musical mondaze

While Slow Coming Day went their separate ways over a decade ago, its members never turned their backs on music. Lead singer and guitarist Orion Walsh has enjoyed a successful solo career in the interim, releasing seven albums under his own name, while the rest of the band have all kept music in their lives in one form or another.

Following a reunion performance at last year’s Joshua Fest in California, Walsh and his bandmates decided to come together to create new music. The result is the album “1000 Years (Like a Day),” which they wrote and recorded separately while tele-creating from different locations around the country.

We recently sat down with Walsh to discuss creative expectations, the future of band assembly, and why overthinking a song can hurt the end result.

TrunkSpace: Your upcoming album “1000 Years (Like a Day)” is your first recorded music in over a decade. As you gear up to release it to the world, what kind of emotions are you juggling with?
Walsh: It is Slow Coming Day’s first recorded music in over a decade, it’s true, but I’ve actually been releasing solo records since the band broke up. I’ve released seven solo albums now to date in the 10 years or so since the band disband. Writing this style of music again definitely brought me back in time in a way. Whenever you release new music to the world there is always several emotions going through ones mind. For this release, we did it for fun, for the old fans, and to reminisce.

TrunkSpace: With such a large gap between “1000 Years (Like a Day)” and your previous album, is it hard not to put personal expectations on it? Is there a bit of a creative build-up that you feel is ready to burst on people?
Walsh: My personal expectations for this release are as simple as, “I expect people to hear the new music if they choose.” Hopefully it gives joy to others, to old fans and maybe some new ones. I personally enjoy this album much more than “Farewell to the Familiar” as it was done totally DIY ourselves and not with a producer, changing the music or telling us what to do.

TrunkSpace: The album came together thanks in large part to technology. You would record something and then send it along to the rest of the band through email where they would then add their own creative two cents. How do you think the process itself directly impacted the songs? Do you think the end result would have been different if you were all in the same room together throughout the entire process?
Walsh: Sending the songs through email back and forth was a pretty painless process which allowed each person in the band to add their own parts on their own time. It all came together really well this way. Writing in this way is totally different than being all in the same room together, which, for us, is not really possible at the moment. Something totally different could have come out that way.

TrunkSpace: Each member of the band lives in different states and yet “1000 Years (Like a Day)” was finished. Do you think music is headed in the same direction as business with telecommuting? Is tele-songwriting the way of the future?
Walsh: Yes, absolutely.

TrunkSpace: What are you most proud of with the album?
Walsh: I am glad we were able to put this together with the constraints of living all in different states. I really enjoy “All Things New,” “First Sight,” and “Shoes, Ships, & Sealing Wax” as far as the songs go.

TrunkSpace: We read that this album was Slow Coming Day “coming out of retirement.” Did everyone continue to pursue music independently or was it a literal retirement from music as a whole for some of you? And, does this signal a new chapter in your musical journey?
Walsh: It’s true that this album is a “coming out of retirement” for the band, which was spawned out of a reunion show we did last year in California at Joshua Fest. We’ve stayed friends over the years. None of us “retired” from music. I don’t think that’s possible. I’ve been doing my solo career as a singer/songwriter for 10 years now. Matt (Bailey), the drummer plays music at his local church. Dave (Stoots) has played bass with several different groups over the years. Kevin (Michael) and Brandon (Queen), who contributed some songs for the album and live in LA, both have been active in different music projects over the past decade.

TrunkSpace: Can you envision a day when music is not a part of your life?
Walsh: No.

TrunkSpace: Is it possible to overthink a song? Can a songwriter tinker so much that the breath of the song gets choked out of it?
Walsh: Absolutely. In fact, I think that songwriters and producers alike can “choke” the life out of a song quite easily by overthinking the process, especially when recording it. I think the important thing to remember when writing is, “What do I want to say in this song?” Keep it simple!

TrunkSpace: Is there a particular feeling or vibe that you get when you know a song is officially finished? How do you know to step back and say, “I’ve done all that I can do here?”
Walsh: Yeah, usually there is a point in recording a song where you just “Let it be.” Finding that place is essential. We have a saying, which is, “next song.” Basically, don’t spend time overthinking a song. Record it to the best of your ability and move forward. So many bands and music projects break up or never finish the recording process because of overthinking or being too picky.

TrunkSpace: Time machine question. If you could just ahead 10 years and get a glimpse of what your musical journey looks like a decade from now, would you take that journey? If not, why?
Walsh: Yes, I would! That sounds intriguing! I’ve always been interested in time travel.

“1000 Years (Like a Day)” drops February 14 on Indie Vision Music.

The latest Tiny Ruins album, “Olympic Girls” (set to drop this Friday from Ba Da Bing), is bigger and bolder according to Hollie Fullbrook, pack leader of the New Zealand-based quartet. Originally intended as a solo project, much of the critical praise following their previous recordings, including 2014’s “Brightly Painted One,” was deservedly heaped on the singer/songwriter, though she is quick to point out the band’s creative and personal significance.

“The band motivates me, encourages me, cajoles me, teaches me, keeps me sane, keeps me active, makes me laugh, gives me a sense of camaraderie,” she told TrunkSpace in a recent interview. “My bandmates are hugely important to me, and they really made the record what it is.”

In other words, they are all Tiny Ruins.

We recently sat down with Fullbrook to discuss the roller coaster ride in bringing “Olympic Girls” to life, wrangling herself in and out of songs, and why she aspires to tell stories with her songwriting.

TrunkSpace: We’re just a few days away from the release of your latest album “Olympic Girls.” As you gear up to share new music with the masses, what emotions do you juggle with? Does it vary album to album?
Fullbrook: Mainly a sense of lightness, like a weight is lifting from my shoulders. Release is definitely the right word. We’ve been holding on to these songs for a while now. I feel some apprehension, nervous energy too… focusing on what we need to do to tour this thing over the coming months.

It’s an understatement to say this one’s been a roller coaster ride. With this one, I’m acutely aware of all the things that have aligned and all the people who have helped myself and the band get to this point. It feels great to be finally sharing it.

TrunkSpace: This is the third album by Tiny Ruins. No one is closer to the music than you. As you listen back to the earliest creative iterations of the band and compare it to what is on “Olympic Girls,” where do you hear the biggest differences? Were those changes by design or a natural progression?
Fullbrook: The band fully came into its own on this album. In that all our personalities are expressed more in the music. It has a more extreme palette of sonics, is bigger and bolder… both a natural progression and conscious decision. We discussed using broader strokes, more electric guitars, heavier drums – the songs really called out for those things, and I wrote with the full band in mind. But I also wanted to stay true to where we’d come from. I didn’t want it to be a departure into something we’re not. It was about being more ourselves than about a reinvention.

I do hear some difference in my vocal delivery. I pushed outwards in my singing and guitar playing on this album, tried to get better at both, and in many ways both the lyrics and delivery are the most ‘me’ they’ve ever been. I’m older, my voice feels deeper, stronger – all that stuff. And maybe I’ve dropped my guard down a bit further.

TrunkSpace: The album was recorded over the course of a year. Did that allow for time to
tinker and perfect the tracks in ways that you didn’t have the luxury of doing with your previous studio recordings?
Fullbrook: We recorded it in the same space as last time… in our practice space, actually, at (electric guitar player) Tom Healy’s studio at The Lab – an underground warren of small independent recording rooms. Tom’s a music producer by trade; he recorded and mixed this one and the last album too. With “Brightly Painted One” we blocked out two weeks and tracked everything quickly. We used a big studio room at The Lab for some songs, so there was more of a feeling of time pressure. We were greener – Tom’s kit set room was newly put together. I was in the throes of heartbreak, absolute heartbreak, so recording those songs was painful, but compounded in time.

Tom has since joined the band. This time ‘round, and with all of us juggling other jobs, touring, life’s ups and downs, these recording sessions were spaced out weeks apart. I was writing songs throughout. We didn’t start out with the full track list ready and waiting – it was a sort of gradual workshopping process that felt very relaxed and methodical. For me personally, the recording sessions were little islands of joy, with my friends, when I got to make music and pour all this energy out. The sessions weren’t painful, they were the thing I looked forward to most.

