Some of the questions & responses from the interview:
When I work in the kitchen I find euphoria in throwing on the oldies station, sun beating through the back window, Autumn air blowing through the house, & fall spices baking in the oven. When you work in the studio, what kind of atmosphere do you set up to enhance your skills & abilities?
Sounds demure, but I like it to be dim lit and warm, almost sleepy. The quieter the better. If you’re gonna fill a room with noise, you want it to start empty. Either that or outdoors, somewhere beautiful. I used to walk down to the Sacramento river when I lived with it almost in my backyard. You could see crawdads crawling in the banks and there was no one but the water to hear the songs. Its the best!
I’ve had to make concessions to my end products while working in the culinary field, it isn’t easy but it is often necessary. When you are creating in a studio what are some concessions that you have to give in to? Do you feel that in the end these concessions are worth it?
That is an interesting question. Id say that everything in life begs for compromise. The things that I will compromise on will never change who I am or how I represent myself. Only I can change those. People grow, our tastes (literally) change. But those are my steps to take. I am always open to others’ input, but at the end of the day I am the one who has to live my life, no one else.
but you are right! Concessions are necessary when you are working with others. You have to meet somewhere, right? If someone wants to produce songs for me, for example but not others, fine, I’ll produce the others on my own. I am not an all or nothing person. I believe that decisions are each unique and I try to see others’ decisions from their perspective as well..
When I was learning photography the only cassette in the dark room was the Violent Femmes “Studio Album” with “Blister In The Sun” & “Kiss Off” & “Add It Up”…. This was the first time I’d ever heard the Violent Femmes, alone in a dark room, isolated in the corner of a community college, at about 9 P.M. on a fall evening. I was awestruck by them & they entirely influenced my early photography (though I didn’t know about it until later). They had an ‘unfinished’, ‘unpolished’, ‘raw’ sound: the photography I worked with at the time was industrial, raw, abstract, & unpolished as well. I felt that I took what I was hearing & visually translated the music through my photography.
Did you ever have a familiar moment where you were working on a project & subconsciously you felt you were inspired by an art form outside of music?
Wow thats awesome! The only thing I can think of is a painting my mother made. She’s an amazing artist, so proficient. The only thing is that she is so busy, she’s totally the cornerstone of our giant family. She had this painting she was working on, of me actually. Its giant, at least 4 feet tall. But the face wasn’t painted and many details were missing. She got so busy with life and new projects that she never had time to finish it. I sat there the next day, looking at it, and wrote a song about it. I felt at the moment in a strange way it reflected me, and my mother who was too busy to focus on her paintings at the time. I won’t bore you with the whole song, but the lyric that I remember from that song (sounds darker than it is) is
“ I am staring at an oil-list,
of paintings my mother will never finish.
and circuits start to tear as I stare at a vacant hole
where my heart was meant to be”
Sort of the same idea as your Violent Femmes experience in a strange way?
I leave you with a beautiful rendition of Coldplay's "Yellow" by Lindsey Pavao!
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