Loveland musician John Bunzli would have never guessed a traumatic brain injury would bring him to write a new song every week for five years now.
“Is this because my brain is working differently than it was before?” Bunzli said, unsure of what changed that made songwriting feel different.
It’s been almost seven years since he slipped and hit his head in his Loveland studio, but at the time, the musician had no idea how serious it was, or how much his relationship with music would change.
“I had forgotten all the lyrics to every single song I had ever written … but as soon as I read the lyrics, the music came into my head and I could pick up my guitar and play it,” Bunzli said, fascinated by his own brain.
Although memorization is still difficult for the musician, he has found a new creativity for songwriting in the time since his injury, which fueled his “Cafe con Leche Songs” series, an arsenal of now over 250 original songs on YouTube and Facebook.
He started the series on a whim just a few months after his injury and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, adding that his doctor was adamant about safety because of the unknown effects at the time that the virus could have on the brain.
Bunzli was convinced the solitude was driving him crazy, so one Saturday morning, he said he got up, made himself a cup of cafe con leche (an espresso and steamed milk beverage he drank often in Spain), grabbed his ukulele, and sat outside his Loveland studio.
“I had never written a song in like two hours … and I was so excited about it that I recorded a little video and put it up on Facebook,” Bunzli said. “And the next Saturday after that … and after about five weeks I was like, ‘Dude! I think something is going on!’”
“I kind of just kept doing it,” Bunzli said about the series, which became part of his weekly routine.
Even though some days were more difficult than others, he said by the end of the day he always had a song, and even if it wasn’t his greatest work yet, he was just happy to have made something.
However, with the pandemic still in effect, Bunzli said he was struggling with his mental health, mostly fueled by working from home, past traumas brought forth by the brain injury, and lack of playing live shows with social distancing.
At a visit with a doctor who he’d developed a relationship with during so many follow up appointments, his doctor recommended that Bunzli think about what in his life improved after the brain injury.
“I laughed at him and I said, ‘There’s nothing. Everything was better before,’” Bunzli said. “And he had this grin on his face, the doc with the grin, and he says, ‘Well, if I’m not mistaken, you’ve been writing a new song every week for about two years now, John.’”
Many things changed for Bunzli after his injury that could have contributed to his new songwriting capabilities, including a newfound trust in himself, he said, but he also doesn’t doubt that his injury may have changed the way his brain works. Some researchers found that brain injuries can enhance artistic skills, and other studies show music can have transformative effects on shaping neural networks.
Most of Bunzli’s songs are based on how he was feeling at the time of writing, he said, adding that he rarely goes into a songwriting session with an idea, but that often his body knows exactly what to write about.
Without having realized, Bunzli has also documented major moments in his life through song, like falling in love, the death of his parents, and even reactions to political events, like the war in Ukraine, he said.
“I never wrote political songs before, but I can’t help myself these days …” Bunzli said.
The Loveland musician has been songwriting since he was 16 years old, but said the process was always stressful and that he felt constant pressure to make every song perfect.
“My inner critic showed up way too soon … so I would throw (most songs) away,” Bunzli said about songwriting when he was younger. For the last five years, now going into his sixth, Bunzli has continued writing through the “throwaway songs,” and he said that sometimes they end up being fan favorites.
“But that trust in myself is something that has built that wasn’t there before,” Bunzli said about his ability to finish nearly every song he’s started.
Now other artists are recording covers of his songs, which Bunzli said has been amazing to witness for the first time in his songwriting career.
Last year, Bunzli asked musician Eric Richard Stone to perform one of Bunzli’s Cafe con Leche songs in a concert Bunzli held to celebrate another year of weekly writing. Stone wrote that he fell in love with the song “Highway to Home” during the concert, so much so that he continued to perform the song live, record it, and put it on his latest album, according to the cover’s description on YouTube.
“I’ve been writing so many songs. I’ve been writing songs that aren’t in my style,” Bunzli said, adding that he always thought it would be cool if someone else wanted to cover them. “But now that it’s actually happening, it’s kind of fun.”
Bunzli just began his sixth year of weekly songwriting, some of which he will perform during his monthly Loveland concert series called the Lovespace Showcase, where he and two other artists perform their latest songs in the round (an intimate listening environment where one artist performs after another).
“It’s for us to be able to share love with an audience and have it come back,” Bunzli said.
The next concert is at 3:30 p.m. March 15 at Artspace, located at 140 W. Third St. Bunzli’s hundreds of songs are also available on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/@johnbunzli4237, and Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/john.bunzli/.
