For those who don’t know, how long have you been making music and how would you describe your style?
I’ve been making music since forever. I’ve sang for as long as I can remember. I tried writing my own songs using the acoustics in the shower when I was about eight years old. The first song I wrote (which was just a melody but it had a verse and chorus) was about the grim reaper. I think I was trying to make a hard rock song. It’s never been developed but I can still remember the gist of it.
I started playing guitar at 14 in order to accompany myself and write real songs. The first song I wrote with guitar was another hard rock song, and it developed into a song called “Black Hawks” which I played and recorded later in high school with my band called Wasted Words. I guess about killer birds? I don’t know- I just wanted it to sound tough. So power chords and lyrics about death did the trick. Many moons have passed since then, though, and I usually only write about myself. I’d call myself an introspective songwriter. I take things, feelings, situations, impressions that I get from my own life and try to communicate it. As far as style goes, I usually am into darker, solemn stuff. The Smiths, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Nirvana. They’re all reflected in my music. John Lennon’s solo stuff I adore. So like, mainstream rock, I’d say. With a darker edge to it.
Could you briefly describe your music making process?
It’s just me and my guitar down in the basement. I’m plugged into a Scarlett 2i2 interface (not endorsed) and I use a Dean Electro-Acoustic guitar I bought almost ten years ago now. That’s what I’ve been doing for this EP. It’s all me- writing, performing, mixing. I do about a thousand takes per part because what’s perfect to somebody else is just barely good enough for me. It gets excessive. So it takes 40-60 hours per song just to get it recorded. Then there’s mastering but I leave that to my buddy Silas just to get an extra ear in on the project plus he’s more experienced with pro recording whereas I am a simpleton with DAWs. Including“Life is Unfair”, I’ve got 6 songs coming on Misanthrope and hopefully the home-spunedness (a new word for you) of it comes across as intimate rather than amateurish. Fingers crossed.
What can you tell us about your latest release, Life is Unfair?
Life is Unfair, no? Bad things happen to good people; Good things happen to bad people. It’s messy. It’s confusing. But a particular way my own life is unfair, as I perceive it, would be a lifelong struggle with the old wet and moldy noodle AKA my brain. It thinks things that aren’t typical. Or altogether pleasant a lot of the time. You know that dark triad psychologists talk about? Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy? Well I’ve got the derp triad. ADHD, OCD, and Depression. And for a very long time these issues affected my schoolwork, my ability to socialize, you name it. I’ve never been on the same wavelength as most people. I’ve got a mini tornado throwing buckets of crap around the inside of my skull most days. It’s better than it used to be. I’m still an absolute out-and-out weirdo but I hate myself a lot less for it. Now I just hate other people! Kidding! Sort of. But yeah, that’s what the song is about, the hell of untreated mental health shit and how it relates back to the metaphysical emptiness of the universe and how it all feels unfair. Kinda. Just listen to it, and see what it means to you. Or some bullshit like that I don’t know. Interpretations bug me. Not interpretations but rather other people asking you to answer for their impression of your art. Like they want to know if they’re right or wrong for thinking about my music in a certain way. Fuck if I know! I can barely make out what my mind is moaning at me half the time. Your guess is as good as mine.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would you choose?
I’ve answered this question before in another interview and picked Jim Morrison but I want to give a different answer this time. J Balvin y Bad Bunny. No, no. Another joke (ain’t I a regular laugh riot?) I’d work with Nick Drake. He did a whole record of just him and his guitar called Pink Moon back in the 70s and it’s gorgeous and sad and deeply personal. He’s another hero of mine. I feel like our styles, especially what I’m doing now and what he did then, would meld well together. I could see myself writing some intricate, desperately beautiful songs with him. Even if I could just sing harmony for him on one of his tracks it’d be an amazing honor. I consider him a martyr of music, though he’d probably hate to be considered that way. But barely anybody listened to his incredible music until years and years after he killed himself. And I know the lack of recognition hurt him deeply. Being a tortured, misunderstood artist myself, I can relate. Obviously I haven’t put out anything as good as Pink Moon but shit, I have my talents! He had heart, you know? A broken one, to be sure, but how many artists nowadays have any heart? They’re either mega-millions pop icons or they’re boring hipsters in vintage jean jackets. In hip-hop, there are kids with heart, but hardly anywhere else. Don’t you have anything to say that hasn’t been said better and before by someone more suited to the subject? I guess not. But Nick Drake was the opposite of that. He spoke himself into song. So I’d pick him to work with.
What do you have planned creatively for the upcoming year?
Once Misanthrope is out I have another batch of songs brewing so I’m trying to get those out by the end of 2021. Whether I’ll find a couple guys musically compatible enough to form a band with remains to be seen. I’d like to do stuff with other people but as you can tell from both my EP title and the answers I’ve given so far I don’t do people so well. And the double entendre applies; I’m also bad at sex. Aside from that I’ll be performing around NYC, trying to scrape together the gigs I left behind at the start of COVID, submitting my songs to a myriad of entities, and selling myself in various ways for the sake of the almighty dollar. We’ll see this time next year what that’ll amount to.
How can our readers support you?
If you are so inclined, please check out my Spotify, search “Life is Unfair, AM.” You’ll find me. Listen to that sucker, and if you like, share it with your scattered acquaintances on social media and tell them how you found this totally cool underground singer/songwriter and how you’re one of the only people in the world who knows about me. That’ll boost your social standing for sure. Other than that, follow me on Instagram @amsongwriter, where I post my angsty art and sometimes (oftentimes) scream my well-regarded opinions into the void. Tag me in something. I’ll tag you back.
