Ron Pope (19/11/2012)
Sitting down at the Yellow Bird café in Chapel St, Melbourne, we spoke with New York based musician Ron Pope ahead of his show at Chapel Off Chapel.
So Ron, how are you this afternoon?
So far so good, How about you?
I’m pretty myself, so how has the tour been so far?
Well, we haven’t started playing the shows yet. We came to Australia about a week ago. We went to Sydney, did some press, hung out with some friends and now we’re here, kind of running around, doing press, getting ready to start. So the shows actually start tomorrow, our first show is here in Melbourne, but the Sydney show is already sold out and only a few tickets are left for the other two shows. So it’s cool, I think the reception has been generally pretty positive, so I’m excited about it.
So are you currently on a world tour?
Kind of, I’ve been on tour kind of continuously all year. I went to England in February and then I started touring in America in April. I did a couple of weeks in America and then a couple of weeks in Europe. Then 5 more weeks in America and then I had a few weeks off and then started touring America again and now I’m here and I’m going right back to Europe. So, yeah I guess, it’s kind of everywhere that speaks English in the last year.
Are you thinking of branching out to other countries where English isn’t the native language?
Well, this next tour when I go to Europe, we are going to the UK, Scotland and Ireland, France, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden and Germany. We have 5 shows in Germany and its cool. It seems like it doesn’t really matter whether people speak English as their native language or not, people just get it wherever we go.
Out of all the countries you have visited, which one has been the best so far?
Um, yesterday I got to hold… I got to pet, I didn’t get to hold, I got pet a baby koala, so this place is quickly becoming my favorite. Cause, when I get to go to England, I love it there, but they don’t give you any fluffy little animals. There not like “here you go, here’s a little baby bear”, they don’t have that deal and here their like “we have a variety of marsupials, which one would you like?” So, I mean everyplace has a unique charm to it, so far this year, of all the places I’ve played shows, I have to say, the place I had most fun would be England, in London, cause that is where I’m the most popular, so it’s just crazy cause the shows are just bigger there. But really any place that I show up, people come to the show and their excited and I’m excited to be there.
How do you think the crowds will differ here from the other countries you have visited?
Yeah, I don’t know yet, I haven’t played the show yet, so I have no idea. I haven’t met the crowds, so ask me around tomorrow at midnight and then I can give you a better answer to that. (Laughs) I’m excited and my crowds are always pretty varied, it’s interesting you know it’s like younger people, older people and college people and mums and dads and little kids. Its really super broad, I mean, I think the music is pretty straightforward and honest, it’s like people can connect with it, cause I don’t know if my songs are about being mean or anything so much as they’re about just being a human being. Like a lot of my songs are very obviously not about me and so even the words I’m trying to get across are really basic fundamental human emotions, things that are 5-year boy understands and a 90 year old lady understands. Things like love, hope, loss and faith and all those things that are elemental parts that mean to be a person, so everybody understands. So, I think that’s why the audience is pretty varied and broad.
Well, with the Sydney show sold out, what kind of crowd are you hoping to expect then?
Well, hopefully an excited one. I mean, I don’t normally play acoustics solo shows; I usually play with the band and a whole bunch of different guys. So, usually I do that, so these shows are going to be really special, I think it is going to be a chance to break down what I do to it’s most basic form. Just the songs and me and that’s all you get. So, I think it will be really special since they are small shows, most of these people got their tickets in advance, they’re really excited about it and their keyed up for this experience. So, I think it will be special and unique and I’m excited to share it with everybody, to just get in there and just play the song with no tricks, nothing else, just here’s the song.
I’m guessing your going to go for a more intimate kind of setting?
Yeah absolutely, anytime you’re playing by yourself even if there are a thousand people, it feels like I’m back in my living room playing for people that come over my house. It’s different, like when you play with a band there is are certain amount of spectacle that goes into that and you can’t do that when your by yourself, at least I can’t, Elton John probably can, I mean his a spectacle onto himself. But, when I play alone, it is just different it is very different.
When you were growing up, what actually got you into music?
Well a lot of people in my family are very interested in music, but there not musicians. My grandparents have really collective taste and they shared a lot of things with me. My step dad is a metal head so he shared a bunch of cool stuff with me. My mum and my dad had a really broad taste in music, so I had all these different stuff from old country music to 80s pop music and 70s rock bands and you know, Molly Crew and all kinds of people coming from different angles. So, I got a lot of music all around and I think that of set me up to do what I do now and it’s kind of hard to pinpoint what I do. I do a lot of different things and so that is maybe why, because I was raised up with a lot different kinds of music around me.