We’d record in these beautiful little capsules of time, perhaps on a weekend or a public holiday, or a day that everyone was free… and things took a while for us to build. And it was like sole dedication to each song over the course of maybe two or three days, recording every part, and then we’d leave it and move on to the next song two or three weeks later. We didn’t listen to what we’d done until fairly far along – maybe five songs deep. I didn’t get weighed down with the details of it all. It felt like we worked very seamlessly, easily, on this record. It just took time to get there.

TrunkSpace: We found that you can’t just listen to “Olympic Girls” – you feel it as well, which is not something that many artists can achieve. The emotions weaved into the various tracks are multilayered, which makes each song a journey. Was that something you set out to achieve in the studio – to prompt empathetic response from the listener?
Fullbrook: I wouldn’t say that’s something we were thinking about. You have to be careful about manipulating emotion for an audience’s sake, both with recording or performing, as it can really backfire.

When I’m recording I’m not thinking about how a listener might respond. I’m just responding, and choosing. Thousands of decisions based on our immediate responses. We always choose the take that personally makes us feel something. There might be imperfections in a take, but something about it just has the feeling. It’s strange that you can sing the same song a bunch of times, but one of those times, it clinches it. It affects you differently. Cass’s bass line goes somewhere weird which she just can’t replicate or make any better. Or Alex’s drum fill that makes you surge with adrenaline. You’re always chasing this magic phantom sound. And when you do find it – holy shit it’s the greatest feeling! So it’s just our own gut instincts we’re always checking in with. And then hopefully, that translates somehow, to the listeners, in the end.

TrunkSpace: What are you most proud of with “Olympic Girls” as you prepare to share it with listeners?
Fullbrook: Some of my favorite songs on the album are ones that have not been released as singles. A track called “Sparklers” is one that I’m pretty proud of. And the second half of the album is kind of wild. Tom went next level on the mixing, getting all these big expansive soundscapes to really open up, and I think for listeners who’ve been waiting for the next Tiny Ruins, it’s going to be really exciting for them, listening in the dark with headphones or whatever. I love imagining that. Of them hearing the songs they don’t know yet.

TrunkSpace: As a songwriter – someone who is expressing themselves through their art in various ways – do you ever second-guess yourself as to if you’re putting too much of yourself into a lyric or overall performance, and in the process, leaving yourself too exposed?
Fullbrook: Hmm, maybe yes, occasionally. Some writing is too raw, and it doesn’t actually get across what you want to say in a coherent way. Not that everything always needs to be coherent. (Laughter) But…I guess you can splurge a whole lot of writing when you’re in a distressed or exuberant state, and when you come back to it a day or so later, it feels overwrought, or full of pretense, or it’s just way too general. So it’s about channeling the truth of that experience or emotion in a way that still feels like you’re honoring it, but honing it into something that has more a life of its own, more specificity. I feel exposed with every song I’ve ever written – when I play one to the band, for instance, for the first time, it’s excruciating. I feel so nervous giving songs their live debut… it’s always going to feel intensely personal – that’s the nature of the beast. But in terms of the craft of writing, yes, I do try and wrangle myself in and out of songs sometimes.

TrunkSpace: A novelist will take thousands of words – hundreds of pages – in an attempt to perfect a beginning, middle and end of a story. Meanwhile, a songwriter does the same thing in just a few lines. When done right, it’s magic. Do you see yourself as a storyteller, and if so, what is the greatest story you’ve ever told?
Fullbrook: I have always loved being read to, and I love reading stories aloud. I have worked as a nanny at certain points of my life, and I enjoy kids, because they drink up stories. For me, there aren’t many songs that can really compete with a powerful story told to an enraptured audience. I was a lucky kid that got told many stories by various adults in my life. Stories are so important to us humans that they were made into songs, to make them even more memorable.

I think I do aspire to tell stories; certainly it’s an important part of how I make sense of a song to myself.

TrunkSpace: What do you get writing and performing within a band, and this band in particular, that you can’t access from a solo mindset? What are the benefits for you personally in having a group of people fighting the fight alongside of you?
Fullbrook: This is such a good question and doesn’t get asked enough. My band mean everything to me. They’ve basically been there with me from the beginning – we could just never afford to tour as a full band in the early days. We are all old friends now, and have been playing music together for eight or so years.

I’m the leader of the pack, but it’s a pack. My writing is a solo activity and something I do alone, but getting those songs to their best version – that’s as a group, and we all listen to each other, it’s pretty democratic. I trust them. They are all incredible musicians. They all come up with their own parts. The band motivates me, encourages me, cajoles me, teaches me, keeps me sane, keeps me active, makes me laugh, gives me a sense of camaraderie. Music would not be nearly as fun without Cass, Alex and Tom. It’s not easy making a band sustainable, especially when you’re based in New Zealand. So we’ve had to be flexible. I’ve toured a lot solo. I’ve collaborated with others. We manage ourselves. We tour manage ourselves. My bandmates are hugely important to me, and they really made the record what it is.

TrunkSpace: Can you envision a day when music is not a part of your life?
Fullbrook: No.

TrunkSpace: Outside of another artist, was there someone in your life who inspired or supported your creative endeavors that you feel was important to you getting where you are today with your music?
Fullbrook: Early on it was a couple of friends who encouraged me to do an open mic night and record some demos. Aaron Curnow at Spunk Records really believed in me and got my career going. Then my band came along. Simon Raymonde at Bella Union also instilled a lot of confidence in me. And now the great people at Milk! Records, Ba Da Bing Records and Marathon Artists. A solid team is really vital.

I owe a lot of my tenacity and strength to my parents. They raised us with humor, openness, emotions all out there, quite chaotic. Our childhoods were pretty free and idyllic. They’ve always really had my back, always listened and given support. They’re pretty amazing.

My partner of several years. He’s not musical, and knows me completely separately to my ‘career’. From the sidelines he’s the voice of reason and of love I often need to hear. He goes to every show he can, has tour managed us in the past across the US, and often sells our merch. He’s an absolute champion, not of my career, necessarily, but of me. He refuses to offer feedback on songs or a performance. Which can be frustrating. But in the long run I appreciate that. He doesn’t prop me up in any way. He has made me a much stronger person. It means I only listen to myself and my band, I don’t go seeking approval from anyone.

TrunkSpace: Time machine question. If you could jump ahead 10 years and get a glimpse of what your musical journey looks like a decade from now, would you take that journey? If not, why?
Fullbrook: No… that idea just doesn’t appeal to me at all.

“Olympic Girls” is available Friday from Ba Da Bing.

Sonically, The Bottle Rockets are a different band than they were when they first began writing and performing together in 1992, though lead singer and guitarist Brian Henneman admits that the musical metamorphoses that they’ve gone through are never as profound to the listeners as they are to themselves.

With a cleaner, crisper vibe, their latest album “Bit Logic” (available now from Bloodshot Records) may be their biggest leap yet, but at the same time, it’s a sound that they feel closer to than the distorted “fist fight” that had come to define them over their nearly 30-year career.

We recently sat down with Henneman to discuss fan families, the far off drunken days of their youth, and why you’ll be hard-pressed to make present day ZZ Top comparisons.

TrunkSpace: The band has been at this a long time. Are there still firsts for you out there in terms of experiences for the band? Does it still feel fresh when you hit the road?
Henneman: No. Not after 25 years. We’ve pretty much have seen everything that you can see. It’s just always fun to get out of town for a while, but no, there’s really nothing fresh anymore. I don’t think so. I think we’ve done it all.

TrunkSpace: Your personal time in music stretched before The Bottle Rockets. Has your artistic point of view changed as you’ve grown older and experienced more of life?
Henneman: Oh yeah. Sure. It’s just… you see things different when you’re older than you do when you’re younger, that’s a fact. The view from here is different than the view from 25 years ago, that’s for sure.

TrunkSpace: Taking into account that view from here, does present day Brian still relate to the songs you were writing 25 years ago?
Henneman: Amazingly, yes. That was just sort of a lucky break on my part 25 years ago, I guess. I wasn’t planning to be doing it. I wasn’t even thinking about that maybe I would still be singing those songs 25 years later. That was just something within, I guess – some self-protecting circuit.

TrunkSpace: When you play songs live that were written 25 years ago, do perform them for you, or is it for the fans? Are the fans growing with you or are you seeing new generations discovering The Bottle Rockets?
Henneman: Both. You know what we see a lot of is these kids of the original fans, so it’s like a family affair. You get these younger people coming, but they know everything because their parents were playing it. That’s interesting.

