Tony Tripi has spent his adult life helping other people navigate the worst moments of theirs. He joined the Coast Guard as a teenager, battled addiction, found recovery, built a career as a financial estate advisor, and founded Frequency Group. He knows what it looks like when everything falls apart — professionally, personally, spiritually. Then it happened to him.

Close to Fire: Roman’s Anthology Release Part I is an album recorded with nearly two dozen musicians from the Asbury Park scene, out October 23rd. TRIPI quit the project a thousand times. He fell apart in the studio, couldn’t finish sentences, and was held up by the people around him the way, as he puts it, an ironworker crew holds up a new beam before the bolts are in. On October 23rd, the same night the album drops, he’s bringing it to a live benefit concert in Asbury Park during International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. We sat down with him to talk about grief, recovery, and what hope looks like when you can actually point to it.

photo by SHERVIN LAINEZ

Tony, thank you for sitting down with this. At three years old, you survived a house fire that hospitalized you and your brothers. Decades later, you’re calling this album Close to Fire. Did that early fire ever come back to you while you were making this record, or did it stay separate from what you were going through with Roman?  

There was a moment during the chaos at the hospital with Roman when the head nurse spoke up, pulled me aside, and said, “You’ve got to breathe,” but I was frozen and had to keep repeating the mantra to myself: ‘breathe Tone breathe’.  I’ve been on the front line in three house fires and a boat fire. That feeling came back several times while working on these songs. When the record was done, on my first listen back of the mastered tracks, I was taking in some coffee and conversation one morning, and I shared a story about that first fire at 3 years old, and from there came the name of this record. It showed up subtly and inexplicably. At that moment, I lost it (emotionally), and I never looked back at the title: Close to Fire: Roman’s Anthology Release Part I  

Finding God “in the basement of a church” is an unusual way to put it. This album sounds like it comes from that same kind of place. How did you get back to making music from somewhere that raw, after everything?

The whole process was a series of moments when I fell apart, quit, then got back up and went forward. With the help of all the others who contributed to the project, I was lifted so many times and somehow finished this in grace. It was one day at a time and often one moment at a time. The list is so long, but this never gets to the finish line without dozens of open hands, open ears, encouraging words, and a whole lotta love.

Buddhism, synagogue, Native sweats, an altar boy in Catholic school — a lot of traditions have shaped how you see the world. When Roman passed, did any single one of them hold you the way you expected, or did this grief need something none of them had quite prepared you for?

I was not prepared for what I saw and felt that night. I was in shock. Then, for a very brief moment, a calmness came over me, and I looked at my daughter and son-in-law holding baby Roman, and talking to the nurses. They had just finished dressing him. I heard my daughter ask a question that sounded like the voice of the God I learned about in all those practices. It was clear enough to me to get us out of there that night (I think they would have had to throw us out if it hadn’t been for that).  I forgot about that experience, and six months later, on March 31st, 2022, I was working with a therapist. I shared that, for the first time, I heard my daughter utter something that gave me a glimmer of light and hope. Then I was reminded about that moment in the hospital. She had me do this EMDR thing and travel back to the hospital that night in my mind and stand next to myself, and lean in and whisper in my own ear that I will see some sliver of light coming. That it is not all darkness forever. I think the word and the light that I learned about in all those traditions somehow came together for me.

There’s a moment with doctors, a moment with a priest, families reaching out from all directions, you’ve said you could write a novel just about what happened around this album. Out of everything, is there one story that still feels too big for the songs to fully carry?

YES, and I think we will need Part II, III, and beyond to continue these stories. My hope is that more musicians, artists, and filmmakers will join us and help us tell these stories. What comes to mind for me is the guitar teacher’s wife’s sister, the carpet guy’s son, the guitar builder’s two sons, the client’s three kids, the skydiving marine. It’s so big. We need more connecting crew. We will get better at it with each album. As they say at the Carefarm, I wish this didn’t need to exist, but I’m so glad it’s here.

Nearly two dozen musicians from the Asbury Park scene came together to help you build this record. That’s a lot of people to invite into something this personal. What did it mean to you to not carry this album alone and was there a moment in the studio where you felt the weight of it actually lighten because of who was in the room?

The Weight!!! We often hear that word used to describe tragedy and the density of our feelings. Like we are carrying the grief. But as I sit here now thinking about this, it feels like another experience I had decades ago. Going into the studio with the enormously talented singers, players, producers, and engineers and being in those rooms with all that skill was remarkable. I was just trying to keep up, not drop off or fall apart. When I was in my 20s, I joined the Ironworkers Union, Local #6, in Buffalo. I was around 24 years old, had a new daughter, and joined an all-Indian crew. I was their apprentice for the connecting crew. They’re the ones who put the beams in place with one bolt and move on to the next one. The structure at this point is loose and wobbly. So you have to get used to walking those beams under those conditions. It is terrifying at first, but the crew has done it for years, and knowing that and watching and following them allows you to gain confidence, not quit, and not fall. The artists on this record were like that to me. Some days I couldn’t even finish a sentence, or a thought, and they stepped in, formed and connected everything, and kept me from falling out. The list of professionals is long, and they did things I now consider to be miraculous.

