Last week, after asking you to email me if you fancied being interviewed for www.songwright.co.uk, I recieved an email. Nolan Smock, from the fantastic band the Charming Youngsters, asked if he had to be ‘established’ before I would consider him for an interview.
Of course I answered that I was interested in interviewing him because he’s a great songwriter, established or otherwise.
Here’s what we talked about:
1. – When and how did you start writing songs?
High school. To be cool! I found I really enjoyed the process, though. I wrote a lot on the acoustic guitar but also started getting into remixing and recording with DAW software. It wasn’t until 2006 or so that I feel I really hit my stride when my engineering collided with my songwriting. I chart that moment as the song “Inaudible Chatter” from my first LP. It was the first song I had finished before I hit “record”. It was a big moment for me!
2. – I love the lyrics on Bone Pickin’ – Do you start with lyrics when writing songs?
Thank you! I’m happy with them too. With “Bone Pickin’” I had the chord progression and the melody already sitting around for a few weeks. The words to that came in one stroke. It was one of those really easy moments.
Most ideas I have start with a chord progression and I’ll improvise with made up words and sounds (really embarassing) to find a melody. Once I have something I like, I will fit the words to it. There’s been a few times where I’ll write the music to fit some lyrics but I have the most fun fitting words into the already established boundaries. That isn’t to say I stick to those boundaries though. I am constantly refining the melody to fit different lyrics and vice versa through live performance, where some of my favorite songwriting ideas happen.
3. – We all have songwriting habits (I overuse the same chord progressions) – Are there any songwriting ideas you use too often?
Absolutely! I use chromatic descension too much so sometimes I’ll try to hide it. On “Bone Pickin’”, the verse chords are A – A/C# – Cmaj7/G – G6 which is a fancy dress for the notes that make up this walk-down: A – C# – C – B. There’s something about downward movement that I love singing over. The band also gives me a hard time for using a capo on the 4th fret for the majority of the songs. I think I just like the feeling of that particular tension under my fingers.
4. – How does songwriting work within the band? Do you all write?
At first, I was dictating parts of already recorded songs to the band members, but lately the ideas I bring the band are much more minimal and everybody plays a part in fleshing out the song since there are no recordings yet. They’ve also added a lot to the earlier songs since we started as a band.
We really deconstruct our songs during rehersal and make sure every musical idea has a purpose and is presented as strongly as possible. I’m really happy I’ve found three other musicians who want to dig as deep into the songs as I do, even though sometimes we get a little too neurotic. Or maybe that’s just me.
5. – How important is recording technology to your songwriting?
Right now it’s not as important as it used to be, but I am religious about using Notepad for lyrics! Like I said before, a big turning point for me was using all my recording tricks on songs that had been worked out in pre-production, but now my computer is dead and I don’t really have my sandbox anymore for demoing songs.
Now most of my ideas are worked out with the band in rehearsal or with me and a guitar. Simple. A lot of the habits I had when technology was a part of process were lazy and I don’t miss them. However, toying around with effects is a whole different story and when it comes to a finished record, I will always want noises. Lots and lots of noises.
Go listen to the Charming Youngsters Here.
If you want to do a songwriting interview for songwright.co.uk email me at tomslattermusic AT gmail.com
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