THEME MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
WHO DID YOU APPRENTICE FOR? Stuart Matthewman, Grammy-winning songwriter / musician / producer. WHICH CRAFT? Engineering and mixing. I produce, record and write. Since I basically do everything on my own music I taught myself how to use Logic, and when I recently moved up to Logic 9 I was able to use what I learned from Stuart: Using compressors, plug-ins, all aspects of recording. All of these skills are part of what I do every single day.
HOW DID YOU MEET ONE ANOTHER AND DECIDE TO START WORKING TOGETHER? When I was 21 I co-wrote on a Smithsonian concer album and my co-writer told me about "this guy from Sade." She was writing with him and said that we would get along--we both made her laugh and both had similar senses of humor. My sense of humor is old Englishman, I guess. Because of her, we linked up and became friends. I started sending stuff to him to see what he thought of it and it just turned into this great correspondence. He really liked different things about each song and thought it was consistent but the melodies were different. He was inspired by it. His feedback for the composing aspect was really cool. So we had this mutual friendship based on that and over time we started working together. We found we could write songs togther at first, bu it turned out to be more of a friendship. I started to hang out with him when he was in his New York studio and watched him and what he was doing on the boards. We'd talk about arrangement and different mics and ways to get different sounds. He'd help me do some of my mixes, and it became this kind of mentoring.
WHAT MADE THIS TEACHER SPECIAL? Our mutual bi-polar taste in music and having a laugh.
A MEMORABLE ANECDOTE? Stuart was doing these backing tracks where the chords were really weird and he didnt have any real plan for them. He sent them to me with the idea, "Oh, she'll never be able to write on this" It was almost like a challenge. Within a few hours, I sent the tracks back to him with lyrics and melody. We had this back and forth thing with all these songs going and it developed really quickly. Sixteen songs later we became THANK FRANK and now have an offer for a record deal. Life is funny.
Photo by Io Tillett Wright, "Mercury Lounge, GASLAND benefit NYC, 2010"
HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED FROM APPRENTICING TO NOW PARTNERING TOGETHER? The mentor/mentee aspect has kind of evolved from little tricks in production and engineering to deaing with our projects now - fielding offers from labels, choosing a manager and figuring all that out. So it's evolved into him giving me advice on things I have asolutely no clue about. A lot of it is like career instruction.
ARE YOU MENTORING ANYONE RIGHT NOW YOURSELF? I have a lot of friends who are really involved in their own projects and we're all in a similar place - we're starting to blow up, which is really exciting. Some are filmmakers, some are photographers, dancers. We've been collaborating too. Its just great, good timing.
ANY ADVICE FOR BUDDING MUSICIANS? When you're pursuing something that's not a predictable nine-to-five gig, true endurance is really key. And keeping a good sense of humor about what you're running from, keeping an open heart and open mind. You know, it's like running towards what you fear. //
