East Atlanta singer-songwriter Spencer Thomas follows his own cynical vision  

“These days, it’s kinda hard not to have a pretty cynical vision of things,” said singer-songwriter Spencer Thomas. For his third album, the East Atlanta-based musician has issued a stylistically kaleidoscopic 10-song rumination on the human condition, circa 2026.

Released last month by Strolling Bones Records, Cynical Vision is Thomas’ statement on the world as he sees it. “I think that’s where the title track really comes from. It’s an observational point of view, from just looking around at the issues of everyday life.”

Recorded at Tweed Recording in Athens with producer Nate Nelson at the helm, Thomas goes the Todd Rundgren route and plays nearly every instrument heard on the record. “We started layering as we went along. I would just hop on whatever instrument I thought would work for each song.”

The result is Thomas’ most definitive statement of his art to date. The former Futurebirds’ keyboardist, drummer and bassist began his musical journey to multi-instrumentalist social commentator as a nascent music fan in his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi.

“Back in middle school, I enjoyed art and I liked sports, but I think I really found my own voice with music — pretty much early on,” the 34-year-old musician explained during a recent phone conversation with ArtsATL.

“Growing up, I was all over the place with whatever kind of music that really spoke to me. Yeah, I wore a Nirvana T-shirt and loved the Red Hot Chili Peppers and even Tom Petty, but my parents loved real classic rock music, too. They had good taste, but I was way ‘too cool’ to sort of dig into whatever they liked. So I was pretty scattered.”

Noting that he has since re-evaluated his views on his parents’ once ‘uncool’ listening habits, he added, “Now, of course, I know Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Doors were great,” he added. “But when you’re a kid, you just don’t want to admit to that kinda thing. Now, they’re probably influences.”

Thomas recalled that he joined his high school band and actually played tuba for a while. “I know it wasn’t very cool or whatever to be playing tuba, but I had a teacher who taught us the bass line for ‘Louie Louie.’ So I learned that song — on the tuba! I think that really opened my eyes to all the other possibilities at that point. It wasn’t like playing a boring song from a book; it was part of a real rock and roll record kind of thing. It was a very ‘oh, wow’ kinda moment for me. I found that I could learn to play stuff like that, and I could directly relate to it. Eventually, it unfolded into other instruments. I certainly tried on a lot of hats after that.”

He said his budding musical identity was hard to label. “I became immersed in all kinds of music, learning how to play all these different things — on whatever instrument I could find. I found out I truly enjoyed the whole variety of playing a bunch of instruments and learning different styles on each one. I didn’t even think about genres for any of it. And, now, all these years later, I still don’t really like to assign any specific labels for music. Even for my own stuff.”

After a friend and musical collaborator suggested he should focus on the lyrics of songs rather than the overall groove, Thomas’ songwriting skills finally began to take shape. “It took a while, but I eventually realized you could actually say something through a song instead of just being part of a sort of loud band.”

In college, after a few years of national touring with a fledgling rock band called Young Valley, Thomas said he’d gotten “lucky with gigs” but still wasn’t musically satisfied.  

“We’d played all over the place. Then I realized that when an indie band from Mississippi releases a record, probably nobody in Boston really gives a shit about it. But it didn’t stop us from touring anyway — and I’m glad we did. It was just a bunch of young guys getting to see places all over the country, cities that were sorta mystical to us in our early 20s. We’d never been to any of those areas. It was an education for sure, but it wasn’t really going anywhere. Eventually, we were kinda frustrated by it all — the time, the money, the distance away from our families.”

While enduring “six or seven years” of nonprofit touring, Thomas had compiled a batch of his own songs that he was eager to perform, singer-songwriter-style, on acoustic guitar. “Eventually, after I’d put enough of those kinds of songs aside, I made my own record of some of those tunes.”

The result was 2019’s Hangin’ Tough. “Creatively, I’d enjoyed playing in other people’s bands, but I wanted to play my own songs, on my own terms, on my own timeline. I sort of learned how to write my own songs while I was on tour, playing their songs, pretty much. But then I wanted more.”

By August of 2020, Thomas had decided to branch out on his own. As the pandemic was raging, Thomas’ desire to express himself had reached a boiling point. “I just couldn’t live with my parents anymore. I wanted to get out of the house, be on my own and play my own music.”

So he moved to Athens.

