Another interview. I’m finding these fascinating. In a post or two I’m gonna do a big list of all the songwriting ideas we can steal from these!
1. 50 songs – did you have a system for finishing?
2. Which song did you consider your biggest success? Why was it successful?
In terms of best overall song success — lyrics, melody, vocals, demo, etc — I think my biggest success was “Cut Coupons,” which is a track from a “side project” I created called Here Lies Laika.
Download Cut Coupons
Here Lies Laika was kind of a nod to Tim Wille’s 10 EPs project, in that I loved how he was able to create so many different structures of music so quickly. I basically wanted to steal that idea from him, except without writing 10 EPs. So I created Here Lies Laika, and that song, Cut Coupons, turned out really well and became a favorite of a lot of people on the site.
3. Music or lyrics?
Ultimately, music. I think classical music will attest to that. I understand people who enjoy more lyrical artists, but in the end if a song isn’t catchy or interesting it just won’t stand the test of time. No song can stand on lyrics alone.
4. Are there any songwriting clichés, musical or lyrical, that you use too much?
I could write a book on all the lyrical clichés I use. It’s really kind of embarrassing, to look back at songs and say, “Hey, I’ve used that line in three other songs!” Like the phrase “heaven sent.” I think I’ve used that phrase fifty times in different songs. I can’t help it — it rhymes well with “innocent”!
I’ve also probably used every guitar chord progression cliché known to man. I’m a rhythm player, which means I don’t have any cool lead guitar skills, so I don’t mind playing four or five songs in I IV V or the always classic I vi IV V. Ultimately these aren’t cliché because each musician or songwriter can use them in completely different ways. But when you’re writing 50 songs in 90 days, they always feel like a cliché, because once I’d come to a new song to write, I’d try to write it with some strange progression that ultimately fouled me up more than help me.
5. How have you developed as a songwriter through this challenge?
I’ve learned to simplify. Simplify lyrics, simplify melodies, simplify chords if possible. As much as I’d love to be some guitar virtuoso and write songs with twelve different chords in them, the truth is that 95% of songs out there — catchy, hook-ridden, accessible songs — are written with the simplest melodies and simplest chord structures available. And so, looking back on the songs I wrote that I feel were good, those songs are also very simple and easy to access as a listener. And I think that’s the most important thing about music — to be accessible. You only get to be “out there” and wild when you’ve developed a fan base. :)
The way I chose to do things complicated my songwriting a lot. Instead of just writing “a song” 50 times, I wanted to reinvent myself 10 times over, 10 EPs with 5 songs each. I used a different musical style every time, but also a different method of songwriting and performance, varying skill sets, instrumentations and vocal styles etc. This was utterly daunting at the beginning of the challenge, and I was afraid I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I found myself missing the band I had just left behind, and it was difficult to unlearn everything I had just spent the week immersing myself in. But in the end, as I had hoped, I got to the point where I wasn’t really writing songs anymore, I was “writing bands” with relative ease. Towards the end, writing an EP felt more or less like just writing a song.
