{"id":204506,"date":"2026-04-21T10:06:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/204506\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:06:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:06:58","slug":"brooklyns-onesie-premiere-twilight-years-written-after-death-of-a-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/204506\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn’s ONESIE premiere “Twilight Years,” written after death of a father"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new Onesie video moves through places where Ben Haberland\u2019s father lived: his dad\u2019s childhood house, the building where he worked, the old family apartment, the park they used to hang out at.<\/p>\n

Shot and directed by Brendan McKnight, the clip for \u201cTwilight Years\u201d \u2014 premiering today ahead of Onesie\u2019s fourth LP on Sell The Heart Records \u2014 takes Haberland back to all of them. Between stops, the band plays. The song is what Haberland wrote after his father died, and it sits at the center of the album.<\/p>\n

Listeners who\u2019ve heard the record early have told the band it\u2019s the best song on it. It\u2019s also the most specific one. The lyrics carry around the small debris that grief leaves: \u201cI got your watch and jean jacket,\u201d \u201cStaring at the photo on the fridge,\u201d \u201cLaughing like Salacious Crumb \/ Living in a glass onion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Onesie\"\"Onesie\"<\/p>\n

Haberland works out the arithmetic of having one parent left \u2014 \u201cNow pick up your parent \/ At the airport \/ The one that\u2019s left \/ Shifting gears in your twilight years\u201d \u2014 and name-checks the TV they watched together: Hill Street Blues, Family Feud. The song signs off on a line that reads like a voicemail: \u201cIt\u2019s your boy \/ Talking into the void.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Onesie,\"Onesie,Onesie, by Jen Meller<\/p>\n

\u201cTwilight Years\u201d was recorded and mixed by Travis Harrison \u2014 Guided By Voices\u2019 perma-engineer and a producer on Built To Spill records \u2014 at his Serious Business studio. Haberland did additional recording at Chez Ben. Jack Callahan mastered it.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s first single approached Haberland\u2019s own timeline from a different angle. \u201cMeetcha At Minnies (The Captain\u2019s Song)\u201d is a Thin Lizzy-styled ripper built around real events in the mid 90s at Haberland\u2019s upstate New York alma-mater \u2014 a campus hostage situation where the attacker claimed to have a microchip implant, and a student took a bullet to the groin.<\/p>\n

\"Onesie\"\"Onesie\"<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time this deeply disturbing hostage situation seemed so random,\u201d Haberland says. \u201cIt became something people on campus joked about, which is pretty heartless and would be ridiculous in today\u2019s context. The details always sort of bounced around in my subconscious and they spilled forth in a bit of narrative in this rather poppy song. The lyrics also gesture towards how one tries to reconcile their changing world view over their own timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\"Onesie,\"Onesie,Onesie, by Brendan McKnight<\/p>\n

That line about reconciling a worldview over one\u2019s own timeline connects both singles \u2014 a forgotten campus incident on one, a parent\u2019s absence on the other, both inside pop structures.<\/p>\n

On \u201cMeetcha At Minnies\u201d that structure includes a glam rock bridge that hands the mic to Greg Vegas (Declared Goods) on sax. The animated video, directed by Brooklyn filmmaker Jen Meller, follows a cat on a skateboard through environments that keep shifting between familiar and otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"Onesie,\"Onesie,Onesie, by Brianna DiGioia<\/p>\n

The cat itself was scanned from Haberland\u2019s grade school report card and redrawn by Meller. \u201cThe goal was to have fun with it,\u201d Haberland says. \u201cMusically there is a positive, chugging, yearning spirit there and once I compiled the album cover art I hoped this character could make an appearance in a video. That said, if you follow closely you\u2019ll see plenty of overlap between The Cat and The Captain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Onesie,\"Onesie,Onesie, by JolieDufrane<\/p>\n

The fourth Onesie album is due June 19, 2026 on Berkeley\u2019s Sell The Heart Records.<\/p>\n

It follows a trilogy that ran between jangling Brit-invasion psych pop on one end and 90s guitar destruction on the other. The record itself is billed as \u201ca dense, blissed out, pissed off, technicolor manifesto\u2026 as if slacker power pop itself had 35 minutes to get its affairs in order before the electric chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Onesie,\"Onesie,Onesie, by Brianna DiGioia<\/p>\n

Onesie have been at it eight years. Haberland writes and sings and plays guitar. Rob Lanterman (Shrugdealer, Hidden Home Records) plays the other guitar. Jason Bauers (Lie About, Better Plastic, Sharkswimmer, Behold\u2026The Arctopus) drums. Ernie D\u2019Amaso (Automat0m, Ernest Ernie & The Sincerities) plays bass.<\/p>\n

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