Hi! You recently released ‘Summer Alone’ and it’s brilliant. For anyone who’s yet to hear it, how would you describe the track?
Thanks for listening! I would describe it as a dystopian Summer banger with big guitars and a trio of voices. Melissa Mathes, Crissie McCree and I sing it mostly in unison until the Bridge, then there’s a big finish where Melissa and Crissie go all out while I stay in a lower register. It gives the song a sense of multiple characters singing the same tune, which really works with the overall narrative arc of the upcoming record. It was musically inspired by singles with similar BOOM BAP beats like The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights,’ The War On Drugs’ ‘Red Eyes,’ Rod Stewart’s ‘Young Turks’ and Sharon Van Etten’s ‘Seventeen.’ With the guitar parts we were trying to put together two seemingly disparate influences: the disco hooks of Chic’s Nile Rodgers and pinch harmonics of The Band’s Robbie Robertson. It was a fun challenge on my Starcaster!
Where did you record it?
It was written and recorded at our home studio in Nashville, TN built by my writing/production partner Trace Faulkner and I during the first months COVID, Summer 2020. Lyrically, it started as a reflection of those uncertain times but has grown since then to be incorporated into a larger project. After recording the basic tracks we had help from producer/engineer Jason Mott and John Meehan at Sundial Sound in putting it all together. I gotta give it up to Trace though, he was the main driver of the music and then we wrote the lyrics and melody together. He definitely ‘produced’ my guitar parts, too, whether I asked him to or not!
Are you planning to make it part of a larger release, such as an EP or album?
It is part of a larger conceptual album release entitled ‘Fare Thee Well, Follower,’ coming in late October 2023. Two other singles, ‘Misshapen Identity’ and ‘Misshapen Id (Twanas Remix),’ have been released as well and are available streaming everywhere. The album was written to directly confront corporate-owned, A.I. driven social media culture and the dystopian corners music, art, love and desire are being painted into by our technological obsessions. The current writers’ and actors’ strikes are great examples–the rapid rise of artificial intelligence is and will be the central issue facing the entertainment industry for the foreseeable future. ChatGPT has already crept into songwriting and I’m going out on a very fast-growing limb to say this development devalues the human creative struggle and over time could lead to an erosion of ‘art’ away from humanity. It’s happening so fast and is so seductive as a new technology that I fear we are not taking its threats seriously enough, not in an apocalyptic ‘singularity’ sense, but in the sense of a slow decomposition of the soul and creative spirit over time. Those who argue A.I. is creative are mesmerized, mistaken and may be guilty of copyright infringement–
Oh, and the album is also about sex and drugs and violence and culture wars and rock ‘n’ roll and identity and herd behavior and semiotics and magic.
I’m very interested in how you started your adventure with music, and did you know from the beginning that this is what you wanted to do?
My adventure in music started when I heard the Beach Boys, probably my earliest musical memory. Those voices singing those melodies, those beyond-heavenly harmonies–it didn’t even matter what the words were because I couldn’t understand them yet, but I remember the SOUND. Some part of me wanted to make music from that beginning, especially when I did learn the words, especially when I learned later that the people who wrote them and put them to music were ‘songwriters.’ The simple combination of writing music and words together to make a sort of picture or story or mind-movie or other sensorial, emotional experience remains very appealing to me. It always will.
Your music interweaves so many different styles and sounds. If you could collaborate with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
Alive: Adrienne Lenker/Big Thief–She’s the most interesting and prolific American-indie-alternative-rock-songwriter-artist working right now, bar none.
Dead: Curtis Mayfield–GENIUS songwriter, guitarist, producer and arranger who delivered both difficult and uplifting messages with that effortlessly gentle falsetto.
What’s been your favorite musical experience to date?
Playing at a 1000 year-old church turned concert venue called Diavolo Rosso in Asti, Italy last September 2022. My newlywed wife was there, just after we’d very romantically eloped in Civita di Bagnoregio. There was a capacity crowd and a triple encore that ended with the crowd singing Bowie’s ‘All The Young Dudes’ along with me.
Where are you based? Can you tell us how the music scene there has inspired your sound at all?
I’m currently based in Nashville, Tennessee but can’t wait to get back to Italy! I wouldn’t say the music ‘scene’ has inspired my sound, but there are a lot of great players and talent everywhere here, even to the point of saturation. It’s definitely a musical advantage to be in a place where you can have players like Tony Paoletta come in and play pedal steel guitar. He’s played with everyone on everything and can make pedal steel work in any kind of song!
If you could perform at any venue in the world, where would it be and why?
The Colosseum in Rome, Italy–we love Italian fans and what venue could be better?
And what was the first album you remember owning?
Endless Summer, The Beach Boys
Finally, have you got anything to share regarding upcoming gigs, and what have you got planned for the rest of 2023?
We’re going to be doing some gigs in and around Nashville after ‘Fare Thee Well, Follower’ is released, experimenting with weaving recorded parts of the record together with live performance, hoping to take it on the road further. I also have about 75% of the companion follow-up record entitled ‘The Savage’ written and demoed, planning to finish writing it by the end of 2023 and recording it in 2024 at The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma.