THE SUN AND FUN CAPITAL OF THE MIDWEST

Tomorrow is my last day of editing and mixing on my new record, and I am writing today with some news about it <3

I’ve been writing and releasing music under the name Youth in a Roman Field since 2009. The moniker was an expression of why, where, and when making music (specifically, writing and performing my own songs) was a lifeline for me. It was both me and something bigger than me, and I think I needed the name to get started - to legitimize myself in my own eyes and to give myself a permission slip to do something I was scared to do. But I also knew I wanted a band - an expansive, cohesive, eclectic, consistent, spontaneous, progressive-in-practice yet informed-by-tradition band.

Scott, Tiffany, and I met in 2010/2011, and I fell in love with them as both people and musicians; I knew their personalities, skills, and creativity could help make this “proper” manifestation of my ideas happen. Then I met Cassidy through not one but two channels in my life, and the skills, heart, and enthusiasm she brought opened yet another door. Then Broadway happened, and throughout those years performing Once in NYC and on tour, I was exhilarated to share a gorgeous show and amazing job with my friends and bandmates. A dear friend and castmate suggested a bass player he knew from other actor-musician stuff, Jamie Mohamdein, who had an incredible intuition for the sounds and textures the songs needed, and I’ll never forget our first rehearsal together - January 1, 2015.

Fast forward to all five of us ending up in New York City, and wow. Even with injuries, financial uncertainties, career unknowns, political turmoil, personal heartbreaks, and all the rest – waiting tables, getting gigs, going out on tours - we juggled it all and came together to play shows, raise money, make videos, and record a few gorgeous records. And then there were job changes, relationship upheavals, Covid, personal losses, big moves to new cities and states - all types of life have happened since, and over the last several years, I haven’t quite known where I fit into the world, or even where we fit into our own worlds. And as I grow and change, I’ve realized I just want to be me. I don’t want a moniker, a theatrical framework, or a folkloric container - I don’t want anything other than the songs and the pure act of creativity to give myself permission to write. I want to be my distilled yet kaleidoscopic self. I want to be less bound by who I am within a band and those worlds from which we came. 

As I get older, I've struggled representing myself as Youth in a Roman Field because I see it less as a story of self acceptance, joy, and the recognition of depression (which is, to be fair, a part of the story) but more as “white girl from a small town in the Midwest studies abroad in Europe to discover herself and needs to paint something on top of just being who she is to get to participate, be recognized, and have skill and ambition.” And it's been a bit of a blow to realize the circles in which I always wanted to find success are in large part made up of majority privileged white folks who do, in the end, uphold a status quo. Our entire industry is and has been influenced by who's gotten to be at the gates, and I'm kind of embarrassed I’ve cared so much about wanting to get inside. I’m embarrassed I bought into somehow escaping where I came from - escaping my class, my peers, my history - that there would be this situation in which I would really “make it” and it would all be worth it. I thought I would have to escape where I came from to succeed in music - in any industry. I feel like our culture has tried to convince me I should strive to be “too good” for the labors of my life - the mundane, day-to-day parts of my life. But I want to know myself in line at the grocery store. That’s who I want to bring to my music. 

I identify more and more with the working, day-to-day parts of myself - that ride the subway 4+ times a day to go teach, that play gigs even when they don’t pay very much, that go to rallies, to meetings, and to places where people don’t necessarily know that I’m a musician or ever was an actor. I don’t identify with the parts of myself I aspired to be (or hoped I would be) at this point in my life. I don't feel aligned with the people and groups that make up the critical, more insular worlds of music that I wanted to be recognized by. I feel more connected with the people who are still in the middle of it, who have not yet “made it,” or who have “made it” in a more lateral or local way. I'm considering new definitions of what “making it” even is in a world with so many systemic issues, realizing that “making it” would not solve the problems I have. I want to contribute to building beyond what exists now, in music and beyond, in front of and behind the scenes. And that realization warrants change from me. It demands that I put myself out in the world in a more straightforward, basic, transparent way. 

There’s also this thing about being a millennial I feel SO strongly - a constant re-setting, re-framing, and re-stabilizing - within the economy, culture, language, media, politics, and beyond. I perpetually feel like both the adult and the teenager in the room. I have all the cynicism of being let down by an older generation and the systems they built, all the hope for future possibilities, the wisdom of experiencing repeated cycles, and the naivete of thinking it might legitimately work to burn the whole thing down, all at the same time. 

So what does a person do in this situation? What do I do at this place in my life - at this time in our collective lives? I have found some semblance of a path forward in going backwards. Going back to my roots has given me a chance at moving forwards. Understanding my family helps me understand myself, and learning about their lives has helped me come to realize how good I have it. It’s helped me see clearly enough to acknowledge how lucky and resourced and loved I am, as well the possibilities available to me, despite feeling all the mess and heaviness of the world. Doing research for this record - inhabiting the small moments and mundanities of my parent’s and grandparent’s and aunt’s and uncle’s lives, and the comfort it gives me, has been both a reprieve from and a path out of our current political and cultural disaster.