“It was a big step for me, but Young Valley had opened for [Athens-bred band] Futurebirds when they used to come through town. We became friends, and as I was settling in Athens, I reached out to the Futurebirds guys. I applied to teach music lessons, but nothing came of that at the time. So I reached out to one of the guys in Futurebirds who lived out in the country, and we started getting together to play.”

Thomas and the Futurebirds began playing a series of socially distanced outdoor shows during the pandemic. “We had to do something. They were used to playing all over the country, and then during Covid-19, they did a bunch of these little backyard-type shows to be safe. I played drums with them for a while, then bass and then keyboards. It was good for us all, but I was still writing my own stuff.”

By 2024, Thomas had released his second full-length album, The Joke Of Life. “That was a big jump for me from [his previous release in] 2019 to 2024, but I was writing a lot with no real label backing, so I’d just record whenever I had enough spare money to go into the studio and work on stuff.”

The timeline jump also illustrates Thomas’ lyrical and observational growth. “It felt like a decade between my records at that point,” he said. “By 2024, I sort of knew what I wanted to do and how to do it myself. Joke Of Life took from 2021 until ’24 to complete, so creatively it seemed like forever — and I’d grown as a musician during that time.”

In 2024, Thomas reluctantly parted ways with Futurebirds.

Last year, he signed with Strolling Bones to begin the process for the Cynical Vision sessions. “Unlike the other records, this one went fast,” he said. “It just wasn’t sustainable for me to be in a band while I was writing my own album. This was the first time I’d had a label sort of fronting the bill for my stuff.”

The new album finds Thomas finally in charge of his own creative destiny, playing his own material and all the necessary instrumentation. “The fact that I was working on it at this time last year and it’s already out now is just astounding to me.”

Thomas said the fast turnaround period enabled him to share his personal reactions to current events. “It’s impossible not to be inspired by what’s going on at any given moment in our life at this point,” he explained. “I tend to listen to more podcasts than music right now, to be honest.”

The goal of the collection, he said, was to make it sound somewhat timeless but instantly relatable to modern times. “That was the thing, to take what I was hearing on these podcasts and on the news and such and turn all of that information around into music.”

The result is the 10-track collection on Cynical Vision. The disc blends an energetic new wave pulse with sincere singer-songwriter earnestness. It’s a thoroughly engaging concept album bristling with literate social commentary.     

“I could preach and say, ‘Oh look at how bad everything is right now,’” he continued,. “But who wants to hear that?” Thomas said he had been looking for creative ways to present new perspectives in order to present a cohesive and catchy story.

“The songs that ended up on this record needed to be specific enough — but also open-ended to suit the narrative,” Thomas explained. “But they also needed to be informed with the messages I personally wanted to convey. It’s a fine line.”

Thomas deftly walks that line with songs featuring characters who embody various aspects of modern society. “I think these are songs that can definitely be interpreted a number of ways,” he said. “You just have to sell the message of each one with a good hook.”

He points to a track called “The World Is Fucked And I Love You.”

“That song kinda sets the pace because it’s relatable and a valid social observation. Let’s face it, the world is in a wild state of flux, so why not combine that anxious feeling with the only other power that can equal it, which is love.”    

This spring, Thomas is touring to perform the songs from the album, with solo, duo and full band shows. His upcoming Avon Theater gig will feature able backing from Lars Hefner (guitar), Robert Green (bass), Ryan Moore (drums), Ben Hackett (horns/keys) and album producer Nate Nelson (on additional percussion and keyboards).

In between gigs, he continues to write new material and teach young hopefuls at Atlanta’s Little Treblemakers music school.

“For now, this is where I am, and I’m pushing ahead with the songs I have to play,” Thomas said. “At this point, I don’t really know where my next songs are even coming from, so I’m playing things from the new album — while I’m giving the next ideas a little time to formulate.”

“After eight years of doing my own music, I want to be able to surprise people with each new record,” he concluded. “But I want to surprise myself at the same time.”

Where & when

Spencer Thomas album release show with T. Hardy Morris & Mary Margaret Cozart. 8 p.m. April 24. Avon Theater, 106 N. Avondale Road, Avondale Estates.

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Lee Valentine Smith is an Atlanta-born artist, writer and musician. Currently a regular contributor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his work has been syndicated internationally. He has appeared at Music Midtown, on CBS Radio and on Air America. He also served as art director, consultant and archivist for projects with ’80s hitmakers The Go-Go’s.