Perry Project Interview Gets In-Depth on Creation Process Behind New EP 'Liars, Fires'
Reviews by: Andy Ellis, Writer @andysmileyjay
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, owner/editor @PlaylistTC
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Florida native and now Minnesota-based singer-songwriter Perry Project approaches the craft of songwriting like a painter would an abstract work. The songs he writes are audio canvases where he’s always trying to find a way to express an idea differently than he has before. This seemingly chaotic method of creating leaves room for endless interpretation.
“Recall” almost immediately immerses you in a calm dream state with a gentle piano part, bright vocals, and another synth-type part that helps create that puffy cloud and blue sky look that opens you up for the rest of the project. On “Liars, Fires” and “Miser and the Monk” Perry turns the no-frills indie rock up. The title song has a thick bass foundation and very prominent drum part that combine to provide the song’s feeling of urgency, and the latter song has another catchy drum foundation along with an arena-rock ready guitar part.
“Time Waster” definitely brings the electronics more center stage. And the EP closes on “Laugh Track,” which is the only song not written by Perry. It has a piano driven Ben Folds feel and its speed style mixed with the crowd noise paints a picture of a singer in lounger playing over the noise.
I had the pleasure of talking with Perry Project about his creative process and how this record came to be. It turned into one of the most fascinating talks about creativity I’ve had in a while. Our conversation is below and was edited for clarity.
Andy Ellis: “How did the name Perry Project come about?”
Perry Project: “I was making a quick name for a MySpace and didn't want to create a personal page. I was trying to seek out other musicians to work on music together. Perry Project was not taken, and it made sense as I am a solo artist that brings on collaborators to work with. It just stuck as I was originally trying to find a band to join I decided to have my own project because I was having too much fun writing and coming up with tunes and bringing on collaborators.”
A.E.: “What inspired change in direction for Perry Project’s sound on this record?”
P.P.: “With each album or each work of music I try to implement something new or just challenge myself to come up, to do something different than the last one, to come up with some new elements I’ve never tried before, and always trying to express music, the art form in a different way instead of kind of sticking to an old formula that maybe I started with.
It’s kind of like looking at a painting or something when certain artists represent their artwork on the wall by using different kind of brush strokes, or different colors, or different kind of imagery. I look at creating songs and creating music similarly to that, and each painting has to be a little different each time or the person looking at it may get a little disinterested. So that’s kind of why I felt like, you know, another change of direction was necessary and focusing very much so on the musical aspect and melody, too, and cadence of vocals were very important.
And also some of the first two albums I wrote many, many years ago. I wrote the songs like over 20 years ago, some of them. And it was very important for this new album to be modern and fresh and kind of like my most recent take on, my most recent interpretation of what I wanted to express more currently in stead of rehashing old thought and memories and ways to do things. So this Ep I essentially started from scratch and sat down with a collaborator and we just hashed out these songs.”
A.E.: “When you are working on the new piece of music, do you consciously say, ‘Hey I did this with this project, I want to make sure I don’t do that again.’? Or is that just how you’ve always created?”
P.P.: “There are definitely times when I stop myself and I go, ‘That’s too simple, that’s too plain, that’s kind of what I’ve been doing in my last albums.’ So there are times when during the creative process where I do have to stop and challenge myself even further and say you know, ‘That’s kind of what I’ve been doing. That’s not what I’m going for on this new one.’
But there’s also times where I’m okay with having a simple cadence and kind of revisiting what my original idea of creating music was. Such as the ‘Time Waster’ track. I just went with that one and didn’t stop myself too much during that one. But there are definitely times where you kind of have to stop and go, ‘Is what I’m creating feel original to me? Is it gonna feel original to what what I’ve been doing in the past? Is it going to be different?’
Yeah, there’s definitely times in the creative process where we definitely have to reimagine or rethink something we added to the song to kind of stop ourselves, and go, ‘Hey, let’s challenge ourselves even further on this one, because it’s too similar to what we’ve been doing in the past.’”
A.E.: “Is it true you wrote over 60 songs for this project?”
P.P.: “Not for this project in particular. I guess I had this idea in my head. So I was in the military and I had a contract with the military. I had this idea in my head, ‘well, the more the songs the better. That means that way I can kind of narrow down my best songs from a batch that I’ve written.’ So I personally challenged to write about 60 songs so I can pick from them.
That work for I would say the first two albums. I picked about 20 songs out of the 60 and I doing that it also gave me a creative process that I’ve been able to refine by working on these newer songs, and then being able to approach it from a completely different angle. Because I was so used to approaching each song the same way just because it was just me and my acoustic guitar, just me and like a drum machine. That’s kinda how the project started was me and my acoustic, me and my electric, and me and a drum machine. The project kind of started with me just not being able to find a band and going, ‘okay, well I guess I can make the band then, you know?’ I can do it on my own and I’ll find people to join me. So it’s kind of inspired me writing so many songs. I wouldn’t see it’s not easy, but it’s a process. The hardest part is realizing that it takes time to create. It’s not gonna happen overnight, but it’s a process and I was able to do that over a span of 5 to 8 years.”