TrunkSpace: That is interesting. For the listener, you build a memory around a song or an album and it’s got to be cool to be able to see now that there is this connective tissue between various generations and that younger kids are forming their own ties.
Henneman: Absolutely, yeah. I know. That is interesting. It’s interesting to see the younger people have different songs attached to their memories. It’s funny. We’ll go to some town, I can’t really name them but you get into certain places where you realize that maybe this whole audience hasn’t heard anything that we’ve made since 1997. It’s kind of like they just want to hear all the old stuff. It’s weird. It does happen, and just kind of randomly. You can tell when it’s going on. You’ll play new stuff but they’ll just keep wanting the old stuff.

TrunkSpace: We’re certainly guilty of that. You put on your favorite record and you listen over and over again… trapped in a musical loop.
Henneman: Me too. I lost touch with Graham Parker after “Squeezing Out Sparks.” I’m the same way. It’s just how people do it.

TrunkSpace: Have The Bottle Rockets albums become chapters of your life?
Henneman: Yeah, for sure. It’s funny though because now, it’s like this version of the band with the current members has been together longer than any other version of the band. It’s like the old stuff, the really old stuff, was the other variations of the band and sort of just assimilated to memories of the new band now. “I have a new band, which is the oldest band that’s been running.” It’s like those really far off memories from the old wild drunken days and whatever. If you force yourself to remember them, you can remember them but everything just seems that this has been the only band. It’s been that long.

TrunkSpace: As you look over the catalog of music that you’ve created, where do you hear the biggest changes over the years?
Henneman: I think the biggest changes have come in recent times. Like the last two albums were both pretty big changes compared to the old days. There was a period of time where no matter what we did, I mean, even if we would made an effort to do something different, people would still hear it the same way. We wouldn’t hear it that way, but there was a period of years where no matter what we’d try to do, they’d still always put out ZZ Top references. And then you go back and hear it and go, “Oh, okay, I can see that.” It never is as different as we think it is, but I think the biggest differences have really come in the last two albums and it’s in motion. Like with this newest one, “Bit Logic,” it’s like that’s the direction things are going… cleaner. That big, loud, dirty guitar sound, I don’t do that anymore. I mean, I never say never of course, but I don’t see it coming back because it’s just… it’s changed. But still, it’s the same band. You’ve got landmarks. You know who it is.

Probably one of the biggest changes was when we first started doing those living room shows… just acoustic guitars, no microphones. We’ve been doing that for years now, but when we first started doing it, it was like all of a sudden we realized that people were maybe getting the songs for the first time. It was like all of a sudden people were like, “Oh, wow.” It was like they were talking about lyrics. And then we realized that all those years and all those loud guitars, that people weren’t even really hearing what the songs were about. That started steering the ship a little bit.

TrunkSpace: So going back a bit to the start of our conversation, what would Brian of 25 years ago think of “Bit Logic?” Would it seem like a stretch to him?
Henneman: Good question. Here’s a funny thing about this band is, 25 years ago, I didn’t even really think about stuff like that. It was just like everything was of the moment. It was like this is what we do, this is how we’re doing it and then somebody is going to capture this on a recording and it’s going to go out there and we’re going to go out and drive around and eat cheeseburgers and get drunk. It was just the simple, “Woo hoo, we’re out of the house!” I didn’t even really think about it. I think that the me now relates to the old thing better because the old me wouldn’t even think about the new thing, but if we had just done what we’re doing now way back then, I that would have worked too.

In those days, it was like, “Turn up the guitars, go man go!” The Neil Young influence was way heavier back then. It was like, okay, we wanted to sound like that, but it wasn’t like something that was, “We’re going to sound like Neil Young dammit!” That’s just kind of how it naturally was. We were loud and guitars sound that way loud and this is just how it goes. But you know, I liked cleaner guitar sound stuff back then too. In fact, I probably liked it better than the stuff we were doing as far as listening goes. I don’t know, I think maybe now we’re just living out actually closer to the stuff we used to listen to.

TrunkSpace: As artists, you always have to go back to doing what inspires you and makes you happy, because at the end of the day, why do it if it doesn’t?
Henneman: Right. Right! And that big loud thing, it was kind of a burden after a while. In the early days it didn’t matter because it was exciting and blah, blah, blah, blah, but it became sort of like a drag that was kind of like we’d go see other bands or whatever who didn’t do that and be kind of jealous of it. They don’t have to do that. Playing real tight together and everything sounds great and you can hear everything. And then we always knew that it would be like a fist fight when we’d get on stage. The sound of a frigging riot going on. And it took a long time to come around to changing that. In fact, we’re still working on it. We’re still perfecting that.

“Bit Logic” is available now from Bloodshot Records.

As one of the few rock bands to top the various “Top” charts in recent years, You Me At Six has been relentlessly writing, recording and touring since first forming in Surrey, England back in 2004. For bassist Matt Barnes, the hard work that is required to maintain a career in the music industry feels a lot less like a job and more of a chance to share incredible, life-changing experiences with his best mates.

“Touring is holiday and studio is just a hang out, so do what you love and never work a day in your life.”

We recently sat down with Barnes to discuss the health of the genre, how their albums were directly impacted by outside musical influences, and the factors that forced the band to consider walking away from it all.

TrunkSpace: You guys are out touring in support of your latest album, “VI,” with stops in the States starting on February 21 in Boston. Do you find you’re still experiencing “firsts” out there on the highways and byways? Does it still feel fresh?
Barnes: I think this is our 14th time touring the U.S. now, so I wouldn’t say it feels fresh. (Laughter) However, now that we know all the good spots and have friends all over the country it is even better, as we know where to go and what to do.

TrunkSpace: A lot of people use writing music as a form of personal therapy – a way to work out whatever demons they have. Does performing have therapeutic benefits as well? Can you get in front of a crowd and come off the stage a different person than as you went on?
Barnes: I would say sometimes if you are having a bit of a bad day it can completely change your mood into a positive mindset. However, sometimes it can be tricky if you are not in the right mindset right before you play to try and get into the vibe. If the show is going really well and the crowd is loving it, there is no better feeling.

TrunkSpace: You Me At Six is one of the few rock bands who performs well on the charts, and yet, outside of the mainstream, rock and all of its sub-genres seem to have very thriving scenes. As one of the few rock bands cracking the mainstream in 2019, what’s it going to take to see the genre as a whole find its footing again?
Barnes: We have always been lucky to cross over into a few different genres. We have always written and played music that we want to play and have been lucky to be acknowledged as a crossover rock band. I also think the genre ‘rock’ never lost its footing, so to speak. Yes, the radio is full of songs that sound the same – (laughter) – but there have and will always be rock fans coming to gigs and loving the scene. Especially in the UK, there are some amazing new rock bands coming up, which is so good to see.

TrunkSpace: Six albums is no easy feat for any artist in this industry. What has been the magic recipe to the longevity of You Me At Six? What has kept you engaged both creatively and personally in the band?
Barnes: We are all still best mates so hanging out and writing music has always been so much fun – it has never felt like a job. Touring is holiday and studio is just a hang out, so do what you love and never work a day in your life.

TrunkSpace: What do you get from writing and performing in You Me At Six that you can’t access from a solo mindset? What are the benefits for you personally in having a group of people fighting the fight alongside of you?
Barnes: Well, you have your best mates to your left and right that you trust with your life!

TrunkSpace: Do albums become a bit like chapters of your life? Like: “These were my ‘VI’ years and those were my ‘Cavalier Youth’ years?”
Barnes: You can hear that we are listening to specific genres at certain points of records, which I find quite interesting. We loved pop punk for our first two albums, then strayed a bit heavier for “Sinners Never Sleep,” then went a bit more pop for “Cavalier Youth.” Then we were listening to a lot of rock and hip hop for “Night People,” and on our latest album “VI,” we listened to so many genres it is an amalgamation of everything we have ever done.

TrunkSpace: You Me At Six has experienced a lot together over the years. After everything you’ve been through and the point of view changes that come with age, do you see the band differently now than you did when it first came together? Does it serve a different purpose for you in 2019 than it did when you came together in 2004?
Barnes: Nope, we still just turn up, play gigs and get pissed. Just these days the gigs are bigger.

