A Nervous Breakdown is Not A Bad Thing: Ask the Band GLOSSIES

Scott Masson enthusiastically sings, “All you really need is a nervous breakdown,” over a tumbling melody on a slightly sardonic, yet still very autobiographical punchy-pop ballad from his forthcoming album, Phantom Films.

“I felt like it was one of the best things that’d ever happened to me,” he said. The cue-ball-domed, high-spirited singer/songwriter chuckles at the idea of naming his new music project GLOSSIES when it was recorded right after a nervous breakdown in his parent’s basement, he said.

Meet Scott Masson

Masson, a son of Michigan, was raised in Milford but transplanted in the early 2000s to Chicago, where he became a veritable rock star on the satirical charm and dashingly intricate pop-song constructions of his band OFFICE, coupled with his dabbling in painting and installation art that followed similar lampoons of societal stuffiness.

Masson and OFFICE signed with a major label in the spring of '07, but what followed were disconcerting and nightmarish spurts of disputes, disagreements and regretted compromises. Masson’s spirits, worsened by a steady rejection of OFFICE by the local Chicago music scene, reached a horrible crescendo when he was mugged and beaten by four assailants while he was walking home late at night in October '08.

He’d had enough.

OFFICE essentially disbanded, and he resettled in his parents' basement — back in Milford — within the month. He spent most of 2009 in bed, he said, recovering from depression and the eventual nervous breakdown.

Yet he continued to write, sometimes from his bed. Eventually, he would become a character actor spliced with an anthropologist, mining new songwriting material from himself and what he called the "mundane" world around him.

And this is good news because, he said, he was this close to retiring from music.

Adopted son of Ferndale

Masson is ostensibly an adopted son of Ferndale through his consistent support and attendance of the city's local musicians’ various concerts — particularly those hosted at the Loving Touch.

It’s fitting, then, that Masson will unveil his newest work, an album of surreal, cinematic narratives, on Sunday at the very same billiard hall that doubles as a commendable curator for local music concerts — .

The Pop Project, the Livonia/Detroit-based heavenly harmonizers and perennial Ferndale visitors, will headline Sunday's concert, which will include a performance by Minneapolis-based Jeremy Messersmith.

GLOSSIES' Phantom Films rooted in optimism

Phantom Films is a true montage, playing like a blend of short stories experimentally and whimsically spliced together. The resulting puzzle links a dreamlike portrait of a raw and humble songwriter as he makes repairs and rejoins the world, coming out the other end of a breakdown and finding the experience deeply rooted in optimism.

“I really feel like everyone should have a nervous breakdown,” Masson earnestly beamed, “because if you survive it, if, then the rest of your life is improved. You actually wind up grateful for a lot of things that might not have happened.

“I think a lot of artists have various levels of mental illness but tend to deny it or deny their own neurotics," he half-quipped with considerable authority. "My thing is, I had to just embrace it.”

Masson said he suffers from depression but was improperly diagnosed as bipolar. Once he moved back to the safe environment of his parents' basement, he said, he was able to eventually “deal with it in a healthier way.”

“(Phantom Films) wasn’t that depressing for me,” he said. “It was actually all about improvement. I want to emphasize that.”

The key to his rejuvenation was joining bands with lifelong friends (fellow songwriters Sean Lynch and Jeremy Freer) in the almost-undercover role of drummer.

Through late '09, Masson self-assigned himself a social experiment where he would shy away from being a frontman — a role he said he never felt comfortable in — and allow himself to relax the ever-flexed hipster muscle. He embraced a spectator role by diving into experiences made comparably mundane to his former Chicago-rock-star trip by wearing a Walmart wardrobe and eating at Applebee's.

Another key was reconnecting with his family, from whom he’d grown apart during OFFICE’s touring days in 2006-07.

Rejoining the world

Thus, Masson began frequenting Ferndale, connecting with and feeding off the encouragement and collaboration of local musicians such as Kip Donlon, Fabian Halabou and Jeff Supina — who now comprise the live incarnation of GLOSSIES.

Phantom Films is a blend of crunchy guitars, propulsive rhythms, and gleaming synthesizers tumbling through psychedelic-pop waltzes, poignant piano-led baroque ballads and rousing, strut-and-stomp rock anthems.

“It’s a tapestry or collage,” Masson said. “I would go out into the city and record found sound effects, or I’d record people socializing, almost as a spectator on their film, if you will. There was no verse-chorus pattern; I still wanted it to sound like a song, but the idea was to just let it happen subconsciously.”

So come revel with Masson in his Ferndale-set “rebound,” as GLOSSIES performs Sunday at the Loving Touch, uncovering new songs from the dazzling — and, yes, quite poppy — social experiment/ethereal-film-festival of an album.

GLOSSIES plays with Pop Project and Jeremy Messersmith at 9 p.m. Sunday at the Loving Touch. Cover is $5.