For those readers that haven’t heard of you before could you tell us a bit about yourself, your story?
Well, I’m an American living in Colchester, England. I was born in New Jersey to a family of Italians and Italian-Americans, but I was raised in the midwestern cornfield suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. I was exposed, at a very young age, to music from my parents that included a wide-variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Jim Croce, Cat Stevens, Elton John, and LOTS of Motown. As a teenager I found my way to my own range of musical influences, everything from AC/DC and Iron Maiden to Neil Young. The most influential artist from that era (and still my all-time favorite singer-songwriter) was John Mellencamp. At a time when synth-pop was all you could get on MTV and on the radio, here was a guy playing an acoustic guitar with a fiddle player and an accordion player, often shooting his videos in (or near) midwestern cornfields, singing about life and joy and pain.
Fast-forward many years to 2000 when I was living in California, and when I bought my first guitar. I taught myself some basic chords and was satisfied playing covers in my living room. Another jump to 2006 when I moved to England for my day-job and (once I started to experience turmoil in my personal life) I started to write my own lyrics. That was around 2009-2010. I released my first CD in 2014. The reviews were really positive and I was getting shows at great venues from London to Norwich (The Islington, Proud Camden, The Harrison, The Monarch, Colchester Arts Centre, Live at Little Rabbit Barn, Cambridge Folk Club, John Peel Centre for Creative Arts), so I kept at it.
My second CD came out in 2015. Then, on my third CD (‘Days Like These’ – released in 2017) I had the incredible opportunity to work with platinum-selling producer and singer-songwriter Simone Felice (the producer for The Lumineers, Vance Joy, and Bat For Lashes) and with James Felice from the well-known American folk band The Felice Brothers. We recorded that CD in the Catskill Mountains of New York. It was an amazing experience. I had been a fan of Simone’s (and of The Felice Brothers) from before I wrote my first song, so to have him produce one of my own CDs was a bit surreal. I have since released a fourth CD (‘Chasing Ghosts’ in 2018) and my new single (‘How It Seems’) is available everywhere on Valentine’s Day this year. I guess that’s the whirlwind tour of my life…
Who inspired you to get on stage and perform?
I’ve been a writer and a performer in one form or another most of my life. I was writing for pay in high school (at the town paper) and I was a theatre minor at university. For a period of time, I seriously considered pursuing a career in acting. Eventually, I took a different path, working as a writer and a producer in broadcast news in Chicago and in Los Angeles.
As for getting on stage to perform my own music? Well, I don’t know if I can point to any one person as the inspiration for that. As I said, performing was a part of my past, and when it comes to music as an art form, it is – at least in my opinion – meant to be a shared experience. Of course, music is personal to each individual listener, but there’s something really special about a group of people listening to a performer as a collective, sharing the experience, all while those folks are each having their own unique, individual reaction to the music.
I think once I felt that I had created some songs with something to say about what I was going through, I needed to have the cathartic experience of letting it all out, and an important part of the process for me is sharing in that collective experience.
Are there any albums in particular that have stuck with you and influence you throughout you career?
Just about everything from John Mellencamp, but especially ‘The Lonesome Jubilee’ and a lesser-known album of his called ‘Big Daddy’. Also ‘Soul’s Core’ by Shawn Mullins. More recently, I have been influenced by The Avett Brothers (‘The Second Gleam’ and ‘I and Love and You’), ‘Mescalito’ from Ryan Bingham, multiple albums from The Felice Brothers (especially ‘Tonight At The Arizona’, ‘The Felice Brothers’, and ‘Yonder Is The Clock’). Jason Isbell (especially ‘Southeastern’).
I absolutely wear out my mp3s (is that possible?) from First Aid Kit (‘The Lion’s Roar’, ‘Stay Gold’, and ‘Ruins’). Klara Söderberg is such a great songwriter. Oh, and a number of albums from The Decemberists. Colin Meloy is another brilliant songwriter and his work often inspires me (‘The Crane Wife’, ‘The King Is Dead’, ‘The Hazards of Love, and ‘What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World’). I need to stop myself at this point from answering this question… I could go on for quite a long time.
