First off, how is tour going for you? How is it going?
I’m about two months in, so tired but happy and feeling grateful for sure.
I’m glad! My first question is what is your personal process for songwriting? What do you draw inspiration from? And do you have any? Maybe ritual isn’t the best word, but something that gets you in the mood for writing?
My process for writing. I found that writing often is my happy place for sure, and when you’re on tour, when I’m on tour, sometimes it’s a little more difficult because you’re preoccupied. But when I have the ability to have a regular practice, which is kind of all the time, I find that even when you’re traveling, you can find ways to do it, which is great. Usually, I need 15 minutes; that can get a song written. And if I sit down for 15 minutes enough, then I write a record. So that’s kind of my process for sure, just being able to sit down and really put myself out there for 15 minutes straight at least a day.
That’s awesome. Your song on the record, “Martin Luther King Jr.,” reminded me a lot of classic folk rock protest songs. I was wondering if that’s a genre you grew up listening to or something you found as you got older, and how that kind of influenced your music? Because, when I listen to it, it feels very vintage. Like I could pick it up from a record store and be like “Oh my gosh, this was made today, that’s crazy,” in the best possible way.
Thank you. Yeah, I grew up on a lot of older music for sure and still look up to mostly musicians that were not born in the 21st century, certainly. Still love those musicians too, but I certainly was raised around a lot of Bob Dylan. I grew up listening to all the bootlegs as a kid. Every day I’d come home from school, my mom would have the bootlegs on, so that was a big deal. Joni Mitchell was always a big deal. Ray Charles was always a big deal. James Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone. I think Nina Simone and Bob Dylan were really—and I mean Bob Dylan still is—really talented at making songs that were of the time and speaking about things that were going on.
I don’t know if they always thought of it as protest music, or if it was just what was going on while they were writing music. But those were definitely and are heroes of mine. Those are two that really come to mind and always really impacted me.
It definitely shines through; I remember the first time listening through, it reminded me a lot of Joni Mitchell. Just like the storytelling and I was like, “I really dig this.”
Yeah, that’s awesome!
In Michigan, Reminder, and Wildest Dreams, you flipped the meaning of the song on its head toward the end, giving more of a hopeful outlook, which I really like. Is exploring the full range of human emotions kind of a motivator in your songwriting? Is it important for you to lay it all out there and kind of explore the highs and lows of life?
Yeah, totally. I think I enjoy looking at the human experience for sure. It’s a priority to not only highlight the fantasy, but the reality, maybe? I mean the best that I can. And then also speak to the kind of duality of human nature. That you can do bad things and still be a good person, or vice versa. I think that’s really interesting.
So this is your fourth studio album. What lessons from your past albums did you take to incorporate it to make this the best you could possibly make?
Gosh, it’s hard to quantify. I’ve learned so much over the years. I think that getting off of social media was a big deal. I think I had to be on it for a while in order to realize that I had to get off of it in order to make the newest record. I don’t think I ever realized how much pressure it felt like I was under to kind of keep up with something. I’m not even sure what it is, just something. And so making all those records kind of “under the influence” kind of taught me, like, maybe you get out of there and make this one in a different way. So that was helpful. I think you can go a couple different ways where you can start to make records and then feel like, “Oh, I know how to do this,” and then you start to lock into a formula. Or, you can kind of not. And I think probably people glean good and bad from both. And I think something that has been refreshing for me is to just try and—most records I’ve made have been kind of different from one another, actually. And I think it’s because it keeps me interested in it.
My first record is probably the most similar to this one in a way. Not really in the way that it sounds, but maybe in the approach of just playing songs and making it really live. “Echo The Diamond” was like that too, though. But there was something kind of childlike about my first record. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I think that’s why it was special. And then in this one, it felt kind of similar. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing again. I like that feeling. I think when you feel like you know what you’re doing, you’ve kind of lost the plot a bit.
You’re kind of in a routine, so you don’t feel as like…
Creative.
So you went off your phone. What else did you do? Did you take a vacation? Were you like, “I’m going to lock myself in a cabin in the woods for a month and write this album?”
No, no, there was no retreat to the woods. But there were definitely no computers involved that I was using. And I think there were a few things where I would like to go look something up while writing. Something would be on my mind, and I’d go look it up on the internet. Or I would be struggling with a rhyme, and I’d look at Rhyme Zone.
Oh my God, I love Rhyme Zone.
I know right! But I stopped doing it because I realized my brain works. I can rhyme two words together. And subtle things like that really affected me because those things feel like this slightly more obsolete sense of technology. Like Rhyme Zone feels like Craigslist or something. You know what I mean? It’s a kind of similar era of websites. And I felt like I realized that by relying on some of these things, or just by kind of entertaining them, it’s kind of steering the process in a weird way where I think I can use my mind. I can find those answers myself, and then I would find much more interesting things than what the internet would generate for me. So that was exciting, kind of an exciting revelation. I’ll probably never use those things again.
I love that, especially because I feel like everyone now is outsourcing stuff to AI and other stuff. And I’m like, “Guys, we have our brains; let’s use them.” So you’re based in Brooklyn right?
Right outside the city now, but very close.
And it’s a historically diverse music scene. Numerous venues, record shops, and just that intense history, music history. Did that draw you there? Or just New York in general, were you like, “I wanna go there?”
I love Brooklyn so much. I love the city, Manhattan, so much. Queens, the Bronx, all of it is very dense with experience. So I think that I was attracted to it because I knew there were just so many people doing things at a high level. Once you go there and start to make art or partake, it kicks your ass, you know? You really get worked. So that was cool. I definitely sought it out so I could be part of that lineage, and I think New York teaches you how to be concise and how to get to the point quickly. And that was invaluable.
`I think the lifestyle was something I really liked. Not necessarily the fancy parts of it, but just the getting to the heart of things. New York’s really good at that. So that’s what attracted me to get there. The level of artistry and then the kind of mentality around it that we’re like, “We’re not dilly-dallying; we have work to do.
I know, city living is so gritty.
Yes, very intense.
And you have to lock in and be like, “This is what matters, and this is what doesn’t matter.
Exactly, because if you don’t, you’ll get mowed over pretty quickly.
If you could pick one song from the record that you think is the thesis statement or, like, summarizes it in the best way, which track would you choose?
Ooh, that’s good. “Reminder” (is) pretty summarizing in a way. So that one is pretty special.
I love the last line in that one, “blood is better than clown makeup.”I really love that.
Thank you so much. Yeah that one feels like a contender for sure. “Michigan” is, it’s kind of like there’s something about that song. It was so special to write, special to play. Those two feel really special, but there’s others, like, “Sharp Knife” feels like an interesting jab that I really enjoy. So there’s that one too.
I’m like asking you to pick a favorite child; I’m sorry. Like, if you could rank all your children, rank them from best to worst.
Yeah, I know I feel guilty. No, but those are three that I think are kind of in the top.