TrunkSpace: What has been the highlight of your musical career thus far; what is the moment that you will carry with you through the rest of your life?
Barnes: We have played the Reading and Leeds festivals quite a few times, but last time we played, it was on the Main Stage and we must have played to 80,000 people. It was a life-changing moment.

TrunkSpace: How have your own experiences – the journey that made you who you are as a person – shaped your musical POV?
Barnes: Over the years we have all been through a lot personally that changed us. There have been points where some of us haven’t wanted to do this anymore for many reasons, be it the label trying to mess with us and screw us out of deals, or family issues – but we have always gotten through it.

TrunkSpace: What do you personally get out of music through writing and performing that you couldn’t get through being a listener alone?
Barnes: Well, you can project thoughts and feelings that can only be expressed in creative ways. It’s a magical thing to have an outlet where people are listening to and feeling what you are writing about and we feel blessed to have the outlet.

“VI” is available now.

You Me At Six tour dates are available here.

For singer/songwriter Arleigh Kincheloe, music is a personal journey, one that she was guided on from a very early age by her musical parents, and that she too is now paving for her own son. Learning to read by scanning Emmylou Harris liner notes, the Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds frontwoman has evolved her sonic identity with her latest album, “Gold,” which is available now from Thirty Tigers.

We recently sat down with Kincheloe to discuss finding her confidence, embracing change, and why you should always listen to that little voice in your head telling you to take a chance.

TrunkSpace: Your video for the single “Gold” dropped last week. What emotions do you juggle with as you release new material into the world?
Kincheloe: It’s always a little bit scary just that first initial, “Okay, everyone can see this.” (Laughter) But I really like this video. I think it’s very different from any one we’ve ever done before and I think it kind of shows a little bit more of a true side of me that is… a little bit more vulnerable and a little bit more exposed. The videographer is a very close friend of mine, Mel Barlow. She’s actually my brother’s girlfriend, so I’m super, super comfortable with her and she’s an amazing artist. It was cool to work with her on that, because it was just the two of us in a room.

TrunkSpace: When it comes to the stuff beyond the music itself… the videos, choosing album artwork, and everything else that goes into maintaining a career as a professional artist… do you enjoy that aspect of what you do?
Kincheloe: I’d say it kind of comes and goes in terms of enjoying it. (Laughter) Sometimes it feels like, “How am I ever going to come up with something cool?” Or, “Does this really fit?” Or, “Is this really me?” You go through a range of emotions when it comes to that stuff because unlike the music, which to me comes a little bit more naturally, I think the visual stuff is definitely not my department so I always find it… I always kind of lean on other people. But I will say that with this record, I had way more to do with the visual aspect of it and I got a lot more hands-on in terms of picking the direction and picking the photos and picking this and that. So I definitely feel pretty proud of this go round and it’s a really good feeling to be like, “Oh, I actually did have some input here, and I don’t feel embarrassed by it.” (Laughter) So that’s good.

TrunkSpace: In terms of our overall life experiences on this journey we call life, they always have a way of seeping into creative output. For you, where have you seen your songwriting change throughout the years by way of those personal experiences? What big moments in your life altered your creative POV?
Kincheloe: I think that that’s a great question and there have been very strong changes that have come in my writing from my life. I started writing songs when I was still living in the Catskills and I was 18 years old. The first record that we ever put out is a lot of those songs and even the second record has some of those songs as well. But once we moved to New York City, I think I started to kind of… life got a little harder and I was really struggling to kind of make ends meet and struggling to try to make the dream a reality, so my writing got a little bit, I don’t know, harder or something edgier.

But then it always comes full circle, and with this record, with “Gold,” I was working on it while I was pregnant and then I was working on it after I became a mom, so it was the biggest shift in my life so far, as you can imagine. But I think with that shift came a lot of courage and confidence that I didn’t really have as much of before, and so I was able to kind of go in different directions and try new things that really were exciting. It felt really good to do that, so I’m really proud of it.

TrunkSpace: You mentioned courage and confidence. It seems one of the benefits of getting older is that you become more comfortable with yourself, and that is often reflected in the writing of songwriters as they progress in their careers.
Kincheloe: One would hope that. (Laughter) I think it’s always hard. Even though I can talk about having more confidence, I think back on some of these moments and I’m like, “Did I really, though?” Because I can remember being just as scared in some of the sessions that we did, and not being sure of myself. But then when it came down to making decisions about the product or the music and the project, I felt more confident. So it’s interesting. I think being creative is always super vulnerable, and I don’t think anyone could be 100 percent confident in creativity because that’s what it’s all about. You have to be a little bit vulnerable and scared of some things.

TrunkSpace: Would that younger version of you, writing in the Catskills, be surprised by the artist you are today?
Kincheloe: No, I don’t think so. I honestly think that I’m just coming more and more to where I wanted to be when I started out. Is that weird?

TrunkSpace: Not at all!
Kincheloe: I think that I’m getting closer to the essence of who I have always been, especially creatively. I think that some of this stuff is like, “Yeah, yeah yeah, this is what I was thinking when I was 18,” but I didn’t know my ass from my elbow enough to say what I was thinking. It feels so good because I can say that this is actually closer to what I was setting out to do.

TrunkSpace: Is there a side of growth as an artist that can be a double-edged sword? And by that we mean, you establish yourself as an artist with a specific sound, and then if you venture too far away from that sound, people say, “This is not what I know.” But then if you stay too close to what they already know, they say, “She didn’t show any growth here.” Is it sometimes a balancing act?
Kincheloe: Yes, 100 percent. You’re never going to please everybody, and you have to be okay with that. I think, in previous years, we’ve all been kind of afraid and we felt this sort of die hard loyalty to our fans to keep it in one place or keep it where we thought that they wanted it. But the thing is, we are the musicians. We have to make the choices. And you have to be brave enough to do what feels right to you because otherwise that’s not really art. If you’re just copying yourself over and over again, to please somebody, eventually that’s going to burn out. And again, you can’t please everybody so why not please yourself? And hopefully some people will still like it.

TrunkSpace: If the work isn’t inspiring you, how can it inspire someone else? Not only will the project burn out, but eventually so will your passion for it.
Kincheloe: 100 percent. I think that’s a really good point and that’s one of the factors that I think was leading me in this direction, because we’ve been doing this for 10 years now. That’s a lot of years of a lot of similar stuff. And I love that stuff, don’t get me wrong. I’m really proud of everything that we’ve done, but at a certain point, if there’s a little voice inside of you telling you to do something different or take a chance, I think that you should always go with that.

TrunkSpace: Your parents were in bands. You hear all of the time about how we become the kind of spouses or significant others that we saw our parents be. Does that apply to music in any way? Are you the kind of bandmate that you are today because of how you saw your parents interact with their fellow creatives?
Kincheloe: Hmm, that’s an interesting thought that I have never thought about. I love that question. I think that you may be onto something. My brother and I are… I think we try to be really copacetic and congenial. My dad was always that way. He’s kind of like a go-with-the-flow, happy to be there, kind of drummer.

I think you learn from watching what your parents do in every way, so I think that I definitely picked up on that. I think that watching my mom be able to sing in front of people is the reason why I thought it was okay and not scary when I was nine years old.

TrunkSpace: Do you have a more personal connection to music as a whole because it was a part of your upbringing in a way?
Kincheloe: Yes, absolutely. I actually learned how to read by listening to Emmylou Harris records and Bonnie Raitt records and reading along with the lyrics on the liner notes. I would come up to a word and be like, “I don’t know what that is, but I hear her saying it but I don’t understand.” My mom would be like, “Yeah, there’s a silent g in that one.” And that was little Arleigh sitting on the floor while mom was making dinner and I’m like six or whatever. So it’s a super, super personal and lifelong thing for me that’s been connected to my learning to be a person and, let alone be a musician, but absolutely becoming a human being.

TrunkSpace: It must be so interesting now that you’re doing music professionally to be able to say that there’s somebody else out there sort of having that personal connection to your music the same way that you did with Emmylou Harris?
Kincheloe: Totally, and I hear a lot of people tell me that their kids listen and love it and it just really feels full-circle, and especially now that I’m a mom. When my son hears music in general he freaks out, but when my voice comes over the speakers he knows it and he has a certain reaction. It’s a really crazy thing to watch.

Tour dates are available here.