In fifth grade, you led a group of deaf students to a band performance, you learned sign language just to earn that role, and you watched them feel the music through something other than sound. You’ve said that moment reshaped what music meant to you: not something to consume, but something to serve. Does Close to Fire feel like an extension of that same idea — music built to be felt by people carrying something words can’t reach?

I wanted to quit this project a 1000 times. That’s how I knew I couldn’t ignore the call. It’s so hard to celebrate and grieve at the same time…. I beat out everyone in the class just so I could bring those kids to the band room. And then I got a lot of static from the others about it. It’s a wild, beautiful, and unpredictable road trip to meet the divine; we need music, we need a good playlist on that journey.

You spent years as a financial estate advisor and founded Frequency Group, a career built on stability, planning, structure. Close to Fire is the opposite of all that: raw, unplanned, born out of the worst thing that could happen. Did that other side of your life, the structured one, help you at all when everything fell apart, or did it become completely useless to you?

My personal experiences with trauma and tragedy and my work experience guiding and advising clients through their highest highs and lowest lows have taught me several powerful life lessons. One high priority is to build your corner (team). When a fighter goes into the ring, they go in by themselves, but they are NOT alone. That’s the approach we take with clients, and that was how we ended up with so many people involved in this project.

photo by SHERVIN LAINEZ

You’re turning the album’s release into a live benefit concert during International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, with proceeds supporting families navigating similar grief. That’s asking a room full of strangers to feel something most people spend their whole lives trying not to think about. What do you hope happens in that room, beyond the music itself?

This is such a well-framed question. Thank you. I hope Rock n Roll kicks down the door. We are all taught ‘do not fear ’; it’s in all the great teachings. I’ve heard many great artists say they want people to come to their shows to escape the pain of their day-to-day lives. That’s fair, and I respect it. There are so many ways we escape from our pain, our lives, and ourselves.  I want people to come to this show and leave with something that will help them embrace and love their way to and through the healing. My friend Dr. Kevin Elko (sports psychologist) says, “You don’t go through it; you grow through it.” Roman is teaching me to turn into grief and be there.  

A grief researcher you’ve cited, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, says extraordinary grief is an expression of extraordinary love. You’ve spent decades building a life – recovery, family, the Coast Guard, your career – and now you’re handing all of that life experience to one album built around one impossibly short life. Does it feel strange to you that the most intimate work you’ve ever made came from the briefest chapter?

My daughter and son-in-law were so excited, and they did everything they could to prepare for Roman. Clean eating, loving each other, praying, complying with doctors, setting up the room, it was a beautiful sight to see. A couple of days before labor started, she and I went for smoothies, and I went to the farmers market for fresh fruit and veggies. We were set. She was in labor for nearly two days. I tailgated in the hospital parking lot (it was during COVID), rooting him on and listening to the Buffalo Bills game. My son-in-law was sending me signals using the window blinds. I was running out to get smoothies and PB&J tacos. All communications went silent, and I got scared and ended up sneaking into the hospital (no visitors allowed) and hiding out in the cafeteria. About an hour after he was born, my son-in-law came to pick me up. He was lit up as he’d just eaten the sun. He tried to get me in to see her and Roman, but the floor nurse wasn’t having it, and she threw me out. I ended up at a cafe that was having an open mic night. I was hanging out there, and my daughter called to tell me she was alright. I could hear Rome crying in the background. I went back to the coffee shop and played a bunch of tunes and introduced Roman, and they were singing along, and it was unimaginably wonderful. My heart and love were expanding like the Big Bang. And I went to sleep that night like that. Some people get years, some get days, some just hours or minutes, and some don’t get any time at all. I think love is limitless, timeless, and unquantifiable. This chapter may have been short for me, and just maybe the story is still being told.

You’ve said there’s hope in the embers, that something remains even after the fire passes through. As you finish this album and prepare to perform it live for the first time, what does hope actually look like to you right now? Not as an idea, but as something you can point to.

To me, it looks like the Eastern Purple Coneflower. It grows in the Badlands, where there is scorched earth and nothingness for miles. It has medicinal and healing properties. It is a beautiful flower that doesn’t seem to belong there. (I know a guy who feels like that) It attracts bees (and bees are known for honey and stinging, and I know a guy who attracts that as well), butterflies, and goldfinches eat the seeds. Thanks for this question, you inspired me to put that flower on an album, make it a guitar, or get a tattoo of it.  I will point to The Eastern Purple Coneflower and Close to Fire Roman’s Anthology Release Part I and say that’s what HOPE looks like to me.

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