Roan Martin: What’s Your Hurry and The Fool’s Journey

Local artist Roan Martin released his new single “What’s Your Hurry?” on April 1, followed by a celebratory release party at The Lemon Squeeze later that night. The song will be featured on his upcoming debut album, “The Magician,” a conceptual, storytelling album planned to be released later this year.

The song opens with Martin’s powerful vocals and piano with the line “You’ve gone away again, you seem to slip right through the cracks,” immediately thrusting the listener into the storyline of two characters: the narrator, who appears desperate for answers, and the one they’re losing. Martin gave little insight into the truth of who the characters are, as he wants people to draw their own conclusions and wait for all to be revealed with the full album. 

“It’s a story of conflict and escapism in a way, and it follows the Fool’s Journey,” he shared. The Fool’s Journey is a way of analyzing the Major Arcana in tarot where the Fool, who represents new beginnings and innocence, traverses through the rest of the cards as they mature. 

“This album, at least in this point in my life, is not the entire fool’s journey all the way through the Major Arcana, but really just that first step.” He continued, “So the traversal from the fool into the magician is kind of what this story is concerned with, and some various characters along the way.”

Tarot has had a major influence on Martin’s work with his last single “The Fool” from 2022 serving as a preview into the new journey of “The Magician.” The Fool was written and released after the album had already been in the works. At the end of the fall 2021 semester, he realized that April Fool’s Day was on a Friday that next year; Friday is typically the day for new releases. “If I was crazy enough to try and make a song in a week, start to finish, it could come out [on April 1].”He decided he had just enough time. 

“I remember thinking about the magician. ‘The Magician’ is the album, the magician being card number one. And I remember thinking the fool was clearly a part of that as card number zero. So everything about it is a little too perfect.” 

The next day, Martin received a tarot reading where The Fool was pulled and this sealed the deal. He returned to his home studio in Brooklyn, New York for winter break to write, record and produce “The Fool” which he would have ready in less than four months. 

For “What’s Your Hurry?” and the rest of the album, Martin has put in years of work into writing, recording, re-recording, producing and fine-tuning his work. He played every part featured on the album, teaching himself new instruments and techniques in the process. 

“It takes effort, it takes patience”

~ Roan Martin

Martin has been primarily a pianist since he was a child enrolled in classical piano lessons. He became interested in music production at around age 12 when he discovered programs like Garageband and using MIDI. He studied jazz in high school and college at the University of Rochester before taking a gap year during the COVID-19 pandemic, eventually finding his way to SUNY New Paltz. During his time off, Martin dove headfirst into music, creating content and studying music every day. He found success on his part of the internet, amassing 125.8k followers on TikTok where he shared his covers of popular songs. 

“That was a really powerful time and I think I came out a much stronger musician,” Martin said. 

“I felt fully equipped once I landed in New Paltz. I knew I wanted to get a band together.” 

Martin is a part of multiple New Paltz-based bands including Carlin and The Gents, Betula and now his latest group Roan and The Fools. “The Fools” feature Devin Devine and Justin Montafia on guitars, Sawyer Gold on bass and Chuck Crover on drums. 

“I’m lucky enough to have been in these three bands of people that really feel like they’re all like my family,” Martin said. “It takes effort,  it takes patience and all these sacrifices often that you have to make, and when it’s not my material … I have to serve the song. I have to serve the songwriter’s intentions. And then it’s been an interesting thing to be on the flip end of that.”

Working with his fellow fools has been an eye opening experience for Martin as he learned from those who are more specialized to the instruments he is writing for. “There’s moments in ‘The Doctor’ actually, where what Chuck played on the drums was so inspiring. It made so much sense. And I went back and added it in.” “The Doctor” is also set to be released on the album.

Martin discussed the importance of the art surrounding “What’s Your Hurry?” and the need for authenticity. In the lyrics he says, “You told me that one day, you’d own that sixties Chevrolet,” and for Martin, this car was integral to the story and the cover art. 

“I don’t own this car. I don’t know anyone who does own this car,” he said. “When I brought it up in conversations about how I would get this car on the jacket, a couple times I had it suggested to me that I could use generative AI to put the car there. I found that terribly sad.”

So, Martin set out to find the car that would be his cover art. Messaging people on Facebook selling their cars, he found a red, 1966 Chevy Caprice and messaged the seller asking to use it for a photoshoot and they agreed. Martin and his friends took a drive down to New Jersey and met the couple selling the car who had the car washed and ready to go and took the photo that would end up as the single’s cover. 

“If I had used AI, what a day that would have robbed me of, what a story that would have robbed me of.” Martin continued, “There would have been no stress of, ‘Am I going to get there on time?’ I would have never met these lovely people and it would have robbed me of a road trip with my friends. And I think that is the danger of AI, not when you generate some piece of art … The danger is when we let it get in the way of these experiences and we let it take these experiences away from us.” 

“What’s Your Hurry?” by Roan Zen Martin is available on all streaming platforms. For more updates on “The Magician” you can find Martin on Instagram @roanzenmartin. You can catch Roan and The Fools on April 4 at 9 p.m. at Snug Harbor.