M: I've been listening closely to your new album Dryland in preparation for talking to you and was at times overwhelmed by the sadness I felt listening to it. It was uncomfortable- I had to walk away from the speakers repeatedly and I had a markedly unproductive few days. (I mean this as a compliment.) Being myself so debilitated by proximity to your work, I wonder what place melancholy has in your daily life. Some people I know who's art goes deeply into a specific emotional palate embody totally different energy outside of the creating process, others seem always to be living inside their pieces. Do you agree with my impression that your songs are sad?
CP: I think that many of my songs are sad, yes. And I think that my sad songs do come from my immediate experience or my personal sadness. I don’t think that the people that know me are surprised that the songs are sad. I often use songwriting as a tool to get through difficult times. And then, it’s almost as though once I put the melancholy into the song, it’s not in me anymore. I get it out of my system. It’s my way of processing it.
That said, however, I don’t think that all my songs are sad. In fact, on Dryland, I think that there is a theme of hope threaded throughout many of the songs. While they topically are dealing with sad subject matter, I don’t think that they are fatalistic. I think that “Compass Rose” is a good example of this.
M: Because your songs are so introspective, I imagine you hunkering down inside yourself to write. How important is it to you to jam with other musicians? Does your receptivity to other musician's input change as a piece matures?
CP: I am, for the most part, very private about my writing process. It is so personal and so vulnerable that I can’t imagine it a different way. I have never co-written and I don’t play new songs for anyone until they are mostly done. When I have something as a full draft, I will bring it to other people for feedback about the song and its arrangement. While I was writing Dryland, I was rehearsing for shows with 2 of the players on the record, Sebastian Renfield and Merrill Garbus. I would bring them new songs and we would work out instrumentation for the live shows. Their input was really helpful in honing the final vibe, tone and arrangements. The songs had the chance to evolve and mature in that way. That was an ideal way for me to work. I am about to hunker down and just work on writing for a few months, and so I hope I am so lucky as to have something like that again.
M: I noticed you recorded with some very strong players on Dryland. (Allison Miller, David Goodrich) Had you worked with either of them before? Anything interesting to know about anyone else who appears on the album?
CP: I had not worked with either of them before, no. It was great working with both of them and I really appreciated their creative input. In addition, Sebastian and Merrill both came in and recorded their parts that had evolved with the songs, so their parts all came in a much more organic way. I tried to match players up with specific songs in terms of their styles and their strengths.
Lyndell Montgomery of the Ember Swift Band also played on a few tunes and she will be performing with me at the Iron Horse show on Tuesday. (as well as Merrill Garbus).
M: Do lyrics and music evolve together or does one generally come first? Do you have any writing rituals?
CP: The music almost always comes first for me. But the music and lyrics do also evolve together. I start playing around with some chords and then I start humming some melodies. Usually some lyrics evolve out of that. The lyrics have to be framed by the cadence of the melody, so I find it very hard to write the lyrics separately from the song. I don’t sit around all day just writing lyrics in a notebook.
As far as writing rituals- the most important thing is that I have found is that I have time to work on something for a few hours every day for many days. That is the only way that I am able to sort through the weak ideas and develop the strong ones. It takes me a while to complete a song. I have also found that I need my own space to write. I have been living on the road for the last year and as a result my productivity has slowed to a crawl. I can’t write on the road.
M: I imagine you are an intellectual generalist, and that when you were doing science every day, you needed to do music off the clock. Now that music is your bread and butter, do you find yourself needing to carve out a place in your life for left brained ways of knowing? Do you miss science?
CP:I do miss science. I especially miss talking about science. I miss being surrounded by intellectuals. I miss learning in that way. And it was a really nice balance for me, being able to work in the lab during the day and come home and play music at night. But I wasn’t able to tour the way that I needed to with that set-up. And doing music full time is rewarding in an entirely different way, so I am happy that I am focusing on music right now. I also don’t feel like I have closed the door on science. If I ever miss it too much, I will seek it out again.
