Interview: LIGHTS AT ELEVEN Discusses His Brand New Audio Visual Album "Many Waves Later"
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“...when it comes to my own inspirations and influences, it’s a severely mixed bag, totally eclectic. Nature (specifically the desert), foreign languages, tons of music, street noise, human experiences, crazy stories, heroic degenerates...”
Congratulations on the completion and release of your new audio visual album "Many Waves Later"; tell us about your creative process for the development of the 14 songs and accompanying videos.
So, as far as process and production is concerned, this album was a revisiting of those things for me. Usually, the sampling and music happens first when I take on a larger project like a visual album, and a lot of the original sound sketches/experimentation files were created pre-pandemic. At that point I didn’t really have a general direction I was interested in taking them.
I was pretty burnt out after finishing my MFA, and wasn’t really ready to start anything significant. So it all kind of went on the back burner. I still continued to sample, collect, archive, write, etc. I think those things have just always been instinctual parts of my process.
As more time passed, I seriously started to overthink my work, doubt my process and outcomes, that sort of thing. I even debated ‘killing off’ the character of LIGHTS AT ELEVEN at various points. Mainly out of frustration. It had a lot to do with where I was mentally and emotionally, the way that I perceived things were going on around me.
Then, in Spring of this year, a good friend of mine who teaches at Chowan University in North Carolina, asked me to do a graphic design show/exhibit with another one of our buds from grad school. That was my sign to ‘get to work’.
The show was called ‘NostalgiaVision’, and general nostalgia is what I had in mind when I was working on these tracks and videos. I wanted to make something that made me contemplate of my audio-visual conditioning and education I received as a young kid, reexamine my process, and find out again why it is I do all this stuff.
Were there songs that you recorded that did not make the final cut of the album? If so, why did they not make it?
Oh yeah, for sure. Maybe about 8 or 9 of them. I think a fair amount of people (creatives included) don’t think about the number of failed projects, file iterations, lemons, etc. that don’t fully develop during the creative process. Like for every final exported file, there’s probably a ton of iterations or outcomes that totally suck or just don’t quite ‘make the cut’.
Usually, the more time I spend with a project, the more I’m able to tie together certain ideas, aesthetics, and themes. And of course, there’s always tracks/files that just can’t be contained within those. Or they just end up draining me for one reason or another. Also, when it comes to my work, I prefer to set time limits, not timelines.
What are some things/people/places that inspire the music that you create, and what about Central Texas makes it the perfect place for you as a designer and musician?
Haha. Well, I don’t think I’ve been anywhere perfect yet, but I will keep y’all posted. That being said, I grew up here, and am generally comfortable in my environment. It is somewhat rural, I live in a small town near San Antonio, but it’s far from remote. The other thing is that I try to travel as much as I can. That to me, is the perfect part. Being somewhere I can create effectively for the most part, while having that continuing exposure and education to other places/influences.
But when it comes to my own inspirations and influences, it’s a severely mixed bag, totally eclectic. Nature (specifically the desert), foreign languages, tons of music, street noise, human experiences, crazy stories, heroic degenerates, psychedelia, too much T.V., memes, skateboarding culture… I’m gonna stop now.
With "Many Waves Later" album now released, what are some of your goals musically for the rest of 2021, heading into the new year?
I’d like to get some decent traction with this release. I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, but just move my practice forward overall. I would really like to try and gig this music in some capacity. Maybe try something different like scoring somebody else’s work.
Other than that, just keep doing my thing. Collect, document, archive, repeat. Process. Repeat process.
When someone listens to and watches "Many Waves Later", what do you want them to take away from the experience?
I mean, it would be super satisfying if people contemplated their own feelings and visions of nostalgia, possibly keying in on the more seemingly obvious themes like color, sound, waves, noise, etc.
But there are tons of hidden meanings, references, samples, and stories. Too many to list, and even then I would forget some. All that deep, heavy stuff buried in the layers of sound and video, I put that there for me. I think that’s why I’m ok with the viewers/listeners interpretations, whatever they are. If they explore those things, find a connection with them, that’s amazing. I would love that. If nothing else, I just hope people can see the amount of work and love in it. They don’t need to overthink it too much.
What does the album's title, "Many Waves Later", represent?
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(Insert intensely vivid and deeply poetic explanation here)
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