Mental health is a fickle beast. Some days, you can be on top of the world, cautiously optimistic, or very close to your best friends. Other days, you can be high and lonesome, easily irritable, or paranoid - oftentimes for no good reason.

The Way Back deals with these internal struggles and how they frame the world we live in. Following nervous breakdowns and 10-round fights with depression, it is very easy to give up and wash away with the tide - but with the right actions, unwavering fortitude, self-discipline, and knowing when to ask for help, the hero can return.

Once you've visited the underworld, you never forget the way back.

The Way Back

I was raised by a single mother alongside two sisters in an inner-London council flat. At four months old, my abusive father left. At seven years old, I lost the sight in one of my eyes. At 17, I was assaulted by eight people and my life spiraled out of control. At 22, I was still here - so I wrote this ode to it all.

Biggest influences here are Strike Anywhere, Rise Against, Descendents, The Falcon and The Ghost of a Thousand.

Architects

In 2012, I lost my 9-5 job working for an absolutely horrendous man in East London. I decided to take my no money and my free time on tour with a folk punk three-piece my then-band shared members with by the name of Let's Go Nowhere. We piled into a two-door busted up Suzuki Swift and hit the road, with all the stories and situations that come with touring: gaffer taped trainers, squat gigs, broken guitar strings, and sleeping on Catherine Jackson's floor. We did anything that year, we went anywhere.

This song's influences include Banner Pilot (particularly "Isolani" and "Western Terminal"), Rise Against, The Gaslight Anthem, Nothington, and of course, Let's Go Nowhere.

Anywhere

Even though you have to follow your own story, every so often your path becomes intrinsically intertwined with another. They become your confidante, your best friend, your anchor. Dear Sarah Alice is a letter to my anchor through various trials and tribulations in the last ten years - I don't know where I'd be without her.

This song is influenced by The Hold Steady, Chuck Ragan, The Gaslight Anthem, Bob Dylan, and Dave Hause.

Dear Sarah Alice

In the throes of Conservative-Liberal Coalition Britain, I finally came to the realisation that any political party would readily ruin its constituents given a five year chance. What was originally brought to my attention with the student protests, multiple strikes by the RMT and ASLEF, and austerity measures on austerity measures, was cemented by being forcibly removed from the Labour Party twice for speaking out against my MP. I once spoke to a girl who told me she didn't like my music, because it "wasn't party political enough." I had written this song several months before, I made a point of not playing it whenever she was listening.

Influences for this song include The Postal Service, The Gaslight Anthem, The Clash, The Ruby Kid, and Kano.

Something in England

Some time ago, I went to a gig in a now-closed-down venue in a backwater town with unreasonably early last trains. I was with my best friends Theo, Jamie and Sarah Alice. We made a tonne of mistakes that night, and had a lot of fun, before getting the slowest train ever back to civilisation in the morning.

Influences for this song include Rival Schools, Eagle Eye Cherry, Apologies I Have None, Great Cynics, Parliament and Dave Hause.

Stories

With every end comes a new beginning, and every end of an era bears a new one. Everyone's journey has to start somewhere, and mine began anew some five years ago, when I took to the road with my best friends and not a care in the world before soon learning that life can beat you up sometimes. Anabasis introduces my documentation of the last half-decade, the loves, the losses, the trials, and the troubles that leave their mark - mostly for the better.

Influences include Homer, Aristotle, Frank Turner, Rise Against and The Hold Steady.

Anabasis

I grew up in multicultural South East London in the 1990s. For some reason, the National Front still felt the need to march back then - and we could only go to the shops on certain days as a result. Fast forward some fifteen years, and my best friend at school decided, at 18, to join the BNP. This was the first song I wrote of this album, and the biggest problem I have is that regardless of the face - BNP, EDL, UKIP, Robinson, Farage, or Griffin - the lyrics still ring true today.

This Ship

Coming to blows, psychologically, verbally, or physically with an old friend is never a pleasant experience. Fragile Ink is a raw, abrasive trip into a subconscious, with the sole intention of tearing out a mangled, choking engine of catharsis and smear it across a one-take vocal line. Only when pain is laid bare can we see it for what it is - and begin to heal.

Inspirations for this song include Rise Against, Cancer Bats, The Ghost of A Thousand, Bruce Springsteen, The Lawrence Arms and Woody Guthrie.

Fragile Ink

Canoes to Campfires is a poetic lament about a girl from a previous life. The song documents journeys across countrysides in squashed back seats, blazing arguments, sleepless nights and beat poetry.

Inspirations for this song include The Gaslight Anthem, Jack Kerouac, The Lawrence Arms, Sam Russo, and Frank Turner.

Canoes to Campfires

Home From Home is an ode to independent British music festivals. The lyrics illustrate hangovers in sleepy, backwater towns, staying up all night singing songs around campfires, and wearing the same clothes days in a row. It is the essence of the four day weekend - a time when 20-somethings can escape the hustle and bustle of jobs, families and responsibilities in favour of getting the highest you've ever been.

Influences on this track include Bouncing Souls, Banner Pilot, The King Blues, The Lawrence Arms and Mischief Brew.

Home From Home

Asher Baker is an independent punk rock singer-songwriter from London, UK. Armed with an acoustic guitar, a voice and a microphone, he strives to create descriptive, incendiary lyrics about the world we live in. 

A typical live set may involve punk songs, folk songs, stories and spoken word - and a lot in between.

This is punk rock inspired acoustic music with a poetic, literary twinge and roots in anything from classic Britpop to Fat-Wreck style melodic punk. Come to a gig. Or even, book a gig - you might be pleasantly intrigued.

asherbaker

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