Autry Fulbright was raised by music-loving Evangelists in Los Angeles and, later, Atlanta. When his father, both a preacher and a DJ, died unexpectedly in 2008, he turned to his music. With a little help from friends like TV on the Radio’s Gerard Smith and Jaleel Bunton, as well as Jason Reece of …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Midnight Masses was born.

“It was definitely something that was kind of a tragedy that turned out into the huge inspiration of my life,” Fulbright told TeaParty over the phone. Forced to confront his own thoughts on mortality, he chose to use his grief to grow both personally and musically. “It’s the idea that [death] can be this transformative and metaphorical thing, not just a literal loss,” he explained, “I think any time you have a huge life change, you start thinking back. That’s the way for me to kind of process it all, through music.”

With his new outlook, Fulbright himself transformed—overcoming his initial shyness to take on the role of frontman after spending 10 years backing other vocalists on bass or guitar. During a visit to Austin while Trail of Dead was recording there, he worked with Reece who helped him record Midnight Masses’ first song in just 45 minutes. Upon returning to Brooklyn, Fulbright was met with enthusiasm and support from the local enclave of musicians. “Bandmates from other groups I’ve played in, neighbors, and friends of mine ended up just getting together and liking the idea,” he recounts, “Even though it’s a very specific loss that is the central theme of the music, we can all relate to the ideas of loss and death, and subsequent rebirth and redemption.”

Fulbright cites artists such as Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and Billie Holiday as influences, as well as “a lot of bands that dealt with pseudo-religious themes.” He is continually drawn to scenes of death and grief, redemption and transformation, but also mentions a certain fascination the Wall of Sound technique in music production developed by Phil Spector in the 1960s. “My mom did work with a lot of R&B groups, like members of The Supremes and everything, so I was always attracted to 60’s girl groups like that,” he says, “I like the idea of a lot of people evoking this sense of one person… I like the idea that a lot of voices have this transformative power to become one voice.”

Midnight Masses’ debut EP, Rapture Ready, I Gazed At The Body, is slated for digital release on December 8th in anticipation for their first full length, Good Sons Die Young, which is due out this summer. The central track on the EP, “I Was A Desperate Man” exemplifies the disc’s loose theme of a ghost looking back at life after recently committing suicide—tying in the more general motifs of death, religion and redemption. Fulbright asked Katie Eastburn of Young People to lend her voice to the track. “Even though it’s a female singing it, she sings that she was a desperate man… Sometimes when there are songs that deal very specifically with my dad’s death and my idea of my mother carrying on after my father’s death, it’s a lot easier for me to hear them and process them if it’s sung in someone else’s voice,” he explains. Similarly, TV on the Radio’s Jaleel Bunton sings on “Walk on Water.”

When we asked Fulbright how he felt about our fair city, he offered an interesting outlook on the popular practice among Boston bands of moving to New York or Brooklyn to make it big. “A lot of historical things happened in Boston. A lot of really passionate people come from there, and a lot of cool bands have come out of there,” he said, “I feel that Boston is a great place to stay. There’s less saturation there and less people moving there… Sometimes there’s nothing I want to do more than leave New York, because you get a little claustrophobic here. I think that Boston has a lot to offer musicians. It’s an important city to play…I feel like it’s a really supportive scene in Boston. There are a lot of great schools, and a lot of younger people that may be less jaded or less prejudiced towards certain music or genres. My thought is that it might be people from New York that migrate to Boston, or at least tour more frequently.”

“I can’t think of anything I dislike about Boston,” Fulbright concluded. After a thoughtful pause, he then added with a laugh: “I got my favorite sweatshirt from there.”

–Jessie Rogers