I know you independently produced your first four albums and then joined Universal Republic, what made you leave the label and become an independent artist again?
Well, you know one of the things that become challenging when you sign with a major label is that, I used to being able to do things when I thought I needed to and when your sign to a major label it’s a multinational conglomerate, it’s a giant corporation owned by another corporation that is owned by another giant corporation, that could sell TVs as their main thing or whatever and there are a lot of steps. So, if you want to make a record, you have to ask somebody else and then they need to ask somebody else and there is always a middleman between you and the fans. You want to go on tour, you have to ask somebody for money and so being an independent artist makes it so that, if it seems that I should go to a place on tour, I go there, if I feel like it’s time to put out a new record, I put it out and I don’t need to sell 5 million records to feel validated or justified. I can just go where the music tells me to go and my whole career now is built around my relationship with my fans and there’s no middleman and no space in the air. It’s me and them and that’s it and that’s really why, I just wanted to be able to have that immediacy and be able to say “I’m going on tour and this is where I’m going” and not have somebody who really isn’t on the ground and within the bounds of my career, really without any of those people dictating what I can and cant do. It’s just about what I want to do with the art needs and that’s it, so that’s why really, I just want to be able to do, what I want to do.
Well, since being an independent artist, you have gained a considerable amount of fame worldwide, but for further success, do you think you need to sign on to a label again?
You know, I would be willing to partner with someone or a label if it made sense to me. It would have to be with people who understand what I do and would add value and help move forward. So, I could be interested in that, if the right thing or right people came along, but it just has to be the right people. I don’t need a brand on my ass that says ‘property of whoever’, I don’t need that to validate me and so, we’ll see where I end up.
Now getting into your songs, where do you normally draw your inspiration from when writing your lyrics?
Uh, you know, I try to just pay attention and I know that sounds kind of an over-simplified idea, but really that’s what it is. You know my songs are by and large about the human experience, like on my ‘Atlanta’ album, there is a song about a woman who is married and has children and her mother dies. Now, I’m not a woman, I’m not married yet and I don’t have any children, but while the arc of the story is about that, it is mostly about the passage of time and dealing with that and what it feels like and that I know about. So, I’m just trying to relate fundamental ideas about humanity through narrative. So, you know, I’m paying attention and hopefully that’s why I think a lot of different people get what I’m doing. Cause it’s not about being a man in his 20s, it’s not about whatever else, my songs are just about being a person. So that’s me, paying attention and seeing my life and what’s happening to the people around me and what will make sense to people, that’s what I’m trying to get at the heart of, what it means to be a person and basically as simple as that.
Well, since the release of a ‘Drop In The Ocean’ till your latest single ‘One Grain of Sand’, how would you say your sound has changed in the last few years?
With the ‘Atlanta’ album, one of my goals was to take down any walls I have put up in the past and get rid of any rules I had given myself and I used to say a lot of the time “oh, I really love this idea, I love to put synthesizer in here but I also want to put a fiddle in here… ah, I can’t put a fiddle with a synthesizer in there, that doesn’t make sense.” So, what I try to do with ‘Atlanta’ is really just take all these things, these sonic ideas that I like and then create a distinct pallet between them. Where rather in the past I would restrict myself with sounds where I felt like they obviously go together, with the ‘Atlanta’ album I said “I’m going to make these things that I love work together” like a complete idea and so, to me this album feels really like my first album to me, cause it’s just such a clear representation of what I like and what I’m trying to do. So, that’s really different and the major thing that’s changed, I’ve become more willing to experiment sonically and reach out and seek some kind of distinctive thumbprint, that’s really the biggest change over the years.
And when you were writing ‘One Grain of Sand’, did something personal happen to you or a friend that gave you the inspiration to write the song?
I always do this, this is kind of motto of mine. I don’t tell people stories about any of the songs I write because once I write the song and the release it, your opinion of it’s about is just as validate as mine. Cause there not about my life, there about yours, so to me, it really matters what it’s about to you. So if it’s about your grandmother dying or falling in love with your first girlfriend or that time you scored that goal, the thing is whatever it feels like to you that’s it and that’s what its about. That’s why I don’t usually share the stories about my songs, cause I want them to feel like it’s yours and I don’t want them to feel like their mine. When you hear it, I want it to be yours and I want it to be apart of your life and your story, so that’s why I don’t do that.
