Where are you these days?
I'm in Montreal. But, not for long, I don't think.
Where are you thinking about going?
I'm thinking New York, because I have my band there. I used to be so stressed out and intimidated by the city, but now I feel very comfortable there.
I think it's a place everybody should spend some time, especially in the arts. It’s just such a non-stop, vibrant scene with a lot of like-minded people trying to get after the same thing.
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve felt that way about every city that I've gone to, and that's emerging for me, that feeling out of New York.
Before we start talking about All Cylinders, what got you inspired about making music early on?
My parents are definitely the first frontier. They have been taking me to concerts since I was three months old. My dad goes to a concert a week, at least. So, there was a sense that this is the household I'm being brought into, where this is what we do from the jump. But the same feelings that animate me about music now, did so from [as far back as] I can remember. So, my mom would have been playing music in the womb, and I have memories from the womb, and anytime I tell people that, they say, “Oh, your brain doesn't actually have the development required for memory.” There’s so much mystery to life. It's like what we're going off of synapses. I remember the womb, and so I'm sure that that informed me, the music that was me. But I got sidetracked… the feelings that I had from music, from the time I can remember when I was three. The Guess Who might have been the first music that I was visibly excited about. And then the first music I got interested in was the Backstreet Boys, and then Green Day. It's all quite random, but it all made me feel animated. So, as abstract as that is, it's the same feelings.
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Both the Backstreet Boys and Green Day are very different bands, but they're both very focused on melody, which I hear a ton in your music. When you say The Guess Who, there's a lot of that aesthetic on All Cylinders as well, which is interesting. We're just an input device, right? As long as your antenna is out, we're absorbing all of these things, and they manifest themselves in different ways.
Right. Yeah, it's funny how growing up you try to run away from so much of this stuff, and then it becomes the most comforting, for lack of a better word. It becomes such a center or a foundation of influence. I feel like there's a point after the teenage rebellion for everybody where they're listening to the music their parents listened to or had on, and there's a reckoning of the depth there, and how it affected their sensibilities. It’s always there.
I was talking to Regina Spektor [Tape Op #172], and we were having a conversation about the music that you're exposed to growing up. Whether you're actually actively listening to it or not, really ends up affecting you later. Were those the sorts of shows that your parents were taking you to? Were they into rock bands and those types of shows?
I don't think that I went to a proper rock show until quite a bit later, like seven or eight. I mean, they would have had me at festivals and things like this. My dad really likes jazz and world music. I remember going to see Mötley Crüe and Aerosmith when I was like eight or nine. It was a completely – that show was notable for its degeneracy. I remember they had hardcore porn on the Jumbotron. I was so young, my parents were like, “This is crazy,” but anyway…
Did you start playing music early on?
I think the earliest evidence of it is three, when I started playing guitar and piano, not in any technical way. I don't know what I would have been doing, It had to have been just like hand drums… I must have been just making a racket. I was also just naturally playing with my ear, like I would play what's on the radio or whatever. That was a good foothold before starting to take lessons when I was like five. I would just disregard everything the teacher said because I had already had this experience of matching things with my ear, so I was like, “I don't need any pen and paper. It's no fun.” Of course, it's another great foundation to have, and I think I have it now, but in most of my lessons I took from that point, from five years old on, it was in one ear out the other. I would just use my ear. It all comes full circle where it's like through making music in this capacity, it dovetails with all of this technical foundation that I might have disregarded at the time. Where I can like put the pieces together, in retrospect.
Were you recording in high school on a 4-track, or a were you using a DAW?