While the majority of their upcoming album “Scholars” was finished about a year ago, the songs that make up the record tell a story that they are eager to share, though they admit the individual interpretations are in the ears of the beholder. And therein lies the beauty of music. Like all art, what we see, hear and feel from any piece is our own unique experience. How we absorb songs and carry those interpretations with us throughout our lives is a sonic “Choose Your Own Adventure.” We’ll go left, you go right, but in the end, an album like “Scholars” can move us all in different ways.

We recently sat down with Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez to discuss first impressions, how they’re constantly pulling each other in different creative directions, and why professional and personal goals don’t always see eye to eye in music.

TrunkSpace: “Scholars” drops on January 18. What emotions do you juggle with as you
prepare to release new material into the world?
Sanchez: I can feel a bit nervous about it but at the same time the album is work that we mostly completed a year ago and we’ve been performing these songs for awhile now – they’ve had a life of their own. They represent an emotional story that we are familiar with now. What will be different is that more people will hear this music within the confines of their own earbuds, in a critical setting or what have you, hopefully our audience will own this music and interpret it in ways that suits them. It’s exciting to see what happens next. It’s also exciting to just get it out into the world finally, and move forward with whatever new music is ahead of us.

TrunkSpace: As we understand it, the vast majority of the music that you two create as Buke & Gase comes out of the two of you sitting down in one room and clanging your minds together. Do you believe in creative kinship at first sight, and if so, did you experience that with each other when you first met?
Dyer: I think we had a particularly intense first meeting, confusing creative kinship with intimate kinship. We generally don’t talk about this (out of embarrassment or fear of judgment?), but I’ve been seeing the importance of discussing the subject more recently. I can only speak from my perspective, but I find artists tend to be quick to fall in love. Not that we feel more than a non-artist, but we pay closer attention to our feelings, giving them more weight and autonomy over our lives. So oftentimes artists who might be better off as working partners end up coupling together, and in a fit of fiery passion, completely destroy their true calling of creative companionship. What many people consider to be celebrity drama might merely be an artists’ misinterpretation of attraction. We fell into what we thought was love, while continuing to make music together, and through time the intimate relationship died for both of us. In truth, for the past seven years or so, the creation of music has become the only thing that brings us together.

TrunkSpace: Is there something artistically inspiring about working together as a duo that you have been unable to achieve in a solo capacity? How does being in that room with your creative counterpart make you a stronger songwriter?
Sanchez: It’s a completely different experience working together versus creating music in a solo setting. When we improvise together it’s like a roller coaster ride – when it’s going well, we hop on the train and go. Sometimes it’s familiar territory and sometimes we end up places we’ve never been. The process of creating music we use requires us to rely on each other in ways that relinquishes our ego or specific sonic desires to a degree. We’re constantly pulling each other in different directions and you either follow or it falls apart. This is inspiring because we wind up creating music that neither of us could make on our own.

TrunkSpace: When choosing the tracks that would make up the album, you had over 60 songs to choose from. Was the process of whittling it down a difficult one, and how did you approach deciding what would ultimately become a part of “Scholars” and what would be best left for future releases?
Dyer: Many of the pieces were easy to set aside as lyrics were less concise or the energy wasn’t overwhelming. But of the songs that were complete and energetically enticing, it became a coin toss. Some we wanted to have on the album but there just wasn’t enough time for them. Hence B, C, D and Z sides.

TrunkSpace: What are you most proud of with the album?
Sanchez: I think we were able to get over our creative slump. We actually completed another record in 2014 but were unhappy with it and decided to not release it at the last minute. What followed was a long period of reinvention and trying to figure out what we had done wrong and not repeat it. It took a lot of trial and error of process, but ultimately we figured out the problem. Creatively we were getting in our own way, too critical and having too much control of the finished product and we had to find ways to get ourselves out of the room and let the music take control. I think we succeeded with “Scholars.”

TrunkSpace: Aron, you invent instruments, and in the process, create sounds that ears have never heard before. How much of that musical maiden voyage is part of Buke & Gase in terms of its sonic identity? Could you envision a day where there’s a Buke & Gase album that did not utilize your instrumental inventions?
Sanchez: Well, for some of this album we relied a lot less on the Buke and the Gase already – we tried some other processes to create and perform, using software and midi controllers. We’re doing this because we didn’t want to be tied down to the sonic limitations of our previous work. All of the instrumental creations for this project were solutions to a problem: how do we create interesting music that we can perform live and just be a duo? At first we tried expanding the sonic capabilities of electric stringed instruments and minimal percussion that we could perform simultaneously. That has now expanded to using computers and electronics to help us do more with what we have. This expansion has also mirrored our interests in other forms of music.

TrunkSpace: Does that make touring difficult? Does it take experimentation to carry over every sound that you’ve created in the studio and transfer it to the stage?
Sanchez: I’m always thinking about how our gear setup can be compact and easily tourable – our equipment has always been an integral and influential part of our music creation. The gear and music creation are always in conversation to some extent and are requiring different things of each other, thus we have to experiment and there’s lots of trial and error to get things right. Using more electronics and software has helped that a lot, and we now have a lot of sonic control over our live performances.

TrunkSpace: Can you envision a day when music is not a part of your life?
Dyer: I have pictured it, but I want to do everything in my power to avoid that possibility. I don’t feel either of us are limited to this particular project, which makes room for future musical opportunities. The question of having music in my life versus not is so much more existential than you might have wanted to hear: it’s the main reason I haven’t started a family. It’s hard to imagine having children AND being a musician (with limited means, I mean, for crying out loud, I have soooooo many side jobs to maintain MY life month-to-month, how could I conscientiously do that with another human to care for?! And then go on tour??!). The only models I have of that are already successful female artists and… men (who generally don’t have to have a child on their tit/hip for the formative years). Having a child would mean musical suicide, for all I know. So I guess when I’ve pictured my life without music, it’s because a fresh, new human needs my attention and love. What would you say to this?

TrunkSpace: Where are you hardest on yourself as artists?
Dyer: Internally. Personally. In the worst ways.
Sanchez: I can be too much of a perfectionist sometimes.

TrunkSpace: We’re jumping headfirst into 2019. Any New Year’s resolutions that you’re hoping to hold onto as you travel through the months ahead?
Dyer: My 2019 mantra is: FUTURE POSITIVE
Sanchez: Stay Real. Everything is OK.

“Scholars” is available January 18 from Brassland.

As The Verve Pipe prepares to embark on a winter tour, frontman Brian Vander Ark teases that the band will be pulling double duty, not just entertaining their longtime fans at stops from Richmond to Boston, but writing new material as well.

“This is the year that we’re back in the studio and working on new material,” he says. “We had to take a nice little break in 2018, and actually most of 2017, just to play live and get to know each other again live. We’ve got plenty of ideas now.”

The Michigan-born band best known for their 1997 hit “The Freshmen” has experienced the highs and lows of the music industry, but have proven that perseverance is the best defense against a machine that is so well adept at chewing up and spitting out those whose chase their musical dreams.

We recently sat down with Vander Ark to discuss how he keeps The Verve Pipe fresh after over two decades, navigating the digital age, and what he values as an artist now that his younger self never would have appreciated.

TrunkSpace: You’ve toured the world and have experienced the ins and outs of the industry. When you hit the road now are there still firsts out there?
Brian Vander Ark: I love this question. Good start. It’s never been asked and it’s a good one.

I’d like to think that I’ve seen it all and that, pardon the pun, I knew everything, but I’m always surprised by the people that come out now. The crowds have become more and more diverse age wise. It’s not just the alternative folks that are coming out. We’ve got young people coming out as well. I think that might be reflective of the kids albums we’ve put out and now those kids have grown, so I think that actually helped us exponentially, although it was a happy accident. No one ever planned on that.

Really for me, it’s about cultivating those connections and when you cultivate the new connections, you learn about the fans. We always try to hang out with the fans a little bit after the show or even pre-show. You learn their stories. It’s always fresh.

What’s the same usually are the back rooms and the camaraderie with the band. We’ve got eight guys out and we all know what gets on each others’ nerves and what not to do. (Laughter) Also, we know what pleases each other and know what to do.

I think what keeps it fresh are the fans. They’re ever-changing and ever-growing and that’s a terrific thing. Also what we like to do is we have people request songs. You put your request in through social media and then we’ll play those requests. We have to sometimes go through our old catalog and relearn songs, so every soundcheck we’ll say, “What’s requested tonight? Let’s work on that,” and we’ll work on the songs through soundcheck. So, we try to keep it as fresh as possible.

