Odd Marshall - Seconds

Seconds expands Marshall’s sonic palette, blending alternative, folk-rock, and Americana while leaning into a distinctly ’90s-influenced guitar sound. The album features Blind Melon guitarists Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn—who also produced and mixed the record—along with contributions from Foo Fighters keyboardist Rami Jaffee and Mathias Schneeberger of The Afghan Whigs.

Following his 2024 debut Sand & Glue—which reached #55 on the NACC Top 200 and earned praise from Billboard and Exclaim!—Marshall’s new material sharpens both the emotional edge and the physical drive of his songwriting. Where Sand & Glue reflected inward, Seconds feels restless, forward-moving, and unafraid to turn personal history into something universal.

Sometimes the old cliché “never meet your heroes” is wrong. Singer/songwriter Odd Marshall, can surely attest to that. When planning the new album, Seconds, the follow-up to 2024’s Sand & Glue, he was turned down by a prominent Canadian producer, prompting him to ask, “Who else did I like when I was 14?”

The answer that immediately sprang to mind was the band Blind Melon so, with nothing to lose, he found a contact, sent a cold email with some demos attached, and in little time he was chatting with guitarist Christopher Thorn who agreed to produce the album as well as bring in his six-string partner Rogers Stevens, marking the first time the pair have worked on a project together outside of Blind Melon.

Once sessions for Seconds got underway at Christopher Thorn’s Fireside Studios in Joshua Tree, California, other prominent names dropped by to chip in, including keyboardist Rami Jaffee (Foo Fighters, The Wallflowers), drummer Denny Weston Jr. (KT Tunstall) and bassist Jon Ossman (jazz trumpeter Chris Botti). What was initially intended to be an EP quickly blossomed into a full eight-song album once Marshall dug into his song bag and pulled out a few more that could showcase the immense talent at his disposal.

With Seconds slated for release on March 6, the first taste of the unique chemistry they concocted in the desert can be heard on the first single “Outta Here,” a hard-driving roots rock number that puts Thorn and Stevens’ guitars on full display. Marshall recalls, “This is one of the first ‘riffs’ I wrote for my band in high school. The lyrics came later, and I feel they apply to leaving any bad situation behind, like the line ‘There’s so much more outside of these doors… but you’re afraid of change.’ I’m still struggling to believe I recorded it with the two guitarists from Blind Melon after living and breathing their debut album as a teenager.”

Further songs from Seconds are earmarked for singles in the lead-up to the album’s arrival, but the general consensus is that it is a collection combining the tried-and-true Canadian songwriting approach that’s central to Odd Marshall’s creative process with the rich, soulful sounds of his American collaborators.

In many ways, Seconds also marks another important milestone on Odd Marshall’s road back to having music be the central pillar of his life, following a car accident that convinced him life is too short to not do what you love. “I stopped writing songs for 10 years until I flipped my truck in a snowstorm,” he explains. “I was fine, but I crawled out the passenger window and, while sitting in the back of a cop car, a song came on the radio that reminded me I used to do that.”

Ever since, Odd Marshall has been making up for lost time, recording Sand & Glue with producer Don Kerr (Ron Sexsmith, Rheostatics, Dan Mangan, Bahamas), with the songs “Midsummer” and “What You Take” performing well at SiriusXM and CBC, respectively. Rock Era Magazine wrote, “His songs speak of world travels, but it kind of feels like he’s come out of nowhere.” That certainly felt true then, but with Seconds, Odd Marshall is poised to firmly plant his flag within the indie rock world.