Interview: Worcester, MA Based Singer-Songwriter The Supposed So Discusses His Album "Thoughts in the Belfry"
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“I think the main theme is nostalgia. These are old songs, mostly, so it was a very nostalgic experience playing and arranging them again. There’s also the generally introspective lyrics, with the questioning of life and looking to find God everywhere, even in memories. ”
When developing new music, what are some things that inspire your songwriting and production, and how do you avoid writer's block?
Writer’s block is a funny thing. I never really have it anymore. I mean, like I said I haven’t been writing songs much lately, so you could say I have some kind of block in that regard. But I write other things, you know? Whether it’s essays or short stories, poetry, literary analysis, the novel I’m writing right now...there’s always something to be written.
I appreciate that I, to some degree, am confident in what is aesthetically pleasing, whatever form that pleasing thing has taken, and so when I’m not up to my own standards, I just stop doing it and do something else. Sometimes I think I’ve exhausted everything I have to say with songwriting. But then, I say that, and the next thing I know I have a 13 minute song, written in a couple hours...I don’t know I guess. Like with anything, there are ebbs and flows. Maybe I’m on an ebb. Or maybe I’ve just turned the page somehow. It’s difficult for me anymore to contain myself in the two to four minutes you get when you’re writing pop music.
The world is in a pretty awful state right now, and I, like so many, am just overwhelmed. Making music that doesn’t rise to the occasion seems pointless to me. But I like to arrange, so I keep doing it and new stuff gets made and that’s what’s important to me. Constant workflow. That could be the tagline on my entire career to date.
Congratulations on the completion and release of your album "Thoughts in the Belfry". What are you most proud of with this new release?
I think what I’m most proud of about this record is the production. It sounds better than anything I’ve ever done. At the end of last summer I bought a MIDI keyboard for ten bucks at a garage sale, and it really has changed the way I can make my music sound. There are nearly endless possibilities with what you can do with it, not the least of which is having the sound of an actual drum kit, something I don’t have and couldn’t utilize on my own much anyway. It’s easier just to do everything myself, and it’s nice not having to pile on guitar parts and brushed tambourine just because those are the only instruments I have.
Would you say that the album has an overarching concept or theme to it?
I think the main theme is nostalgia. These are old songs, mostly, so it was a very nostalgic experience playing and arranging them again. There’s also the generally introspective lyrics, with the questioning of life and looking to find God everywhere, even in memories.
The final track, the title track - the one newly written song on the album - sums up my entire existence kind of. I was raised Catholic, and would like to consider myself Christian, but there are all of these people not really living in Christ and they’re claiming to know how to do it best. And I, like everyone, have been freaking out about the state of the country and the world in general, and am just really frustrated with hypocrisy and short-sightedness, and uncaring. So, I hadn’t written a song in a long time, then out came a five-page epic poem I wrote all in one day (to the tune of “Ring Them Bells” by Bob Dylan) containing every simple truth I could think of. The line “To steal is fine as long as you’re a company man” is just about where I stand. The rich steal with impunity and the poor idle by. But it’s a very personal record, not all that political. Though there is a rebellion present that I think runs through all of my work.
Tell us about your creative process for the development of the album's nine songs.
This is a sort of retrospective. I’ve basically been writing and recording music, posting to Bandcamp for nine years. And I love a lot of those songs, but a good amount of their respective sound quality is undesirable, at least to me. I listen to some of my old stuff and it literally hurts my ears. So, I had this 13 minute song - that I dubbed “Thoughts in the Belfry” - written and I decided to comb my vault, as it were, and just sort of re-imagine and re-record some of them, to flush out a record.
I already had rewritten “At the End of the Day” (it used to be a real slow piano dirge) so I recorded that. And the rest just sort of fell in line from there. My process is quick and painless. I don’t do many takes of anything. There’s no real rehearsal for anything. I have the barebones - just the acoustic guitar and vocals - and I arrange parts around them, basically just recording an improvisation with whatever instrument I’m playing. Then I sit down and edit and mix and that’s pretty much it.
The most important part of the recording process for me is the literal arranging. Not just with what instruments play when, but where that sound is coming from in the stereo mix. There’s a lot of separation on this record in that regard. A lot of space. Which I suppose mirrors the distance I am from the time I wrote the first eight tunes on the record.
Were there songs that you recorded that did not make the final track list? If so, why not?
There weren’t any other new songs to think about, and I wanted the album to be on the shorter side to give people a sort of introduction to my body of work. So I guess you could say I left off about 190 other songs I’ve written over the years, for no good reason, to be honest, than that these were the songs I most wanted to hear finished in the way I’m making music right now.
There are actually already some new recordings I’m making for the followup LP, and I figured on eight or nine other previously released tunes as well, to continue this retrospective of sorts through the past decade of my artistic output. It’ll be called “Just a Bit More, As Always.” I don’t think too much about a project anymore. I get an idea, run with it, it happens as it happens, and I finish it and move on. Whether it’s the music or the writing, my main goal is to amass a body of work that speaks back and forth amongst itself. And these eight tunes just seemed to speak well with the new song.
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