What made you choose ‘Atlanta’ as the title of your newest album?
Well, you know I grew up in Atlanta and so much of my life is spent in motion. So, I’ve lived away from Atlanta for 11 years but within my head it is still my home even though I live in New York now and I don’t even really live there because I’m always on the road. So, I don’t know, a lot of this album is centered on that notion of people in motion, people in transition, whether it’s someone falling in love, somebody who just lost their job and trying to find the next step in their lives. So, when thinking about that, I kind of think about a journey home and what that means and that’s how I kind of ended up writing the song ‘Atlanta’ and also that song honestly captures what I was trying to do with the whole album.
Well then, from your new album, which song would you say bears the most significance to you?
Well, the title track (Atlanta) is definitely really a powerful one for me, I also really love the song ‘In My Bones’, because in general I kind of sit and grind it out writing songs. Like I’m one of those people that sit down and I’ll write a song and there not always good, but I can usually sit down and write a song and so when I was writing the ‘Atlanta’ album, I would get up everyday, Monday to Friday and sit in my apartment and write all day, by myself, just sit in the house with my acoustic guitar, my piano and my collectors guitar, basically all my stuff and I would just write all day. So one day I was banging my head against the wall trying to get this one idea to kind of work itself out and I probably worked on it for like 8 hours or something and finally I was losing my mind. So I was like I’m going to take a shower and chill out and then I’ll come back, refreshed and work on it a little more. So I get in the shower and then all of the sudden I get this completely different idea, it’s like a melody (Ron starts humming the song) and I’m humming (Continues to hum) and I’m in the shower and I’m still humming and then I start coming up with some words and I was like, “I think I know this whole song right now”. So at first I was like “have I written this already? Like what’s going on”, so I get out of the shower, I dry off and I’m singing the song (Ron starts singing) and I’m like ok, I think I have written this whole song. I wrap myself in a towel and sit down to my keyboard and I start playing the entire song ‘In My Bones’ all the way through and I was like “wow.” I was like I got hit over the head with it, so that was kind of unbelievable, because that usually doesn’t happen, usually I sit and I work out the songs and I write them, this song just wrote itself, it was like “here’s the idea”, Boom, like I got hit by lightning. So that was really cool and that feels really special to me cause in my life that’s only happened a couple of times and I’ve written hundreds of hundreds of songs and so, it was really special and I’ve never written an entire song in that way and was that good and that song I really love. So, that was one was really special to me, cause of that unique experience.
For most artists when they make an album, I noticed they often try and give the listener a narrative experience, when you were recording Atlanta what kind of experience were you hoping to give your fans?
I wanted to kind of showcase like a really raw range of fundamental emotions, cause sometimes you find a record and you think, “This feels the same the whole time”. I can’t imagine putting out an entire record about one moment and people do that, sometimes they do it to great effect. But for me, I kind of want to provide a lot of different ideas that’s centered on people in motion, people transition and so I hope that’s what people gather from it. However, like I said, I never know what people get from my songs and at the end of the day, if I write a song and it might sound to me like a couple breaking up, people might play it at weddings so I don’t know, I never know and that’s another reason why I stopped telling stories behind my songs cause I’m like “but this is about… and their like no no, it’s not that at all, we are playing that at the wedding, so it’s about the wedding” and I’m like “oh cool, good luck with that.” So, I think that’s what cool about a song, it can be different things, different people because people choose their own adventure.
Since ‘Atlanta’ is your first album released in Australia, do you feel that you have gained more exposure down-under?
Yeah, its cool that I’m here for one, so I think that’s a big step, I’ve always wanted to come here and I never had the opportunity before. So, I think being here, promoting the album, playing the shows will hopefully expose my music to broader group of people in this country.
In 2011, you created 26 Tuesday Project, where you released a new song every week.
