Under the guise of Meija, LA based producer and songwriter Jamie Sierota makes music for our collective inner child. His synth-drenched, indie pop adjacent brand of rock mines the simple moments we tend to ignore, those that tend to mean far more than we’d like to admit. His new EP, “So Long, Kid” digs into these themes more confidently than ever, ranging from nostalgia verging on desperation, earnest declarations of love, to sardonic political views, all in just five tracks.
Stream the debut EP “So Long, Kid”
Opening up about the project’s first track and latest single, from which the EP takes its name, “Kid,” Sierota took the opportunity to discuss the project’s mood overall, “So Long, Kid is an EP about growing up and facing the new realities that come with it. As a kid you don’t have to worry about commitment, politics or like how you’re going to pay rent. It’s quite the culture shock when you have to though. I don’t want to lose that youthful spirit that we all have as kids.”
Indeed, Meija makes music for the scared kid within all of us, and he’s covered a lot of ground in a very short time. Having introduced himself just this summer with “I Already Said That I Love You,” a fuzzy guitar number which closes the EP here, Sierota quickly followed it up with another salvo, the dominant stand out that is “Buttons”: “The lyric, ‘I let you push all of my buttons’ came to me pretty quick but at first I wasn’t sure what it meant, but for some reason it really connected with me,” Sierota says of “Buttons,” “Over the course a couple weeks I kept working on the track. I kept being drawn to things that sounded ‘small.’ Toy pianos, shakers, an old 80’s Casio keyboard made for kids.”
Next up is “Laugh It Off.” With playfully soft drumbeats and larger than life synth-bursts, it may well be the grandest pop venture that Meija has yet undertaken.
Its genesis wasn’t so innocent: “I first wrote the chorus to “Laugh it Off” during the 2016 presidential debates. It was really upsetting to see how humor and memes were successfully used to spread hateful speech and ideas. “Laugh It Off” is a song about how some things are too serious and hurtful just to laugh and shrug off even if that helps you avoid an uncomfortable conversation. Unfortunately, the song keeps feeling more and more relevant and musically, I tried a bunch of different things but the message was always the same. I really wanted to contrast the more serious subject of the song with the instrumentation/production. There’s a lot of percussion all over it. Bongos, glass bottles, 80s drums machines along with a nylon string guitar. It all kind of has this summery feel. The idea was to make something that’s hard to say easy to listen to.”
Following that grand display, Meija deftly pares it all back for the intimate, windswept guitar ballad that is, “I Would Die 4 U”. “I’m not your lover / I’m not your friend, I am somethin’ that you’ll never comprehend,” Sierota boldly intones. Musically, it’s the subtlest song to be found here, but with its wailing harmonies and deep reservoir of feeling, it makes as great an impact as any of the barn-burning singles found here.
It’s easy to let “So Long, Kid” dig into you. If you’re open to it, maybe it all won’t be so incredibly exhausting for a preciously brief reprieve. It’s okay to have no idea what you’re doing. None of us do. “So Long, Kid” is just honest enough to admit it. “It’s a painful process trying to figure how to be “responsible” but not be freaking out all the time,” Sierota opines. He ain’t wrong. “So Long, Kid” is a salve for all that ails in this frightening mess that is adulthood. It doesn’t pull its punches. It may be just what you need.