Q: How is it you can release so much music so consistently? Many musicians are fearful of committing to “making a record”, you seem to thrive on it.
LP: Well, it’s the medium I love most. I like making sound movies, recordings. I thought at a very young age: I write way too many songs to pay for studio time and I love playing with microphones and tape recorders so I just need a “dream machine” to hear all the musical parts that are in my head, at the same time.” I love being a recording artist.
Many musicians love performing live and part of it’s appeal is the, “in the moment of it, no one is gonna hear this again”, freedom they experience with playing live. They thrive on the interaction with the audience. I have easily been overwhelmed with bright lights and stages and the sheer volume of the bands I’ve been in.
Q: But aren’t you taking on and wearing too many hats? How can you keep perspective; wouldn’t it be better to have a producer, or top-notch recording engineer?
LP: When you have the right people, the right team, if you can hire them or find folks with complimenting talents that want to take part, sure. They’re a godsend. But again, I’ve been fascinated with gear and playing with sounds and creating sound landscapes and emotions, atmospheres in the medium of a recording, so it never felt like a big stretch. I was just following my curiosities.
On the past few projects, releases, albums, singles, eps, my friends: Mike Bishop, Leah Bluestein, Mike Dutko, Danny Morris, Tom Evans, recorded their parts and sent me sound files to pop in the Logic project. So, I’m not always the only engineer. Tom’s drum tracks for “Love Wins” were pretty set. He got a great sound and I couldn’t do too much to them, the sound was there; the tracks wouldn’t take much more compression or EQ, they didn’t need them. Also, I have recorded at Wachusett Recording when Michael Harmon has played and recorded his drums; and on the song, “Love For You”, he set up and recorded his drums and Mike Bishop’s bass, and sent me the tracks. I was at the session but Michael Harmon engineered the drums & bass. Plus, Kate Chadbourne contributed lyrics. I do love collaboration, too.
Same with, “Used to Love” & “Guest List”, Leanne Ungar recorded the basics: bass, drums, vocals, rhythm guitars, piano, and backing vocals, sent me the tracks, and I overdubbed the rest and mixed it. I didn’t need to do much of anything to her recorded tracks either. I was smart enough to leave them alone!
Q: But, you seem to release more music than any other faculty member at Berklee…
LP: I don’t know if that is true. But I love to write songs and believe it or not I still have more finished songs written than released because there was a period of time where I was forced to move, change locations a lot, and when your gear is in boxes, writing songs is the easiest thing to keep doing. I redirected my energy. I can’t do this, well I CAN do this. Also writing feels like playing with magic. You really are collaborating with the muse. It’s a perfect, fun, amazing thing to spend time doing and again at a young age, I had the thought, I love doing this so much, why don’t I do it more often? It’s one of my favorite things to do. I learned to turn it on any time I wanted to. It’s an energy to open up to. It’s always there for us for anything in life not just writing songs. I don’t believe we are “alone”. It’s a benevolent universe working with us, giving us the juice to carry on. We have a dance partner. The invitation is always, “do you want to dance?”
Plus, not every musician is a writer/composer, and studio time up until everyone had a daw to record with, was still expensive. Some folks are just arrangers, or players. Ya, can’t compare. Plus, it’s not a competition. It’s not about this music is good or bad. I love doing it. I don’t really care about what others think about it. I’m just amusing myself, solving puzzles, playing with sound, putting all my favorite bits together. I like what I come up with. It doesn’t have to be, “right”, or perfect, I’m after a certain level of competence, experience, and fun. I get frustrated and there are folks doing a much better recording or mixing or mastering job, but I love learning and getting better at those skills, too.
If you compare each album from Among The Ruins to Snowcake, and every ep or single in between, I have been steadily improving all those skills and wearing of hats, as you say. I’m not trying to take on more than I can manage, or prove anything to anyone, I just want to hear my ideas, and they are songwriting, instruments, arrangements, production and finished mix ideas. They all play into the finished picture for me. So, they never felt like separate tasks to do by different people. Who would want to do all this work for free for me? And I certainly didn’t want to pay someone continuously. I always preferred to own the gear, ‘cuz it’s fun to play with the buttons, knobs & switches and hear what they do. It was always all part of it for me.
Q: Well, how do you feel that it is now the norm? I mean, everybody records and releases their own music now.
LP: Well, people have been recording in their homes long before I started doing it. It is funny how popular home recording has become and how many thousands of songs are released each day, but as a result fantastic recording equipment has become available to the consumer. So, we win. Keep creating everybody. It keeps you sane.
Q: Does it though? Does it keep you sane? Aren’t you riding all the emotions of the creative artist most of the time anyway?
LP: Absolutely, but what makes it all worthwhile? ~ doing it, the music itself is the gift, the reward, the goal, the happiness, the fun. The magic for me is, in the making. It’s the doing of it that calls me all the time. Creating music is like breathing and eating and sleeping, for me. I have to have it. It’s not optional.