TrunkSpace: You mentioned cultivating the connection with the fans. It seems like nowadays, especially with many of the younger bands, they rely so heavily on social media to do that and the personal connection of it is lost. It sounds like you guys are making sure to put yourselves in front of the fans as well.
Brian Vander Ark: Yeah. I’m probably one of the few out there that will say that social media, I think, is way overrated. Maybe I’m not the only one that says that – maybe there are other people that say it – but I’ve felt that way over the course of the last three or four years. I’m very resistant to expectations that come with posting on social media. A good example is in your Twitter feed. If they don’t see it, they don’t see it. No one is going to find out what The Verve Pipe or Brian Vander Ark has to say by going to the feed and looking at it, you know? It just comes up. And that’s the way that Facebook is as well. You have to go to the page. So, I rely heavily on our mailing list and I rely on meeting people at the shows. I think that’s how you cultivate connections. I don’t know how you cultivate it through social media. I haven’t figured that out yet and I don’t know that I ever will. I just think there’s something that gets lost in the digital age and I’m just not seeing any fruitful results. Where it was fruitful was when we released “Parachute.” We released every song individually every two weeks and that was very successful for us. But as far as cultivating any connections, I’m not sure that really works.

TrunkSpace: Most people would never say, “Wow, I really remember that time Brian posted that thing on Twitter,” but they’d say, “I remember that time Brian took a few minutes to talk to me after the show and it made the show more memorable.”
Brian Vander Ark: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly what the important thing is, I think… dropping that barrier between the fan and the musician, or the performer, the actor, anything, and just letting the curtain down. It really ingratiates you with fans, I think.

TrunkSpace: Are albums a bit like chapters in your life and do you associate them with memories even more so than just the years themselves? Do they become pieces of your own personal calendar?
Brian Vander Ark: That’s exactly what they are. I couldn’t have said it better. They’re memory albums – our own scrapbook. It’s probably every five years or so I’ll listen to an early album and just get a great laugh out of it and chuckle out of it just because some of the songs on the first couple of albums are just terrible – the production and knowing what we went through and stuff, but I get a good kick out of it now.

There was so much good and so much bad that happened once we got signed with RCA within such a short period of time. We’re talking, in 1998 I think, we were on top of the world and by the end of 1999, we barely sold 7,000 or 8,000 records of our follow up record to “Villains,” which sold almost two million. So there’s top and bottom right there, you know? I think the trends had changed with Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit. It just goes to show that those changes happen and to enjoy that moment. When I listen to the albums now or listen to those songs now and we play those songs I go, “Oh man, I had such high expectations for this song and for this album.” Though it’s disappointing, it’s nice to be able to play them and be able to say, “Wow, this is a really great song that really was lost in the masses.” Which if it’s lost in the masses, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not valid. A good song is a good song and people have discovered, years later, some of our material and they were like, “I had no idea that you guys even did this song.” “Colorful” is a great example. To this day, I still have people come up and say, “I had no idea that was you guys.”

TrunkSpace: You mentioned looking back over your music. If you could sit down with young Brian when he was first picking up a guitar, would he be surprised by how your career played out and the musical journey you’ve put yourself on?
Brian Vander Ark: Yeah. First of all, he would be surprised that I’m not coloring my hair anymore probably. (Laughter) I think he would be disgusted with the way my head looks right now. (Laughter) “This is ridiculous!”

That’s another great question. I got to say, I think yes. I think we always expected once we got signed to a major label that that was our ticket for the rest of our lives. You don’t realize that if you don’t get the priority of the label, you’re dead in the water. You just assume, “Well, we got signed now, here we go. We’re gonna go out and do this.” And then when it’s confirmed with your first single… “Photograph” did pretty well for us. We made a video and then made a second video, and then “The Freshmen” came out and was huge for us. Then you’re like, “Okay, this is never gonna end.” And even though I had seen every episode then of “Behind the Music” and I watched every warning sign come at me, we followed every cliché and wrong turn possible. That’s the one thing that would surprise me. “Wow, I really fell for all that.” That’s what my young person would say.

What I would like to say to that person though is, “You take it way too seriously.” This is a great life. I get to make music for a living, I get to travel with my kids on occasion, I have a beautiful family, and at the end of the day, I just got to play a fun show with people that I really love. That’s something that I wouldn’t have valued 25 years ago. There’s no way I would’ve valued that then.

TrunkSpace: And what’s really amazing is that some of those people that you’re playing to have been with you, supporting your music, for decades.
Brian Vander Ark: Oh, absolutely. I travel the country and do speaking tours as well, and I have a lot of people that say, “Oh my God, I totally know that song!” I go into financial industries and talk to their people about refocusing, rebranding, reinvention, and cultivating connections – that kind of thing – and at least three quarters of the room has already heard of the band, no matter where I am in the US. I still marvel at that. “It’s really pretty amazing that 75 percent of the people here know who The Verve Pipe is.”

Unless they’re confusing us with The Verve, but I never asked. (Laughter)

Tour dates are available here.

Flint Eastwood is Jax Anderson. Jax Anderson is Flint Eastwood.

Regardless of how you categorize her alongside of her music, one thing is for certain – she is a breath of fresh air, one infused with positivity, who connects with her fans through shared experiences and presenting herself as part indie artist and part motivational speaker. Her message is one of community, bridging the gap between those who feel they are struggling with personalized demons and those who bring assurance that the demons visit us all in time. In other words – you are not alone.

We recently sat down with Anderson to discuss how her creativity is fueled by listeners, accessing the things we can all relate to, and why she chooses to perform under the name Flint Eastwood.

TrunkSpace: How do you balance creative expectations and career expectations, and, are they one in the same or two completely different roads you’re traveling on?
Anderson: I think for me, I’ve always had this idea of what I want to do with Flint Eastwood. My whole purpose with this project is just to help people. Creatively and career wise, that’s what I want to do. As long as I’m doing that, I’ll continue with Flint Eastwood and if I feel like I’m not doing that, then I’ll either change the path and follow down something else, or I’ll do something that turns into something totally different. I think for me, creatively and career wise, it’s just the same goal, which is to help people. Everything’s kind of viewed through that lens.

TrunkSpace: Sometimes even when we’re surrounded by people, being human can feel very lonely. Often people will connect with a songwriter in a way that sort of helps them feel like they’re not alone in the world. Does the opposite work for you? Does having an audience connect with your music give you a sense of connection and community?
Anderson: Yeah, for sure. I think what initially drew me to music is just the sense of community that it brings. In every genre, music is just a common thread that kind of transcends any type of difference that you may have with anyone. I think that’s such a beautiful thing, and it’s something that I think is a very rare thing for human beings to experience. I think having a community around what I do is extremely important. I always thought it was awesome being able to follow a band and kind of be able to discover other bands and discover other things that I may like, just because I have that commonality of liking the same band as somebody else, and going to the show and meeting new friends. It’s really cool to be able to go to shows and kind of see repeated faces and see even new faces, and just see things that we have in common and be able to connect on just being human. It’s a really comforting feeling, especially whenever you’re on the road for a while. To be able to end a show and talk with people, and it feel like you’re all a family is a really comforting thing.

TrunkSpace: The most powerful music is always the most honest music, but does putting that much of yourself into something open you up to the sort of snap judgments of the social media age where everyone has a soapbox that they’re ready to stand on?
Anderson: Just me as an artist, I always want to be a beacon of hope and a beacon of positivity, ‘cause I do think that there’s a lot of negativity in the world. I think there are certain artists that it is so vital for them to have their platforms and be really vocal and use their platform for something that they feel like is good. For me, I feel like my soapbox is just positivity.

Yeah, I mean any time you put anything out there in the world, whether you’re going to school to be a teacher or going to school to be an artist, or you’re actually doing things – anytime you do anything that’s other than just sitting at home and being by yourself, you open yourself up to judgment. For me, I just don’t pay attention to that. I have way too much stuff to do and way too much stuff that I want to get done to ever pay attention to people that are being negative. I’m the type of person too that’s like, “Yeah, everybody’s allowed to have their opinions. I am not going to be for everybody, and that’s totally okay.”

