Sean Haywood, known as Atlus, is a natural-born storyteller who writes songs drawn from his own life. With four albums already under his belt, he has the catalog to prove it. For his latest project, the six-song EP Secondhand Smoke, he pushed into new territory, peeling back the curtain on his past to move forward. He tackled deep, personal topics including his complicated home life, his mother’s perseverance as a single parent, his sister’s addiction, and his own mental health.
“My main focus on the last few albums was getting over a breakup, but this EP is more vulnerable, and I am opening the doors on a lot of past traumas, things from my childhood that I have been avoiding for years. These are really intense, painful songs, things I have experienced that I was not ready to unpack, and now I am finally ready to talk,” he explains.