Yeah, well I had different songs I had demoed and written and hadn’t recorded. I realized I had a lot of stuff right now that completely doesn’t go together. So I started thinking about it and I was like “you know I bet I could release something different for a couple of weeks” and then I got into the studio and started to record a few more things and before I knew it, I just had so much stuff and the neat thing about doing the project centered around singles, like one week I released a blues EP with 5 songs and for 25 weeks after that I released a different song. So, the cool thing about releasing singles compared to albums is within an album, things must make sense, like if you are trying to make a cohesive album, it has to all go together and seem like a unit and with a project centered around singles, I felt like I could just do anything, cause each of the songs exists in itself, it was alone, so it didn’t need to fit with anything. So, I was able to try a bunch of different stuff and really kind of experiment and it turned out to be something really interesting and enjoyable for me and I hope all the people liked it.
Are you thinking of doing similar projects in the future?
Never again, never ever again, that was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life and it was crazy. It was so hard and just so much work and no, I don’t think so. I can see myself releasing some singles again but never 25 in a row, I’ve already put out a full length album at the beginning of last year, I also did a live EP with my other band, ‘The District’ and then I released those 30 songs while I was working on ‘Atlanta’ while this was happening. So it was insane, virtually nuts, that was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life, so definitely not, but you can never say never, so almost definitely not.
And I know that you found a lot of success off YouTube and you regularly keep up with fans on Facebook and twitter, do you think you could have achieve the level of success you have now without the help of those sites?
Anybody that has success in the music industry in the last 10 years can make two arguments, one is: in 1995 you would be talking to me on a private island and the other is: there is no chance I could have done this without social networks. So, it kind of goes either way, like people aren’t making the same kind of money and fame and the same kind of headway in the conventional music industry that once was, like in the 90s there was this band called ‘Deep Blue Breath’ and they had that song ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’ That album sold 3 million copies off that one song, right now to sell 3 million albums you would have to have 5 singles and you would be on tour for 2 years. It’s crazy when you sell 3 million records and so, you used to be able to have a hit single and bust the world with it a lot of times, however I’ve been able to do exactly what I want on my own terms, with nobody telling me what to do and I’ve been able to do that because I found people who like my music and then those people, rather than having to call all there friends like you would had to do before social networking, now they can go on Facebook and say I really like this song, here’s a link to their video of it on YouTube. Of course, no one was going to call a thousand of their friends on the phone but now they have a thousand friends on Facebook then those thousand people have the opportunity to see this video. So, it’s definitely put me in a position where people can spread my music much more readily and for some of my memes, I’m at the center of this grassroot movement where people have spread the music out themselves, so it’s been invaluable, so you could go either way with it.
And for some artists who want to get some exposure online, do you have any advice for them?
Do something good, like I feel that because the recording process has become much more democratic, like you can make a really good sound recording in your bedroom. All you need is a cheap mic that sounds good, a cheap interface that sounds good and so forth and record it into your computer while sitting in your room and do something that sounds good. However, just because you can, does not mean you should, like you should absolutely hone what your doing and create something good, because now one of the negatives on all this instant reach you can have with the internet is that your competing with absolutely everything. When you release a record your competing against ‘Nine Inch Nails’ and ‘Taylor Swift’ and ‘Beyonce’ and the kitten riding on the back of a turtle on YouTube, and people can skype with their grandparents from Crotia, so media is consumed in a very different way now than it ever has been in the past. So, you have to compete with everything all at once, people can sit at their computers and watch a movie that just came out in the theaters or they talk to their grandma on the other side of the world or they could watch the video of my new haircut thing, basically anything funny on youtube, like I said before with the kitten or a monkey, people love monkeys and there are a million videos with them like a monkey with a kitten or a baby monkey riding on a pig do you know how often that happens? That is a baby monkey riding on a little tiny pig and it’s backwards and so you’re competing with all of these things. So, it used to take people’s time to consume media, which if you were a little kid in 1993 and you liked music, you got one CD, you would save your allowance and go to the store and you would buy a CD and that was your CD. If you wanted to go to the movies and save a little bit of money, then you go the movies, but now that same 10 year old can download all the music in the world that’s ever been created and watch all the movies, can talk to all their friends whenever they want, long-distanced phone calls are free, you have so many options and so you need to do something really good and I think a lot of people don’t concern themselves with that and I think that’s why there so much stuff to shuffle through before find something good, because they don’t think should I put this out, they just put it out. So, I think that’s important, like hone your craft, if you want to write songs, become a song writer, work on because you don’t have to put out a record at 14, but maybe you can, maybe you’re a beast when your 14 and your going to blow everybody’s mind but make sure you have it before you start putting stuff out cause your competing with everything. That’s my advice, you want to get attention, do something good.