TrunkSpace: Where did the inspiration come from to spread positivity through your music?
Anderson: For me, input equals output. If you’re putting positive things into your life, typically things are going to be a little bit more positive for you. Granted, there are different circumstances that people are going into, and things that people can’t really help. Everybody deals with pain or negativity in a different manner, but for me personally, I just feel like I spent so much of my life being sad that I finally just made the decision that I didn’t want to be sad anymore. I just kind of changed my perspective. I mean, it took a really long time – I say it as if it’s easy – but I made an intentional effort to take a look at the people around me and take a look at the things that I was putting into my life, and to base it all around this core value of being a beacon of hope and being a beacon of positivity, and spreading that to people around me and surrounding myself with those kind of people. Hopefully connecting people and helping them with whatever they’re going through because, you know, all of us have shit in life. All of us have gone through stuff and all of us have difficult times and if we can just admit that and admit that we have hard times and things aren’t easy, then it makes things a lot more relatable and it makes things a lot more easier to cope.

For me, I just want to let people know that it’s going to be okay, you know?

TrunkSpace: And that’s a great way to be, particularly in a world where there seems to be so much promotion of negativity. When you hear how your positive messages impact your listeners, does that keep you moving forward on this journey? Does your audience inspire you to continue on the Flint Eastwood path?
Anderson: Definitely. Music has been that for me in so many instances. The times that I was at my darkest, there were different records that just got me through. To be able to create that for other people as well is just something that’s… you hit it right on the head, it’s exactly what keeps me going. Granted I’m not saying that I’m this savior that comes in and changes everyone’s lives and blah, blah, blah, blah… what we were saying before, I’m not going to connect with everybody and not everybody’s going to fuck with what I do, but the people who do feel the things that I have felt and have gone through the things that I’ve gone through, I just want to be able to give that kind of empathy towards them and let them know that they’re not alone and let them know it’s going to be okay.

TrunkSpace: Is there a particular reason that you spread that message as Flint Eastwood and not as Jax Anderson?
Anderson: Yeah, I wanted to give it a feel that it was more than just me. I wanted to give it a feel that it was more of a community and it was more of a group effort, because honestly, yes Flint Eastwood is just me, but there are so many friends and there’s so many people that are involved and behind the scenes and with the creation of everything that it’s crazy. I’m extremely grateful for the people that are around me and I kind of felt saying that it was just Jax Anderson wouldn’t be truthful.

Flint Eastwood’s latest EP, “Broke Royalty,” is available now from Neon Gold Records.

Visit here for tour dates.

Music has many functions. People listen for different reasons. Some bind songs to memories. Others use them as outlets of emotional deliverance. For singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joey Dosik, his own journey with music became a form of therapy.

While recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, Dosik found a balance between physical healing and expressive restoration. Marrying his love for music to the pastime he’s most passionate about, basketball, the concept EP “Game Winner” was born. Recently re-released on Secretly Canadian and featuring four bonus tracks, the mini-album serves as a harbinger of the full-length he’s currently working on, one we’re eagerly looking forward to.

We recently sat down with Dosik to find common basketball ground, what it’s like promoting “Game Winner” a second time around, and why you can hear a little bit of every genre in the music you listen to these days.

TrunkSpace: You’re a big Lakers fan. Full disclosure, we’re Boston guys.
Dosik: (Laughter) Right on. That’s cool. That’s fine. You know, I used to date a girl who is from New England and I remember finding her green Celtics’ Starter jacket in the closet one day and just being terrified at the sight of it.

TrunkSpace: You heard the record scratch to a halt in your mind?
Dosik: (Laughter) Completely. I’ve got respect for Boston fans though. Boston fans are great.

TrunkSpace: When fans of two rival teams are in the same room, there needs to be a “love the game” policy taken.
Dosik: Exactly. That’s a good policy.

TrunkSpace: We just discovered “Game Winner” a few weeks ago, but for you it’s been a part of your life for some time now. Even with the re-release, do you feel like a creatively different person now than when you put that together?
Dosik: Absolutely. The EP sort of represents a moment in time that was vulnerable for me because I made it while I was recovering from reconstructive knee surgery and there’s something about that time that was… the EP sort of froze that moment forever for me. I’m a different person since then and I’m excited for some of the music that I’ll be getting out. I’m kind of finishing a full-length record here. But, yeah, I mean, you know, it was a moment in time where I tried to make the best of a tough situation and I’m so thankful for it because it allowed me to bring the thing that I love as much as music, which is basketball, kind of into my creative fold and it’s been a blessing for me.

TrunkSpace: How do you go about getting into the mindset to promote the record all over again as you’ve already creatively moved on from it?
Dosik: Well, I spent a lot of time thinking about songwriting, and in songwriting I always try and see if there’s a way that I can make the songs sort of… what’s the right word… make the songs a bit adjustable to different situation. So, with a song like “Game Winner,” or a song like “Running Away,” or “Competitive Streak,” I feel like I can do the songs in a lot of different ways. I can do them with a full band. I can do them myself. I could do them in a broken down setting. I played “Game Winner” at the Garden last year. I can play it just me and a piano.

So, the crazy thing about songs is that sometimes you write them and you say, “Okay, cool. Here’s this weird basketball love song.” But now looking back on what it is that I did, I realize that it really was a sort of music therapy and the song continues to bring different meaning to me in my own life as I get older. And the cool thing about “Game Winner” is that they’re going to just keep happening. I mean, we just saw last night how the women’s American hockey team shot a game winner in overtime. So, it’s kind of that, hopefully, songs can be the gifts that keep on giving.

TrunkSpace: And the beauty of songs is that they can mean different things to different people. Five people could sit down and listen to “Game Winner” and each one of them could pull something different from it.
Dosik: Right on. Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that really excites me, man. The fact that that’s happening just kind of makes it all worth while – all the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into making a record.

TrunkSpace: So on something like your new full-length, do you have more creative freedom than you did on “Game Winner” because that was specifically a concept album? Is there more open space to create?
Dosik: Definitely. Limitation can be oddly freeing, but the album that I’m working on is not just basketball related.

TrunkSpace: Do you consciously add multi-layered meanings into your music or do you just write what’s honest to you as a songwriter and then let people find in them what they may?
Dosik: I’ve heard a lot of songwriters say that once you write and perform it and release it, the song is no longer yours, and I kind of see both sides of the coin. It’ll always be mine because it came out of my brain, and like I said, the songs do kind of mean different things to me as I get older and go through different life experiences and continue to perform them, but, yeah, I’m more than happy to hand the songs off to listeners and let them find their own meaning in their own lives. That kind of stuff always excites me.

TrunkSpace: You play multiple instruments. We know there are probably multiple ways that you go about creating new songs, but is there one instrument in particular that usually serves as the launching pad for the earliest nuggets of songs?
Dosik: It could be a lot of different things. Usually it’s chords from the piano or a melody from my voice, or just words. It’s also fun to write to a drum beat. It’s also fun to write to a bass line. I think piano being my first instrument, and the voice kind of being so close to my body, I think those are the things that usually first inspire me.

TrunkSpace: You play the saxophone. We are lovers of all things ‘80s saxophone solos here and think we need more of them like Eddie Money’s “I Wanna Go Back.” Have you ever written a pop song specifically for the saxophone?
Dosik: When I was a jazz obsessed saxophone player I wrote many songs for the saxophone, but they weren’t pop songs. My family, every time they come to see one of my shows or when they listen to a track that I’ve made, they always say, “You know, you should really take out the saxophone again.” And so I’m getting the full-court press from the family to try and come up with it, and I would love to figure that one out. So, hopefully that’s next on the docket.

TrunkSpace: You’ve mastered many instruments, but are there any that you’d still like to take up and add to your repertoire?
Dosik: I don’t know if I’d call myself a master at any instrument. I can definitely play them and I still really desire to get better at all of the instruments that I play. I guess the one that I think about a lot right now is drums. I’ve played drums on recordings of mine but it’s an amazing instrument. It’s really just a bunch of instruments combined into one and I really enjoy recording them and getting sounds out of them. So, I guess drums is one that I’m thinking about a lot.

TrunkSpace: You’ve written and performed in many genres. As you look forward in your career, are you hoping to continue to expand your creative horizons and write without musical margins? Are you an artist who is willing to go anywhere creatively?
Dosik: Yeah. I feel like genres are just there for record stores and are there for people to write about it, honestly. There will never be a substitute for actually hearing music. It’s also a way that we communicate with others about what it is that we’re hearing, but I think the interesting thing about music nowadays is that everything is so boxed in so whenever you hear something it’s usually a combination of at least three genres of music. Nothing is necessarily that clear cut anymore. When you listen to pop music you’re hearing so many different types of music. So, yeah, I hope to continue to evolve and explore all things that inspire me.

