December 7, 2011

Interview: Paul Steel

Psychedelic pop/rock songwriter • producer • arranger • guitarist • vocalist • keyboardist

Many songwriters draw a distinction between consciously and unconsciously writing songs. How do you do it?

For me, the initial idea, whether it’s a melody or a lyric or bunch of chords usually seemingly comes from nowhere. I find when I sit down and say to myself “Sit down and write a song. So.. Brain… What have we got?” I tend to force it too much and you can always hear that in the final track. I think once the initial idea’s become something real then I very consciously have to make certain things work. A lot of the time I write in quite a chronological way starting from the beginning of the song and by the time I’m at the end of the first chorus or whatever I’m in a different key or tempo to where I started, so if I want to come back to the original verse key I have to think about it a bit a more. I think the trick is to not let it sound too laboured.

How autobiographical are your songs?

Not very autobiographical at all when it comes to subject matter (with a few exceptions). I fear my life and most intimate thoughts are either too dull or too intense to write about directly. However, even with my more surreal or fictitious songs I try to put as much of my personality in them as possible so certain lyrics here and there might reflect some of my thoughts and opinions at the time.

Who are some of your musical/personal heroes?

I’ve always been a massive fan of ambitious melodic pop by people like XTC, The Beach Boys, Zombies and Beatles etc but more recently (mainly out of necessity) I’ve been observing slightly more experimental acts focusing on production. Todd Rundgren is a bit of a hero of mine not only for his musical achievements but also his attitude towards music and the music industry. He was so prolific, always stuck to his guns and always looked for ways to innovate in the studio. Also a great influence are the early electronic music pioneers like Joe Meek and Delia Derbyshire who were just fearless when it came to mangling sounds and opening up doors for the way pop music has been produced for the last 40/50 years.

Tell me about your featured song.

‘Saturday Night In Alcatraz’ is the second track from my new project LL COSMONAUT. It’s basically meant to paint a picture of 1930s San Francisco but in an alternate reality. All the inmates at are looking to escape but not before they rock the rock one last time. Though it’s hard to have sympathy with cold blooded killers and gangsters I still get excited by mass rebellion against a powerful authority and musically I tried to represent that adrenaline rush. The instrumental section is supposed to be the hopes and memories of the outside world. Really, in all the films and documentaries I’ve seen about Alcatraz it’s always felt suitably drab and grey but I really wanted to bring it to life in technicolor. I think it would make a great theme tune for ‘Muppets in Alcatraz’

Listen to the featured song!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Purchase Moon Rock here!

Artist web site

November 2, 2011

Interview: Paul Melancon

Pop songwriter • guitarist • keyboardist

If you could be a master in any other style of music than the one you play, which would it be?

I hope this doesn’t require feeling like a master in the one I currently play… I’d say jazz, I think, in particular improvisational jazz, only because I’ve never felt very good at improvising. Whether it’s a matter of actually being bad at it or just lacking the confidence I think it requires, I can’t say. But I envy those that can just start playing along with others on the fly, seemingly without the absolute self-consciousness that always seems to freeze me up in those moments.

What’s your criteria for a great album?

The unknowable mysteriousness of ALBUMNESS. That’s a smart-a** answer, isn’t it? I could say it’s when all the parts come together, when it’s clearly been crafted from start to finish as a complete object, rather than a collection of songs that just happened to get recorded at the same time. But then again, there are plenty of records I love and couldn’t live without that only hang together because I’ve decided they do. As much as I want to believe I could craft a great album one day, I think in the end it all depends on the person on the other end more than the person making it. All you can do is try to craft something and hope it manages to resonate with someone.

What’s your writing routine like? How much do you keep and how much do you throw away?

I will try to collect bits and pieces of songs over time; an idea for a chord progression recorded on mini-cassette or a phrase that pops into my head while driving that I jot down while trying not to wreck, that kind of thing. I’ll stash those away and avoid them as much as I can until I’m ready to try and write, so that I don’t become jaded with the idea in the meantime.

A lesson I thought I learned a long time ago was that I couldn’t start a song and leave it unfinished and hope to ever come back to it, because once I stepped away it was impossible to ever get back to that frame of mind in order to complete it. So writing, for me, became a choice to sacrifice the better part of my day to build something start to finish. All of that means that I really threw very little away. I’ve always been a slow writer, I think the best writing year I ever had I managed five songs. So, when you’re that slow, you pretty much end up recording whatever you’ve got at any given time.

Lately, I’m trying to throw all of that out the window and mess with song ideas whenever I have time and slowly piece them together as I go. It’s too early to tell whether this is a good idea for me or not.

How did you write your featured song?

It took me a little while to pick a featured song, actually. It’s always hard to try and represent yourself with one song, do I go with one that I hope is expressive and moody or with something catchier? Do I pick one with a good backstory? In the end I went with catchy and a bad backstory.

Once, I saw a sale sign in a bedding store and I thought the phrase “King Sham” sounded like a really good XTC-ish kind of title, and so I needed to write it before they did. What I ended up with was nothing at all like XTC, but hopefully still good.

Listen to the featured song!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Purchase Paul’s music here!

Artist web site