A.E.: “‘Recall’ eases you into the record with the way it begins. What inspired that song?”
P.P.: “I sat down with a piano player and I heard the chords. And I was able to essentially direct the piano player playing melodies and I just heard stuff he was playing. I was like, ‘yeah, do that. Switch it up. Do that. Let’s add that in there.’
I brought it home with me and the process I do is I sit there with a mic, I open up my Pro Tools, I put the music file in there, and I just start saying stuff. I started singing, vibing the song out and I was imagining kind of someone that was lost in way, lost in their life, and they got to a point where they were unable to recall their past or a time when they were just being themselves, being spontaneous.
I was also picturing like a lost dog trying to find, like, what would a lost dog think if they lost their way home, in a way? If they couldn’t find their way home how would they feel? What would their emotions go through?
Also I was thinking of somebody that was losing their memory. They didn’t remember a way back home and as you get older your body doesn’t feel the same, either. I kind of say how you’re sore again, ‘I wake this day feeling strange and sore again,’ So maybe you’re like sleeping on a bench, you’re waking up, you’re sore again, and you don’t know what once was, you know? Or maybe you do. Maybe you kinda do, but you forgot how it feels to have your innocence back in a way.
That was the inspiration behind that and then musically I wanted to add elements in there that represented an almost going back. So like if you watch the music video there’s part of it where there’s like a reverse footage, and that was intentional. And then we have clips of, when I was with the producer we brought up clips of news reports of some tragedies, we brought up a clip of a dad talking to his son, and we played those in reverse during that part, too, so you can kinda hear what appears to be chatter that you can’t understand. So that was kind of my idea to let’s play some chatter reversing so you can’t really understand what they’re saying, but you know it’s someone talking. But that’s the point is you’re having trouble recalling.
To add those types of elements into a mix was important to me, because again I wanted to try to make the mix a little different and make you kind of as a listener feel what’s going on in the song. And it definitely adds an atmosphere, and a layer, and a value added to the track. So that’s essentially what inspired it. Being lost.”
A.E.: “Then there’s ‘Liars, Fires’ and it’s one of the most rock-leaning songs on the EP, especially with that driving bass line. It reminded me a little of Semisonic. Could you talk about that one?”
P.P.: “I would say that’s my personal favorite on the entire EP. I sat down with a producer in Minneapolis. His name’s Alexander Dausch, he’s from a studio that he calls Studio Studios. He’s actually originally from San Diego. I gave him some inspirational tracks, kind of just like, ‘Hey, let’s vibe off of these,’ because that’s kinda how I get my brain going. Let’s just vibe off some tracks.
One of the bands we vibed off of was a band in England called Everything Everything. I don’t know, I feel like they’re just creative and they kinda opened up a new perspective on creativity for me, and we just listened to that for a little bit just for inspirational purposes. I also was like, ‘Well, I never had a song with a bass line just driving the song,’ and I really wanted a bass line to drive a song.
So we pretty much initially just came up with a synth sound, so I love the synth sound when it begins and it’s kinda of a warbly sound. And I was kind of like, ‘Yeah, let’s go with that. That sounds amazing.’ And then he was just playing the piano over that synth sound very slowly, and then I kinda just, what I do sometimes is I’ll listen, I can connect dots pretty well, so I’ll listen to what he’s playing and I go, ‘Wait, try this.’ And I kind hum it out. I kind of just sing it out to him (starts humming melody over the phone).
I explain to him what I’m feeling and then he starts playing and I’m like, ‘Yeah, like that.’ So he played it very slowly, it was starting off slowly and I go, ‘Okay, now let’s start really, let’s pick it up now. Let’s pick it up after this intro, and let’s go in with that bass line.’ That’s kinda how the song got started and if you listen very closely you kind of hear a crowd chatter in the beginning. It’s another atmospheric element I wanted in the background, and you can hear halfway through the song, too, very subtly.
I didn’t really want you to notice unless you probably had a pair of headphones on, but if you’re just listening to it you kind of get an atmospheric vibe from it. It just adds too the depth of it, and the drummer did a fantastic job in that, his name is Luke Rivard, and he’s really talented. He really added a lot of flavor to that, and I really to appreciate his input on the track.
When it came to kind of the lyrical interpretation and thought while I was working on lyrics, and melody, you know, that’s kinda my strong point as well is just melody and lyrics and forming a song. Again, I brought it home, put it on Pro Tools and I would say I sat there for a good three hours. Maybe an hour for the verses, to come up with a basic melody and cadence, no lyrics necessarily yet. I refined those a little later.
But ‘days go by’ just came into mind and I’m like, ‘Okay, what does days go by mean?’ And I swear the words ‘liars, fires’ came out to me when that phrase came into play. I just went, ‘liars, fires’ (sings it over the phone) and I was like, ‘That sounds pretty cool.’ So I had ‘days go by,’ ‘liars, fires’ and I had these two phrases that I really felt were driving the song.
