Reed Mitchell never gave music a chance. He began his adult life immediately, finding love in college, getting married soon after, and starting a family. Just like that, his accelerated domesticity buried his lifelong desire to play music. But things changed when he was going through a divorce 3 weeks before the nationwide lockdown. His forced loneliness meant he had nothing to do but examine what he truly wanted, what he really desired, and he emerged from quarantine with a 12-song debut album.
Hot & Cold is an outlaw country meets country pop meets americana album that encompasses Reed’s experience with his divorce, finding love when he and the recipient were already married, and rebuilding his life. Each song shares a piece of him, some songs focusing on pain and others focusing on love.
Many of the songs on the album were written during this dramatic post-divorce time. Reed had been playing guitar since he was a kid, but the lyrical part didn’t come as easily. However, the breakup proved to be what he needed. “I finally had something I wanted to share emotionally—I had purpose—it sucked to go through what I went through, but it gave me these songs,” he says.
Hot & Cold has fast paced and upbeat songs, like “I’m On Fire,” “Hold Me By the Shoulder,” Desert Rose,” and “Make Me Right,” signifying the positives Reed’s had in this journey of discovery. The slower, acoustic country ballads like “Let Me Bleed,” “The Way You Love,” “You’re Everything,” and “Here Comes the Rain” all help push the story of pain and sadness while emphasizing love he has for his family and the woman who inspired the album. The darker, more Johnny Cash songs like “Under My Spell,” “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” and “Could of Been Ours” represent the conflict within him.
Listen here:
Hot & Cold has brought Reed an uneasy peace with lost love, but it has also been a rebirth into a new life of empowered living. He says: “I’m so proud that these songs I put together in a basement by myself reached their full potential. I remember Neilson sent me the mixes and I went on a walk around the park. I stayed out there for two hours listening to the album, beaming, and on a high.”
Connect with Reed Mitchell
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