Well, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Jason Cheung
Photo by Shervin Lainez
So Ron, how are you this afternoon?
So far so good, How about you?
I’m pretty myself, so how has the tour been so far?
Well, we haven’t started playing the shows yet. We came to Australia about a week ago. We went to Sydney, did some press, hung out with some friends and now we’re here, kind of running around, doing press, getting ready to start. So the shows actually start tomorrow, our first show is here in Melbourne, but the Sydney show is already sold out and only a few tickets are left for the other two shows. So it’s cool, I think the reception has been generally pretty positive, so I’m excited about it.
So are you currently on a world tour?
Kind of, I’ve been on tour kind of continuously all year. I went to England in February and then I started touring in America in April. I did a couple of weeks in America and then a couple of weeks in Europe. Then 5 more weeks in America and then I had a few weeks off and then started touring America again and now I’m here and I’m going right back to Europe. So, yeah I guess, it’s kind of everywhere that speaks English in the last year.
Are you thinking of branching out to other countries where English isn’t the native language?
Well, this next tour when I go to Europe, we are going to the UK, Scotland and Ireland, France, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden and Germany. We have 5 shows in Germany and its cool. It seems like it doesn’t really matter whether people speak English as their native language or not, people just get it wherever we go.
Out of all the countries you have visited, which one has been the best so far?
Um, yesterday I got to hold… I got to pet, I didn’t get to hold, I got pet a baby koala, so this place is quickly becoming my favorite. Cause, when I get to go to England, I love it there, but they don’t give you any fluffy little animals. There not like “here you go, here’s a little baby bear”, they don’t have that deal and here their like “we have a variety of marsupials, which one would you like?” So, I mean everyplace has a unique charm to it, so far this year, of all the places I’ve played shows, I have to say, the place I had most fun would be England, in London, cause that is where I’m the most popular, so it’s just crazy cause the shows are just bigger there. But really any place that I show up, people come to the show and their excited and I’m excited to be there.
How do you think the crowds will differ here from the other countries you have visited?
Yeah, I don’t know yet, I haven’t played the show yet, so I have no idea. I haven’t met the crowds, so ask me around tomorrow at midnight and then I can give you a better answer to that. (Laughs) I’m excited and my crowds are always pretty varied, it’s interesting you know it’s like younger people, older people and college people and mums and dads and little kids. Its really super broad, I mean, I think the music is pretty straightforward and honest, it’s like people can connect with it, cause I don’t know if my songs are about being mean or anything so much as they’re about just being a human being. Like a lot of my songs are very obviously not about me and so even the words I’m trying to get across are really basic fundamental human emotions, things that are 5-year boy understands and a 90 year old lady understands. Things like love, hope, loss and faith and all those things that are elemental parts that mean to be a person, so everybody understands. So, I think that’s why the audience is pretty varied and broad.
Well, with the Sydney show sold out, what kind of crowd are you hoping to expect then?
Well, hopefully an excited one. I mean, I don’t normally play acoustics solo shows; I usually play with the band and a whole bunch of different guys. So, usually I do that, so these shows are going to be really special, I think it is going to be a chance to break down what I do to it’s most basic form. Just the songs and me and that’s all you get. So, I think it will be really special since they are small shows, most of these people got their tickets in advance, they’re really excited about it and their keyed up for this experience. So, I think it will be special and unique and I’m excited to share it with everybody, to just get in there and just play the song with no tricks, nothing else, just here’s the song.
I’m guessing your going to go for a more intimate kind of setting?
Yeah absolutely, anytime you’re playing by yourself even if there are a thousand people, it feels like I’m back in my living room playing for people that come over my house. It’s different, like when you play with a band there is are certain amount of spectacle that goes into that and you can’t do that when your by yourself, at least I can’t, Elton John probably can, I mean his a spectacle onto himself. But, when I play alone, it is just different it is very different.
When you were growing up, what actually got you into music?
Well a lot of people in my family are very interested in music, but there not musicians. My grandparents have really collective taste and they shared a lot of things with me. My step dad is a metal head so he shared a bunch of cool stuff with me. My mum and my dad had a really broad taste in music, so I had all these different stuff from old country music to 80s pop music and 70s rock bands and you know, Molly Crew and all kinds of people coming from different angles. So, I got a lot of music all around and I think that of set me up to do what I do now and it’s kind of hard to pinpoint what I do. I do a lot of different things and so that is maybe why, because I was raised up with a lot different kinds of music around me.
