Some people say less is more. Some of your recordings definitely have this vibe. When is less is more true? And when is more is more true?
I try to keep a balance between being too minimal and being too complex. I kept in mind that nothing can beat a simple, catchy song (not to say I make that kind of music). On the more minimal songs, I use the minimalism to make something in the song, some detail, more obvious and in your face. In other songs where there is a lot going on, It's more about the song as a whole. I usually spend the same amount of time on every song (in terms of recording and mixing the song- not writing the music and lyrics), and what you don't hear in outright song writing I really make up for in details. What I see as my most simply written song, 'Streetlight', is actually one of the most complex songs I've made. There are 53 separate tracks on this song (on average it's probably between 15 and 25). There are layers and layers of amazingly subtle things, tracks that put reverb or some other effect on a single note in the song, 13 vocal tracks altogether, and so on.
If you have glass fingers, what is the rest of you made of?
Well, the thing is, all of me is glass. I focused on the fingers specifically because they are the thinnest and therefore most delicate part of my glass body. Can you imagine what it's like to to deny a hand shake on account of being afraid the person shaking your hand will squeeze too hard?
You are making music that is very different from album to album, where do you get your ideas for your music?
I suppose I would say that I'm only making my music differently from album to album ever so slightly on purpose. Maybe like 3%. There's been almost exactly a year between my last serious album, "Album", and my album I'm working on now and so much has happened to change the way my music sounds. For one, all of "Album" was written while I was going out with a lady that I loved a lot, so almost all the songs on there were written for her. After I finished "Album" I went away for a few months to work on a cruise ship in Hawaii. When I got home, I was girlfriend-less and also considerably richer from working on the ship. So I bought tons of audio equipment, which totally changed the way I make music, and started trying to write songs without the same kind of obvious inspiration. Mostly the songs I've been writing are still about girls, but the emotions have been different. On top of all of this, I'm refining my views on everything, like every teenager does.
There's some humor in here; what is funny?
I guess I'm not really surprised that you would sense some humor in my music. There are times when I make fun of myself a little in a song to keep it from getting too serious. I would say there's a whole lot of irony in my music - just because most my songs with singing are about romance, and, to be kind of vague, the emotions I felt ended up contradicting themselves. I hate that I just talked about irony in my music. On top of all that, I'm just a total jokester. I can't get enough dirty jokes. And practical jokes. And knock knock jokes. And so on. So really, it's easy for me to see how some humor would seep through even my most serious songs.
Do you think that your music translates better live or on record? Why?
I don't know if one translates better than the other. They're different. Of course that's the obvious answer, but I'm going to explain! In my recordings I spend a huge amount of time finding sounds that convey my emotions the way I want them to, and I record my singing until I find a take where you can hear the emotion in my voice (even if that take has me singing a little out of tune). My music is a lot different live; there is more intensity in my songs. I scream so loud I shake on some songs. And since I make my songs so hard for me to play live, there's always a huge chance that I'll screw up big time, which adds to the the tension and makes it that much better for me when I play everything correctly. To sum it up, I would say that when you listen to my recorded music you're listening to my refined, thought-out emotions. If you see me live, you're getting raw emotion and more intensity that I put into my recordings. Also, at my live shows, there is a lot of crowd involvement and there are lots of laughs and good times. Go to my shows. Or give me shows.
What is the best story behind one of your songs. Maybe it lyrically doesn't let people know what you were trying to get across but to you it meant a lot, or maybe it's really clear.
There are a lot of good stories behind my songs because my songs are based off things that happen to me- even the instrumentals. One of my favorite stories is the one behind my song "What The Hell?". I kind of don't really like the song a ton, and I wasn't going to put it on the album. I did end up putting it on the album for two reasons. The first is that it has a strong melody, and a lot of the songs on the album don't have strong melodies. The second reason is because of the vocals. I wrote them in my sleep. Well all of them except like three or four words. I found that when I stay up trying to write songs every night, I end up dreaming about the songs. In this case, I found myself thinking these lyrics in my sleep. I remember getting really excited in my sleep and waking myself up and writing down all the lyrics on a pad of paper that happened to be next to my bed. I was pretty pleased with the lyrics because I thought it was awesome I could write lyrics in my sleep, and because they actually pertained to how I had been feeling at the time. It should be said that there is some swearing in this song, and I absolutely hate recording songs with swearing. But I did it anyway.
Here they are:
What the Hell is going on?
I really want to know
Yesterday you seemed so strong
But today I just don't know
What the hell is happening?
I really mean it now
What the f@#$ is wrong with me?
I don't want to think about it
What is the best thing about South Portland?
I tried a while to think up something clever or funny to say, but really the best thing about South Portland is that it's really close to Portland.
Additional thoughts?
I feel bad and I really dislike when I talk about myself in such an indulgent way, but it's just so dang enjoyable. I also feel bad when I blatantly self promote, but I just made my first dubstep song last night out of samples of my friend's girlfriend and her friend video chatting with my friend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YpO2aBrwQk (I don't plan on making any more dubstep ever- except maybe for the sake of a joke)