I wanted this record to feel like a journal – pencil marks, crossed-out lines, little things happening in the background. I wanted it to still feel like me. Personal. Honest.

Having a title like The Diary of Living felt like a challenge – like, “Okay, what would my diary of living actually look like?” And then I had to rise to that.

Adam Melchor: I had a whole other album ready to go – and then we made that song. The person I’d made the album with said, “I want to hear that Mt. Joy song you did with Noah.” So I played it for him, and he just turned around and said, “Dude, this is what we should be doing. This is incredible.”

Right after that session with Noah, he said, “I’ve got a month and a half of one-off sessions. I don’t want to impose, but if you and Elie are down, I’d love to do this album with you guys.” That’s what led to us making this record together. I’m so grateful to have people like Elie and Noah – they’re insanely talented, but they’re not precious about things. They’re down to work their magic however they need to.

It was really cool – and also tough, because as a solo artist, I’m the king of my own domain. With Mt. Joy, it’s a lot more democratic. The one thing we never quite pulled off – because they’re road warriors, just like I am – was getting the full band to play on it. That was a big thing for me: I didn’t want it to just be Matt singing the song. I wanted the whole band to be part of it.

I guess honesty goes a long way. Once we got that song down, the direction of everything felt so much more pointed and intentional.

Adam Melchor: Yeah, that song actually came together the day before I drove across the country for the first time – which is why it felt like it really belonged on this album. I started it back then, and then I finished writing it with Mt. Joy in 2018, right after their first album came out. I didn’t even really have a project yet – I’m not sure if “Real Estate” had come out. It might’ve been only my second or third song released at that point.

What’s cool is that a lot of this album is about the same things I was writing about on “The Archer” – but now from a different perspective. When I wrote “The Archer,” I was still in it. It was much sadder. Now, I have the gift of perspective. Even in a song like “Lightweight,” I say, “I’m lucky I’m alive / The Reaper said, just wait / I never took enough to die / I guess I’m a lightweight.” You fight through those years… and you make it.

That shift in perspective really shaped “Room on Your Shoulder.” To hold onto a song for eight years and then ask yourself, “What does this mean to me now?” – that’s powerful. There were times we tried to record it before, and it just didn’t speak to me or to Matt or Sam from Mt. Joy. But when we revisited it for this album, it finally fit. It became the catapult for the whole project.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I think it’s the best song I’ve ever written. I wanted it to come out so badly because I want to end every show with it. That’s all I want – everyone singing “Room on Your Shoulder,” arms around their friends, the sun setting. It’s that 7:00 PM at Coachella moment. That’s the dream.

And the fact that Mt. Joy still wanted to do it – that it meant something to them too – is really special. They’re honestly a huge reason I’m able to do what I do today. They were the first band to ever take me on tour, the first verified Instagram to post about my music. I owe a lot to them, and I always will.

Matt, especially – he feels like a brother. I’ve stayed at his house. I’ve written songs for them, some they’ve released. Learning from him and just being around him has been so meaningful. To have a song that captures all of that – our friendship, our history, our mutual respect – is incredible.

I’m so happy it’s out in the world. It means that much. And honestly, it’s one of those songs I’d listen to even if I didn’t write it. And that’s the dream.

Adam Melchor: Yeah, and honestly, that’s the song I wanted for the album. Of all the takes and ideas, that one felt like, “Okay, this is it – this is the first piece of it.” That’s why we put it out first. It’s the song I’d show to anyone.

Adam Melchor: It was through my manager – he also manages Mt. Joy. At the time, the label I was talking to was Will’s, and I had driven across the country to meet him. The first person he introduced me to was Jack. And yeah, it all worked out.

Adam Melchor: I definitely love “The Hopefuls.” That one feels like such a “me” song – it’s a little bit sad, it touches on a funeral, but it’s also about trying to get out of that space and be something else.

I also love “The Diary of Living.” I’m so proud of that song with Bruno Major, especially because we were supposed to go on tour during COVID and it got canceled. So having something that commemorates that time feels really special.