I know you independently produced your first four albums and then joined Universal Republic, what made you leave the label and become an independent artist again?
Well, you know one of the things that become challenging when you sign with a major label is that, I used to being able to do things when I thought I needed to and when your sign to a major label it’s a multinational conglomerate, it’s a giant corporation owned by another corporation that is owned by another giant corporation, that could sell TVs as their main thing or whatever and there are a lot of steps. So, if you want to make a record, you have to ask somebody else and then they need to ask somebody else and there is always a middleman between you and the fans. You want to go on tour, you have to ask somebody for money and so being an independent artist makes it so that, if it seems that I should go to a place on tour, I go there, if I feel like it’s time to put out a new record, I put it out and I don’t need to sell 5 million records to feel validated or justified. I can just go where the music tells me to go and my whole career now is built around my relationship with my fans and there’s no middleman and no space in the air. It’s me and them and that’s it and that’s really why, I just wanted to be able to have that immediacy and be able to say “I’m going on tour and this is where I’m going” and not have somebody who really isn’t on the ground and within the bounds of my career, really without any of those people dictating what I can and cant do. It’s just about what I want to do with the art needs and that’s it, so that’s why really, I just want to be able to do, what I want to do.
Well, since being an independent artist, you have gained a considerable amount of fame worldwide, but for further success, do you think you need to sign on to a label again?
You know, I would be willing to partner with someone or a label if it made sense to me. It would have to be with people who understand what I do and would add value and help move forward. So, I could be interested in that, if the right thing or right people came along, but it just has to be the right people. I don’t need a brand on my ass that says ‘property of whoever’, I don’t need that to validate me and so, we’ll see where I end up.
Now getting into your songs, where do you normally draw your inspiration from when writing your lyrics?
Uh, you know, I try to just pay attention and I know that sounds kind of an over-simplified idea, but really that’s what it is. You know my songs are by and large about the human experience, like on my ‘Atlanta’ album, there is a song about a woman who is married and has children and her mother dies. Now, I’m not a woman, I’m not married yet and I don’t have any children, but while the arc of the story is about that, it is mostly about the passage of time and dealing with that and what it feels like and that I know about. So, I’m just trying to relate fundamental ideas about humanity through narrative. So, you know, I’m paying attention and hopefully that’s why I think a lot of different people get what I’m doing. Cause it’s not about being a man in his 20s, it’s not about whatever else, my songs are just about being a person. So that’s me, paying attention and seeing my life and what’s happening to the people around me and what will make sense to people, that’s what I’m trying to get at the heart of, what it means to be a person and basically as simple as that.
Well, since the release of a ‘Drop In The Ocean’ till your latest single ‘One Grain of Sand’, how would you say your sound has changed in the last few years?
With the ‘Atlanta’ album, one of my goals was to take down any walls I have put up in the past and get rid of any rules I had given myself and I used to say a lot of the time “oh, I really love this idea, I love to put synthesizer in here but I also want to put a fiddle in here… ah, I can’t put a fiddle with a synthesizer in there, that doesn’t make sense.” So, what I try to do with ‘Atlanta’ is really just take all these things, these sonic ideas that I like and then create a distinct pallet between them. Where rather in the past I would restrict myself with sounds where I felt like they obviously go together, with the ‘Atlanta’ album I said “I’m going to make these things that I love work together” like a complete idea and so, to me this album feels really like my first album to me, cause it’s just such a clear representation of what I like and what I’m trying to do. So, that’s really different and the major thing that’s changed, I’ve become more willing to experiment sonically and reach out and seek some kind of distinctive thumbprint, that’s really the biggest change over the years.
And when you were writing ‘One Grain of Sand’, did something personal happen to you or a friend that gave you the inspiration to write the song?
I always do this, this is kind of motto of mine. I don’t tell people stories about any of the songs I write because once I write the song and the release it, your opinion of it’s about is just as validate as mine. Cause there not about my life, there about yours, so to me, it really matters what it’s about to you. So if it’s about your grandmother dying or falling in love with your first girlfriend or that time you scored that goal, the thing is whatever it feels like to you that’s it and that’s what its about. That’s why I don’t usually share the stories about my songs, cause I want them to feel like it’s yours and I don’t want them to feel like their mine. When you hear it, I want it to be yours and I want it to be apart of your life and your story, so that’s why I don’t do that.
