1. When did you first know you wanted to become a musical artist? What was the first song you ever wrote?
I wrote a “song” when I was about four years old which was, in retrospect a reflection of my parents divorce. I basically took my mom’s side, and the song was a mockery of my dad. Years later, that song became an easy way to look at my early psychology in therapy.
At about age 11 I fell in love with film scores, and in high school I wrote songs for a synthy band I was in, and also a sort of punk metal group. During college, not studying music, I finally decided to commit to music. Which is, as any artists out there know, a scary, wheel-turning moment.
2. Who are some of your top 5 musical influences?
Today I’ll say Brian Eno, Elliott Smith, Einsturzende Neubauten, Maurice Ravel, Leonard Cohen. My favorite artist is probably Bowie but I don’t think he’s really a musical influence, more a spiritual one.
3. What’s in your IPOD this week?
iPod! Dust and tiny spiders.
4. How’s the music scene in your locale?
I live in Silverlake, a neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles. It’s known as a hipster scene, which means, it once was edgy, and now is tame. And, there are clubs, but they’re not that wild. There’s a lot going on here but LA is not the kind of city that seems to foster a feeling of community. It’s an amazing city, and not remotely what people imagine it to be from television, but it doesn’t forge bonds between people.
5. What do you like most about playing live?
It’s like the songs are alive again. They breathe, and they speak differently every time, every night. During the pandemic I got to know my catalog, even some of my film scores, and re-interpreted them for solo performance in livestreams. Recently I played a few shows in Berlin which were more like this – solo, but full of variety, and very spontaneous, changing instruments, telling stories, even mixing in some poetry. I look forward to the lively energy of playing with a full band again.
6. Is there a song on your latest CD release here that stands out as your personal favorite, and why?
My songs feel like children to me and picking a favorite makes me hurt a little. But I have a special feeling for the most recent, which happens to be the last song on the album, called “In New York”. It was written some time after a head injury, while I was living there, and I felt the energy of layers and layers of lives lived in the city. It’s a song of nostalgia and longing which anyone who loves that place, or has fallen in love in wintertime, might understand. It feels like midnight.
7. What’s the best concert you’ve been to?
Ween. Those guys tore apart their songs, which are often hilariously unprofessional in the recordings. The live experience was just an entire planet of fully fleshed out sonic color and absolute mastery.
8. If you could meet, play a gig, co-write a song, have dinner, have a drink with any band or artist (dead or alive) who would it be?
David Bowie. No debate for me there. I ask him about his occult leanings.
9. What are your goals for the future?
Releasing more than an album of music every year. Bringing some grace into this troubled world, as much as I can.