Sometimes reinvention necessitates disappearing. After the runaway success of his 2023 debut, Mr. Nobody, Zach Seabaugh found himself confronting the sort of questions 500 million streams couldn’t answer—the sort that deal with outsized expectations and a level of success he wasn’t entirely prepared for. This past February, Seabaugh stepped away, setting out from Georgia along the Appalachian Trail, eventually covering some 1,400 miles before reaching New York City in May. At times, he’d go five days without encountering another person.
That solitude informs Seabaugh’s upcoming sophomore LP, Now And Then, due October 2 via Cloverdale. It’s especially evident on “One By One,” a moody convergence of earthy folk and subtle indie-rock edge that sees transformation as the accumulation of small pivot points that eventually leave us somewhere different.
“The song is about realizing change doesn’t usually happen all at once—it happens quietly, one decision at a time,” says Seabaugh. “I wrote it looking back on a period where I felt like I disappeared from my old life and had to rebuild myself piece by piece. It’s about growth that doesn’t feel dramatic in the moment but adds up—until you look up and realize you’re not the same person anymore.”
We’re proud to premiere Zach Seabaugh’s “One By One.”
—Hobart Rowland
See Zac Seabaugh live.
