395 Sunrise

At times I travel for business, and whenever it makes sense, I prefer to drive. I take a four-wheel-drive truck partly because it gives me the freedom to get off the highway and explore along the way. Highway 395 and the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada have become especially good places for that.

Three Ninety Five Sunrise came from one of those trips. I had been working in Southern California and wanted no part of the usual Los Angeles traffic, so I packed the truck the night before and left around two or three in the morning. Somewhere along 395 I realized sunrise was getting close. Instead of continuing down the highway, I turned onto a dirt road to see what I might find.

The road eventually brought me to a levee near the remains of an old creek crossing. A major storm had recently moved through the region, and there was still a tremendous amount of water draining out of the mountains. What might normally have been a modest creek was running hard.

I pulled out a chair, fired up the JetBoil, made coffee and breakfast, and stayed.

The rising sun reflected across the moving water, and an unusually wet year had brought much more color to the surrounding desert. The brush and flowers were vibrant, the mountains were catching the morning light, and everything seemed to line up for one of those rare moments when the landscape almost demands your full attention. I flew my drone and took a lot of photographs, but the photographs were secondary to simply being there.

I stayed for roughly an hour and a half. That morning became one of the peak nature experiences I carried home from the trip, and photographs from that journey eventually became part of a nature calendar I made later.

Turning the experience into a song took longer than I expected.

My first instinct was to make it a RoyRoy Genkins song. The setting seemed like a natural fit for his acoustic, country storytelling style, so I initially developed it as a heartfelt country ballad. But it just wasn’t happening. I tried to make RoyRoy carry the song, and the results never captured the energy or feeling of the actual experience.

Eventually I moved it to Zed Wishless and let the song become rock and roll.

That changed everything. The stronger performance gave the song the forward motion of the drive, the excitement of turning off the highway without knowing exactly what I would find, and the scale of that sunrise and rushing water. What had felt restrained as a country ballad suddenly had life.

In that sense, Three Ninety Five Sunrise became a good reminder that the story behind a song and the music that best expresses it are not always the same thing. The source moment was quiet and reflective, but the memory of it was also vivid, expansive and exhilarating. Zed was ultimately the voice that could carry both sides of it.

Creative Notes

The working title was originally Creekside Sunrise. The title eventually became Three Ninety Five Sunrise because Highway 395 was more central to the larger idea than the individual creek. It connects the song to the road itself and to the broader pattern of exploring the eastern Sierra while traveling.

The highway number was written phonetically as “three ninety five” during generation so the vocal would phrase it naturally.

The cover was built from an actual photograph taken during the sunrise. The real landscape was then interpreted through the established Zed Wishless visual style, using distressed vintage-print texture, bold typography and the Highway 395 shield.

Lyrics

Packed my truck the night before Two am I slipped out the door Left that LA traffic far behind Chasing open roads and peace of mind

Highway three ninety five called my name Eastern Sierra never looks the same Pulled off on a dirt road chasing light Found a levee bridge at the edge of night

Three ninety five sunrise painted sky Water roaring where the desert’s dry JetBoil coffee first light in my eyes A one in a million three ninety five sunrise

Super bloom brushed the desert floor Colors brighter than I’d seen before Mount Whitney standing proud and tall While the storm left rivers running strong for all

Three ninety five sunrise painted sky Water roaring where the desert’s dry JetBoil coffee first light in my eyes A one in a million three ninety five sunrise

The morning sun it warmed my skin Shimmering water pulled me in An hour and a half maybe more Nature showed me what I’d been searching for

Three ninety five sunrise painted sky Water roaring where the desert’s dry Grateful heart my soul came alive A one in a million three ninety five sunrise

Three ninety five carried me down the line But a piece of my soul stayed behind