What made you choose ‘Atlanta’ as the title of your newest album?
Well, you know I grew up in Atlanta and so much of my life is spent in motion. So, I’ve lived away from Atlanta for 11 years but within my head it is still my home even though I live in New York now and I don’t even really live there because I’m always on the road. So, I don’t know, a lot of this album is centered on that notion of people in motion, people in transition, whether it’s someone falling in love, somebody who just lost their job and trying to find the next step in their lives. So, when thinking about that, I kind of think about a journey home and what that means and that’s how I kind of ended up writing the song ‘Atlanta’ and also that song honestly captures what I was trying to do with the whole album.
Well then, from your new album, which song would you say bears the most significance to you?
Well, the title track (Atlanta) is definitely really a powerful one for me, I also really love the song ‘In My Bones’, because in general I kind of sit and grind it out writing songs. Like I’m one of those people that sit down and I’ll write a song and there not always good, but I can usually sit down and write a song and so when I was writing the ‘Atlanta’ album, I would get up everyday, Monday to Friday and sit in my apartment and write all day, by myself, just sit in the house with my acoustic guitar, my piano and my collectors guitar, basically all my stuff and I would just write all day. So one day I was banging my head against the wall trying to get this one idea to kind of work itself out and I probably worked on it for like 8 hours or something and finally I was losing my mind. So I was like I’m going to take a shower and chill out and then I’ll come back, refreshed and work on it a little more. So I get in the shower and then all of the sudden I get this completely different idea, it’s like a melody (Ron starts humming the song) and I’m humming (Continues to hum) and I’m in the shower and I’m still humming and then I start coming up with some words and I was like, “I think I know this whole song right now”. So at first I was like “have I written this already? Like what’s going on”, so I get out of the shower, I dry off and I’m singing the song (Ron starts singing) and I’m like ok, I think I have written this whole song. I wrap myself in a towel and sit down to my keyboard and I start playing the entire song ‘In My Bones’ all the way through and I was like “wow.” I was like I got hit over the head with it, so that was kind of unbelievable, because that usually doesn’t happen, usually I sit and I work out the songs and I write them, this song just wrote itself, it was like “here’s the idea”, Boom, like I got hit by lightning. So that was really cool and that feels really special to me cause in my life that’s only happened a couple of times and I’ve written hundreds of hundreds of songs and so, it was really special and I’ve never written an entire song in that way and was that good and that song I really love. So, that was one was really special to me, cause of that unique experience.
For most artists when they make an album, I noticed they often try and give the listener a narrative experience, when you were recording Atlanta what kind of experience were you hoping to give your fans?
I wanted to kind of showcase like a really raw range of fundamental emotions, cause sometimes you find a record and you think, “This feels the same the whole time”. I can’t imagine putting out an entire record about one moment and people do that, sometimes they do it to great effect. But for me, I kind of want to provide a lot of different ideas that’s centered on people in motion, people transition and so I hope that’s what people gather from it. However, like I said, I never know what people get from my songs and at the end of the day, if I write a song and it might sound to me like a couple breaking up, people might play it at weddings so I don’t know, I never know and that’s another reason why I stopped telling stories behind my songs cause I’m like “but this is about… and their like no no, it’s not that at all, we are playing that at the wedding, so it’s about the wedding” and I’m like “oh cool, good luck with that.” So, I think that’s what cool about a song, it can be different things, different people because people choose their own adventure.
Since ‘Atlanta’ is your first album released in Australia, do you feel that you have gained more exposure down-under?
Yeah, its cool that I’m here for one, so I think that’s a big step, I’ve always wanted to come here and I never had the opportunity before. So, I think being here, promoting the album, playing the shows will hopefully expose my music to broader group of people in this country.
In 2011, you created 26 Tuesday Project, where you released a new song every week.
Yeah, well I had different songs I had demoed and written and hadn’t recorded. I realized I had a lot of stuff right now that completely doesn’t go together. So I started thinking about it and I was like “you know I bet I could release something different for a couple of weeks” and then I got into the studio and started to record a few more things and before I knew it, I just had so much stuff and the neat thing about doing the project centered around singles, like one week I released a blues EP with 5 songs and for 25 weeks after that I released a different song. So, the cool thing about releasing singles compared to albums is within an album, things must make sense, like if you are trying to make a cohesive album, it has to all go together and seem like a unit and with a project centered around singles, I felt like I could just do anything, cause each of the songs exists in itself, it was alone, so it didn’t need to fit with anything. So, I was able to try a bunch of different stuff and really kind of experiment and it turned out to be something really interesting and enjoyable for me and I hope all the people liked it.