Could you tell us a bit about the writing/recording of the ReverbNation winning track “This Time”?
First of all, thanks for selecting the song! It’s a really personal song and it means a great deal to me that it resonates with you. I wrote ‘This Time’ at the very beginning of 2017, when I was 48. Like most of my songs, I only had one line my head as I sat down to write that day. The line was “I’m more than halfway done with my life”. I was fairly confident then, as I am now, that I won’t be seeing 96, so I was pretty committed to the line! 🙂
As I usually do, I just found a simple chord progression that suited my voice and the melody that naturally came out when I sang the line. From there, to be honest, not a lot of thought went into it. Good, bad, indifferent, the song kind of wrote itself in a very short period of time. That’s happened a number of times for me over the years, and I really don’t try to explain it or question it.
I find that when I have to grind too hard over a song, I’m often less than satisfied with the results. I typically DO finish those songs, because I have a general belief that completing songs, even if you aren’t likely to use them, ‘greases’ the process up a bit so that some other song will more easily flow. I can’t say for certain (2017 was so long ago!), but it’s very likely that ‘This Time’ came out of me a day or so after I finished some other song that I’ve never played since. That’s a fairly common part of my ‘process’.
The recording was done at The Boathouse Studio in Suffolk, England during the cold winter months of early 2018. It’s on my album ‘Chasing Ghosts’ and myself and my co-producer Adam Bowers had a really good sense of what the song needed. We spent a good deal of time getting the backing vocals down with my regular band mate Louisa Charrington. We also contacted a great pedal steel player in the States (David Phillips) and he added some lovely country tones to the song. I had it in my head that pedal steel would fit, and I think he nailed it.
What is the most interesting venue you have performed at?
I guess I’d have to say Jurnet’s Bar in Norwich. I’ve only played it once, but you basically play in an underground cellar with a typical “Norman-era” arch in part of a building dating back to the 1100s. That was pretty cool.
How does the music scene differ from America, here in the UK?
I really can only speak to the scene here, as I didn’t get out playing music until I moved to the UK. Obviously, from talking with friends who do play in the States, there are many great venues in many cities, but it’s such a large country that it can be quite prohibitive for folks to get out of their local regions to play. Here, I can hop on a train and be pretty much anywhere in the country for a show that night or the next day. I like that. As for audiences, I find that people are often surprised at first when I start to sing, possibly due to my age and certainly due to my American accent, but they are often quite receptive to my music and it’s always fun to talk with folks after a show. Supporters of live music in the UK are lovely. 🙂
What do you think is missing from today’s music industry?
That’s a difficult question. There’s a bit of a ‘blessing and a curse’ type of thing going on in music today, particularly in the sense of how much easier it is for people to produce high-quality music in short periods of time without the need for expensive studios. On the one hand, it’s incredible to have an idea, gather some talented friends, and record a song all within a short period of time and without breaking the bank. On the other hand, that reality has flooded the ‘industry’ with a mass of product and tons of talented folks, most of whom are struggling to be heard.
It reminds me of great lyric from John Mellencamp from 1988 (always ahead of his time!) in his song ‘Check It Out’ about dreams and toil and disillusionment… He writes “A million young poets, screaming out their words, to a world full of people, just living to be heard…” So, what’s missing? Support, I guess, for the poets. The independence of modern music production is awesome, but it can also be quite isolating and it can leave you feeling just like what I think John is saying, that you’re out there on your own, without a clear way to break through the noise. Of course, I am part of that noise. Happily so.
Here at Artistic Echoes we are always on the look out for new artists do you have anyone to recommend?
I don’t know if these will be ‘new’ to you and/or to your readers, but here’s who’s been occupying my time and my ears lately: Nathaniel Rateliff, Stephen Kellogg, Horse Feathers, Shovels & Rope, Hiss Golden Messenger, Jeffrey Martin, Anna Tivel, Evan Bartels.
What plans do you have for the rest of the year?
Lots of shows (some booked, others still to come, I hope!) and some more recording and releasing. After releasing 4 CDs in 5 years, I’m starting to focus on single releases, and I should have two-to-three out this year. That’s the plan!
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