But right now, the song I love the most is “Lightweight.” I’m a big fan of this band called Viagra Boys – they have a song called “Worms,” and while “Lightweight” has nothing to do with it thematically, “Worms” was a huge influence on how I approached writing that one. The lyrical structure of “Worms” really inspired me. There’s not really a chorus, but at the end of each phrase, it grows a little bit – it builds on itself. That structure was a big influence. That’s my dream co-write – if I could ever do a song with Viagra Boys, that would make me…

Adam Melchor: Yeah, with “Lightweight,” I really do think it’s one of my bestsongs, lyrically. The line “The Reaper said just wait / I never took enough to die / I guess I’m a lightweight” – that’s one of my favorites. It just feels right. I also love opening lines – and one that stands out to me is from “Good Kid, Bad Decisions”: “I’m not lying, but I might be wrong.” It’s that way we reframe the past in our minds – how it gets a little further from the truth over time. There’s always two sides to every story, and then there’s the truth. That’s what that line’s really about.

And then “we were good kids making bad decisions” – I think that captures so much about substance abuse. Nobody wants to be doing that stuff. It’s chemical. It’s what they’re going through. Good people struggle with addiction. It’s not just “bad people.” There are plenty of bad people who are sober and plenty of good people who struggle. We have to give the people in our lives a chance to make amends.

When I say “life is a practice,” this is what I mean. What I’ve learned from friends dealing with addiction is that it never fully goes away. You’re always addicted to it – you just don’t do it. And that’s the practice. Doing the good thing for yourself every day. And there will be days when you can’t, and that’s okay – as long as you keep the goal in mind and have people around you who love and support you.

That’s the kind of feeling I wanted this album to carry. There’s something in every song that I really love, so it’s hard to pick just one.

Last little songwriting thing, and maybe this is how we end it: I’ve never felt better about a rhyme than when I rhymed “loyalty” with “royalty.” I was like, “I am awesome.” That was really good. Being a musical theater nerd, I love a true rhyme – it has to be exact. And that one? That could’ve been on Broadway. It’s a golden goose rhyme. There are a lot of other rhymes on the album that are not golden geese… but that one? I really cooked with that one. My musical theater friends are going to be very proud.

Adam Melchor: You know what I really hope people do – and it’s something I love when it happens to me while listening to music – is stop thinking about the artist making it, and start thinking about themselves. That’s always been my goal: To be myself enough that I actually disappear from the picture when someone’s listening. When I listen to my own album, I’m not thinking about the bass part or the guitar part – I’m thinking about the story, and the people it’s about. I’m thinking about how the person Adam is feeling, not the artist Adam.

That’s why I’ve sometimes wished I had a different artist name – something like “Melch” – just to create that separation. It’s honestly my only regret: not picking an artist name that wasn’t just my own. Because when I hear a Beatles song, I don’t think about Paul McCartney or John Lennon. I think about me. I think about my friends. I think about smoking blunts and listening to Rubber Soul. That’s the experience I want people to have with my music – to learn more about themselves while listening to my stuff.

Adam Melchor: I think I can describe it in one word: I think it’s just hopeful. I think it’s hopeful, looking forward. There’s three words.

Adam Melchor: Viagra Boys. 1000% Viagra Boys. Who else… let me give you some that aren’t as well known – there are like my secrets. There’s a guy named Nami – his song “Suzette” has been on repeat. He’s so good. I met him once through Ethan Gruska. Ethan was like, “Hey, my friend Nami is going to borrow that guitar you have – he’s coming over today.” I was like, cool. We talked for maybe ten minutes, and I was like, “Dude, you’re amazing. This is really cool.” He actually just texted me the other day and said, “Dude, ‘Room on Your Shoulder’ – unicorn. Unicorn stuff.” And I was like, “We’re all on the same boat here. Same moon, different pad. See you at the top.” We’re all in this thing together. He’s amazing.

Let me check my liked songs, this is so fun. I love these songs. Okay, there’s one called “Born Too Late” by Waterbaby. And then… hold on, I want to give you a deep one. I’ll say “Wimbledon White” by slimdan – especially because there’s a secret thing I’m doing with him at the end of the month around that song, so I need people to listen to it!

Adam Melchor: I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for being here for all these years. It’s crazy.

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 © Caro Knapp

The Diary of Living

an album by Adam Melchor