Are you thinking of doing similar projects in the future?
Never again, never ever again, that was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life and it was crazy. It was so hard and just so much work and no, I don’t think so. I can see myself releasing some singles again but never 25 in a row, I’ve already put out a full length album at the beginning of last year, I also did a live EP with my other band, ‘The District’ and then I released those 30 songs while I was working on ‘Atlanta’ while this was happening. So it was insane, virtually nuts, that was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life, so definitely not, but you can never say never, so almost definitely not.
And I know that you found a lot of success off YouTube and you regularly keep up with fans on Facebook and twitter, do you think you could have achieve the level of success you have now without the help of those sites?
Anybody that has success in the music industry in the last 10 years can make two arguments, one is: in 1995 you would be talking to me on a private island and the other is: there is no chance I could have done this without social networks. So, it kind of goes either way, like people aren’t making the same kind of money and fame and the same kind of headway in the conventional music industry that once was, like in the 90s there was this band called ‘Deep Blue Breath’ and they had that song ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’ That album sold 3 million copies off that one song, right now to sell 3 million albums you would have to have 5 singles and you would be on tour for 2 years. It’s crazy when you sell 3 million records and so, you used to be able to have a hit single and bust the world with it a lot of times, however I’ve been able to do exactly what I want on my own terms, with nobody telling me what to do and I’ve been able to do that because I found people who like my music and then those people, rather than having to call all there friends like you would had to do before social networking, now they can go on Facebook and say I really like this song, here’s a link to their video of it on YouTube. Of course, no one was going to call a thousand of their friends on the phone but now they have a thousand friends on Facebook then those thousand people have the opportunity to see this video. So, it’s definitely put me in a position where people can spread my music much more readily and for some of my memes, I’m at the center of this grassroot movement where people have spread the music out themselves, so it’s been invaluable, so you could go either way with it.
And for some artists who want to get some exposure online, do you have any advice for them?
Do something good, like I feel that because the recording process has become much more democratic, like you can make a really good sound recording in your bedroom. All you need is a cheap mic that sounds good, a cheap interface that sounds good and so forth and record it into your computer while sitting in your room and do something that sounds good. However, just because you can, does not mean you should, like you should absolutely hone what your doing and create something good, because now one of the negatives on all this instant reach you can have with the internet is that your competing with absolutely everything. When you release a record your competing against ‘Nine Inch Nails’ and ‘Taylor Swift’ and ‘Beyonce’ and the kitten riding on the back of a turtle on YouTube, and people can skype with their grandparents from Crotia, so media is consumed in a very different way now than it ever has been in the past. So, you have to compete with everything all at once, people can sit at their computers and watch a movie that just came out in the theaters or they talk to their grandma on the other side of the world or they could watch the video of my new haircut thing, basically anything funny on youtube, like I said before with the kitten or a monkey, people love monkeys and there are a million videos with them like a monkey with a kitten or a baby monkey riding on a pig do you know how often that happens? That is a baby monkey riding on a little tiny pig and it’s backwards and so you’re competing with all of these things. So, it used to take people’s time to consume media, which if you were a little kid in 1993 and you liked music, you got one CD, you would save your allowance and go to the store and you would buy a CD and that was your CD. If you wanted to go to the movies and save a little bit of money, then you go the movies, but now that same 10 year old can download all the music in the world that’s ever been created and watch all the movies, can talk to all their friends whenever they want, long-distanced phone calls are free, you have so many options and so you need to do something really good and I think a lot of people don’t concern themselves with that and I think that’s why there so much stuff to shuffle through before find something good, because they don’t think should I put this out, they just put it out. So, I think that’s important, like hone your craft, if you want to write songs, become a song writer, work on because you don’t have to put out a record at 14, but maybe you can, maybe you’re a beast when your 14 and your going to blow everybody’s mind but make sure you have it before you start putting stuff out cause your competing with everything. That’s my advice, you want to get attention, do something good.
Well, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Jason Cheung
Photo by Shervin Lainez