“Game Winner” is available now from Secretly Canadian.

Joey Dosik tour dates can be found here.

Being such a visual person, singer/songwriter Matt Costa felt at home turning his latest album “Santa Rosa Fangs” into a sort of musical film, a cinematic soundtrack to three fictional characters who are coming of age while discovering that life is equal parts triumph and tragedy. Much of what is playing out in Costa’s captivating lyrics involve aspects of his own personal experiences, which he gifted to his trio of made-up muses and shaped into their shared story. The result is a record that, as a listener, feels timeless in its collective narrative and delivers on artistic layers that stretch deep beneath the surface.

We recently sat down with Costa to discuss the work that goes into an album after it’s finished, where he’s grown as an artist since his last full length release five years ago, and which “Santa Rosa Fangs” character he feels closest to.

TrunkSpace: “Santa Rosa Fangs” drops tomorrow. As you gear up to release new material to the world, what emotions do you juggle with, especially in a case like this where it’s been five years since your last full length album.
Costa: Well, there’s a lot of that goes into the feelings around releasing something, especially when it’s been a long time since I’ve done a proper full length release. I think that over the years though, I’ve gotten better at sort of managing my creative time and creative emotions with it. I finished the record in… it takes time for stuff to be put out. It takes about a year when you finish recording it, going through all the processes and everything for it to get put out, so it’s been awhile since I’ve recorded it. But since then, there’s been a lot put into sort of living in the songs – bringing them to life and getting ready to bring them to the road – which is a different thing than being creative in the writing time. Ideally, the song is a vehicle to kind of channel the ether. So it’s just kind of getting into that and then be able to go on the road and be able to really live inside the songs and bring people into them as well, rather then just having them live in their recorded form.

TrunkSpace: Is it difficult to manage the expectations associated with a release once it is out of your hands – basically, how it will be accepted and perceived once out in the world?
Costa: No, I don’t think so. Obviously you get – being in the music business or industry – those people who are invested in it just on the business end of it. My main goal has always been doing something creative that I think has depth to it. And sometimes it hits immediately, sometimes it takes a while to sink in. I’m just really happy to have the opportunity this time, or anytime, that I’m able to put a record out with support, in order to have it reach more people. So I think that, in itself, is a luxury.

TrunkSpace: As mentioned, it’s been five years since your last full length album. Is the artist you are now dramatically different than the artist you were at the time of that self-titled release?
Costa: Yeah, I think it is. When I did that record I recorded it in Scotland and I recorded it in Glasgow specifically. I recorded it with some of the members… a lot of members of the band Belle and Sebastian. Throughout the years I’ve gotten to play with a lot of musicians who I admire and have looked at and with administration from a distance. I flew home and came home from that experience with a lot of growth, but then I also realized that there was a lot of… every time I do something I realize where I need to grow in other areas. You do something, put a big piece of work out and it’s sort of like Sisyphus. You have to climb, the rock falls back down, and you have to push it back up. For me, I like to think that during this time I did a lot studying of different genres and styles and things, which I’ve always done throughout my career. I explored that during the “Orange Sunshine” documentary, that I was able to spread out some of the songs. Instead of just writing a sort of pop-structured song, I was able to spread sounds out, go to different genres and explore that, and I think that has given more depth. And even sonically too, working in my home studio here, being able to explore more recording techniques on my own, as well, has helped to make the sound and evolution from what I’ve done. My voice is still there, but I think that I’m just able to get some different sounds and some different rhythms and things. I think with the “Orange Sunshine” record I was starting to focus more on just like, a specific groove – groove things – and stuff like that. And I think that I’m sort of locking into a nice pocket on these songs.

TrunkSpace: Are you somebody who, after finishing an album or creative endeavor, needs to then step away to refuel the tank?
Costa: Well, we’ll see. (Laughter) I don’t know. I think that this time around, it’s easy for me to, once I finish working on a piece of music to… the reason I’ve been able to sustain it for so long is because I just move onto the next day and just keep going and going and going. Recently, for this one, I’ve been channeling that energy and putting it into a lot more of the visual aspects of it. And so, instead of saying, “Okay, I’m gonna sit down and write a song today,” I think that my working on the film and several films over the last couple years – I’ve always been a very visual person the way I see music – so now I realize I can take that energy that I put creatively into songs and really shape the album packaging, which I did with a close friend of mine who I’ve known since I was a kid. I did the art direction for it and laid that out. And also, a lot of the video work that’s been going along with this as well. So instead of, “On to the next thing, on to the next record,” which I have done a little bit – I can’t help but write songs and having those ideas come – but I’ve been trying to channel them into creating how the visuals that go along with the record accompany it. And I think it’s been really fun. And also that stuff is necessary for the way that people perceive music nowadays. It’s been that way for a long time. Think about a film without a score or something, or maybe it has a very minimal one but it really, definitely shapes the mood. So I’ve been enjoying that process.

TrunkSpace: Did being a visual person help to shape the storytelling elements of “Santa Rosa Fangs?”
Costa: Yeah, it definitely did. I think when I start writing a song, I don’t solidify or I don’t commit to an idea until my mind’s eye sees the image that correlates to the music. And when it does, then I start going down that path. Over the last five years when I wasn’t putting out my own records, I put out some EPs that were hyper-focused into smaller conceptual ideas where the sound was focused. And I think that my idea with that, in the long run, was to make a larger, more conceptual piece that I could have themes and characters and I could weave in and out of them to tell my own story, but also tell their story. Like a vine that goes through it.

Also too, I feel like from when I first started writing songs, just being young and also having only minimal experience as a musician or a writer, by my own experience, limitations were made. And as you grow – grow as a musician – obviously your palate gets wider and you get all these other tools, but I think that narrowing the focus with a setting and these characters helped drive the direction of the record to be something that was more contained conceptually.

TrunkSpace: With that focused storytelling, did you find yourself relating to one of the characters more than another?
Costa: It’s sort of all of them in a way. Some of it is family experience too. Like the song “Ritchie” was based upon two family tragedies that happened early on when I was young. Those two cousins who passed away, within a year of each other, both by a motorcycle and a car accident, their father, his name is Tony. He was my uncle and he was the most influential person in my musical growth. He’d always give me records and things. And all the music I’ve done has been inspired by him and so, I guess the character of Tony, who’s kind of the spokesperson for the group and has the wisdom between all of them, he’s the one who I relate to the most.

TrunkSpace: Obviously all music is personal, but because the record ties back to your own experiences and family, does it feel more personal?
Costa: It does feel more personal, yeah. I think it does feel more personal but it’s also easier when there are these archetype characters that you can channel and – channeling, I’ve been using that a lot – to focus the story into, I feel like I can get out of my own way, in that sense. A lot of times I feel it can become too self-indulgent or something like that, and a lot of it too is that songwriting or writing in general is looking at people I have relationships with or that are in my life whether it be romantic or friends or business or however it may be, and obviously you can only bounce your own experience off of them. But that’s how you gain a perspective and I think that same way within these songs I was able to get more perspective on the songs and the record and the story when I was able to bounce ideas and themes off of the character.

TrunkSpace: Billboard called it one of the most ambitious projects you’ve taken on. Did it feel that way to you? Did it become an undertaking that you didn’t anticipate at the outset?
Costa: I think so, yeah. I definitely had it in mind. I knew that I wanted to take on some larger themes in the years leading up to it. I knew that was something. I kind of sat back started to visualize what it was specifically and really putting into it my own family history, and all that, really feels important and somewhat vulnerable too. And so I think that makes it an ambitious thing. I guess I try to be as ambitious as I can with it and hopefully, as I go along, each one is relative to the time and event in my life. I feel like this one definitely is. And I don’t think I could have written this record or even done these songs in the beginning of my career because I think certain sonic textures that the tunes are made up of, actually I had to learn how to develop a sonic texture in order to write a song that could work with inside of it. I don’t think it would have been the same, for a song like “Sharon” or something like that. I could have written it when I was younger, but I don’t think I could deliver it as impactful.

“Santa Rosa Fangs” is available Friday on Dangerbird Records.