I have a serious desire for the protection of my privacy, as if the things I do and make when no one is watching are the things that actually make me alive, that define my personal and artistic legitimacy. Much of this creation process has gone unrecorded, because I wanted to offer it backwards in time – through the veil, into silent nothingness, communicating with and living alongside my ghosts and ancestors — instead of posting the process into a loud, chaotic nothingness that inevitably becomes lost, insignificant, and also happens to line the pockets of billionaires. As if to say, “Let me disappear into my past, into the origins of my soul. It’s there I might be happy. It’s there I might be free. It’s there I might really be alive.” Because most of the time, I feel surveilled. I feel like my art is a product before it is even made - like I am a product and a consumer before I am anything else - and so anything that comes from me, by nature, is also a product to be consumed. But making this record has felt at times like it is for the people and places that inhabit the liminal spaces I have visited while writing it - Austin, MN in 1890; Milwaukee, WI in 1943; Detroit, MI in 1968; Mishawaka, IN in 1976; Chicago, IL in 1989; Bismarck, ND in 1994 - all of my “Sun and Fun Capitals of the Midwest.” As if these places are more real than where I will inevitably deposit the record (the product) “The Sun & Fun Capital of the Midwest,” in its two-dimensional, mp3-compressed form: the internet in 2025, alongside AI slop and endless ads. (Youtube just served me one entitled “How To Not Dress Old.”) 

So I am putting something basic and grounded on this record to identify it. I want my name on this record not just because it’s my name - a true thing that has always been true, that I can wake up with in the morning and come back to at night - but because my first name is my mom’s middle name was my grandma’s cousin and best friend’s name is my second cousin’s name. Because my last name is representative of my dad’s immediate family, of my beloved aunts and uncles and cousins, but is also a piece of evidence of another true thing that has always been true: America is a country of immigrants. Most of us came from somewhere else and are not entitled to call it our own or play the arbiter of who belongs here and who doesn’t. My great-grandfather took the name Wellin (at the time pronounced Well - EEN, another reminder of changes made in crossing borders) when he came over by himself, with a violin, when he was 14 - in search of work, food, and a better life. Wellin was his uncle’s last name - his uncle who happened to be the mayor of a small town in Minnesota where he hoped to end up and find community. And now, that name is my cousin’s seven year old daughter’s first name. 

We’re all looking for anchors to help identify ourselves. My name, in each of its parts (my middle name, Elizabeth, has also been represented on both sides of my family for generations) connects me to where and who I came from, and will inevitably become part of a map for those who come after me, be they related by blood, association, or migration. And while I’m both afraid of and hopeful for where we go next, I know I have a hand in where we end up. Writing this album has made me feel like I have a stake in the future. Releasing it under my name is an exercise in tethering to what I know we still have.

Over the coming months, I’ll be switching things over to my new website, as well as getting new socials up and running. Thank you so much for being here - for reading, for listening, and for supporting me and the journey that has been Youth in a Roman Field.

Love, Claire

What’s the deal with the name?

I studied abroad in Rome the summer after my last semester in college. This had been a life-long dream of mine; my parents had brought me to Italy on their belated honeymoon when I was 10 months old, and there were so many stories about that time that delighted me. Beyond that, my dad had once said that Italy was the only place he felt truly himself, and as I was beginning to confront the extent of my depression (which I would learn later on had deep family roots) ‘getting away to discover myself’ felt imperative, as it does for so many at that age. At the time I was performing in a band with my friend Eric Mayson, but had not prioritized music in college and felt I was missing a piece in my life; I hadn’t played the violin in years and was disillusioned by the prospect of pursuing musical theater.

I was walking home from class, and happened by this massive city park, of which there are many in Rome that served as places of solace for me. A short distance away, there was a girl, maybe five years old, wearing a red checkered dress and spinning around in this open, grassy area. She exhibited such palpable joy - the ‘joy of living’ that kids so easily embody. I wanted to be like her - I knew I once was like her - and it got me thinking about what it was that brought me real joy.

It is, and has always been, music. Music has guided and inspired me, calmed and consoled me, nurtured and held me, bolstered and encouraged me - and committing myself to it has brought such adventure into my life. Songwriting, and returning to writing in general, has become vital in processing what is going on in my head, in my body, and in the world. I started writing music then & there under the name ‘Youth in a Roman Field’ in homage to that moment.  My depression has by no means left me, but making music is a way to create time and space for joy, connection, and reflection. It’s a language of its own with capabilities for healing beyond so many other things, and is an essential use of my time on earth.  - Claire