Music has always been a powerful weapon, but when placed in the right hands, with the right story to tell it becomes even more.
West Texas Grit have put together an album called 3 AM Static, but rather than just a collection of songs placed in a semblance of order for maximum effect, 3 AM Static is more of a massive multimedia project, released episodically, chapter by chapter as a living project. The album is dystopian fiction, but 100% autobiographical, outlining the plight of not just West Texas Grit, but a whole community who has spent years fighting some of the largest corporations in America after they dumped raw Chromium-6 into the caliche pits near their home in Midland, Texas, poisoning the Ogallala Aquifer.
With a fresh and experimental sound and blending of genres 3 AM Static describes as Metal Americana, Industrial Hick-hop along with a narrative that encompasses growing up in West Texas and America and the subsequent wrongdoings of corporations, 3 AM Static is a rebellion against corporate erasure, but it is also a permanent record of a voice, art, and the legacy of a project that refuses to bow down.
“West Texas Grit isn’t just a music project, and 3 AM Static isn’t just an album,” the band affirmed. “It is a massive, multi-chapter digital universe built by a transmedia auteur on raw rebellion. For decades, my family fought massive corporations and government overreach to stop them from poisoning our land and our drinking water. I live on the West County Road 112 Superfund plume. Hexavalent chromium in the wells. 5,280 ppb against a 100 ppb standard. Yellow-green water. A mile-and-a-quarter plume and no real fix.
My reward for demanding basic human justice? Not clean water. Total digital erasure. They tried to wipe my presence from the web the same way they stripped away the peace from my home. You can’t silence the truth. So I built everything on my own turf. This multi-genre transmedia project is the answer. This is the voice they can’t erase.”
To delve deeper into the backstory visit https://westtexasgrit.com/. Each chapter, including the storyboard and narrative are uploaded directly to the website hub so people can follow the storyline, with those storyboards also translated as audio and video. Chapter One, 3 AM Ledger, was released on August 14, followed by Chapter Two, Childhood, on September 11. It is an ever evolving sonic landscape that is fascinating, intriguing and utterly compelling.
It is a deeply personal project for 3 AM Static, whose family has been fighting massive corporations and government overreach to stop them from poisoning their land and our drinking water. Through knockbacks and apathetic responses to the truth, 3 AM Static has suffered personally and with his health as a direct result of these atrocities and is now fighting to get the truth out there and be heard.
Check out 3 AM Ledger below.