The whole pandemic obviously affected everybody. And moving (from Florida) and being able to move to Minnesota, it took me many years to come here, and the whole protests and some of the riots going on around the world. The whole thing happening in Minneapolis downtown with the police force and just the tragedy of stuff going on, I wanted to essentially interpret it from a different perspective.
I kind of took a different angle on it, and it was all I could think about. I was always confused. I didn’t know what was going on, and I wanted to create the lyrical content to be a little confusing. Because that’s how I was feeling. I was confused by everything. I didn’t know what was going on. You don’t know what to believe. You’re just kind of like, ‘what is happening?’
For some of the lyrics, they intentionally don’t make any sense. That was intentional. And then some of the lyrics come from a child’s perspective, such as when I say something like, ‘I don’t like you anyway,’ ‘this whole city,’ and then I go back into ‘liars, fires,’ ‘you’re tires don’t go miles’. It’s kind of a child getting mad and saying things to get back at someone, you know. It’s kind of how I went about it, because you feel a little helpless in some of these situations, almost like a young soul or something when these things happen.
I wanted the music video to not really match what the lyrics are saying. I just got like Tony Hawk Pro Skater vibes from it so I told the video producer, Bradley Dunham, ‘I get Tony Hawk vibes from this. Let’s do like a little skate video with some city scenes, nothing too crazy.’ I didn’t want to spell out what I was trying to say in the video. I wanted to keep it up to peoples’ imagination, but in a nutshell the song’s about keeping up a fight no matter what’s going on, trying to keep moving forward, being confused about things is okay, and calling all the liars in the world and all the fires in the world.”
A.E.: “What was it that made this the best title for the album?”
P.P.: “Unfortunately it’s relevant and until we’re no longer around there’s always gonna be liars and there’s always gonna be fires. So I think that’s what ultimately made sense to me is if you always turn on the news, there’s always some fires going on, there’s always people lying, so it’s just I was like, ‘This is kinda perfect.’
You know, I reference ‘liars, fires’ other times in the EP so I’m like, ‘Okay I’ve referenced this phrase a couple times,’ and then when doing vocals for it I wanted to throw my voice a little bit to get make it sound a little different to add a different element to the emotion.
The delivery can be really important in a song, too. And I’ve realized coming from the last two albums that I wasn’t doing that enough, and I really started honing that in on the second album, Regardless of Everything. And then really started playing with it more on Liars, Fires.”
A.E.: “How did “Meiser and the Monk” come about?”
P.P.: “This one’s an interesting story. So yeah again Luke Rivard on drums. He kept an 80s beat going almost and a good little rhythmic, and I like how the song, it just drives and it doesn’t stop, it keeps driving. This is the one that turned out better than I could imagine.
So “Meiser and the Monk,” it was almost as simple as looking at phrases in a dictionary. There’s like a dictionary with phrases in it and we were on the ‘M’s and I was collaborating with my friend. We’re on the Ms, we saw the ‘meiser’, we saw the word ‘monk,’ and I’m like, ‘What is meiser?’
I’d kinda heard about it, but I didn’t really, meiser is I believe someone that is wealthy, that holds onto their money. I think it’s something like that. Then monk is someone that doesn’t really have any money, but practices patience in a way. And those phrases together just sounded right.
So “Meiser and the Monk” it’s just this offset of characters and then ‘Paisley punk’ yeah there’s a Paisley underground scene I believe in England, and then also I visited Paisley Park and Prince and Prince is big in Minnesota so definitely I think everybody in Minnesota has ties to some sort of a memory of Prince.
So all of that together. I’m a huge fans of English stuff. I’m a huge fan of Prince and like you play paisley punk again, paisley punk kind of offsets itself in a way too because Prince, I don’t think he exactly played punk, he played more of funk, but it just kind of off set each other. Those two words right off the bat were opposites almost. It’s just a way of somebody playing music the way they want to play it, and that’s kinda what Prince did. You can call it Paisley Punk I guess if you wanted to. He was his own genre. So whatever you play, whatever you like, that’s kind of what I was thinking in that moment and it’s kind of whatever you want to play, you do. You call it Paisley Punk.
And then you have living month to month. Who would change a thing kinda thing where it’s like, in a way it is kinda nice to live month to month, that’s a way a lot of people only know how to live. And then who wouldn’t change a thing kind of like, but then again you probably would change it if you could if you had to live month to month. So it’s kinda of a phrase that keeps you thinking a little bit. Then at the end of the day when you really think about living month to month, it is painful so it is that pain in creates is deeper than it seems.”
A.E.: “Whenever it’s played live I can see people just dancing to it.”
P.P.: “Yeah, yeah, definitely. I wanted something driving, too, and just getting people moving and the lyrics are pretty powerful, too. ‘I tried so hard when rolling up my sleeves,’ you know, and then I wanted to kind of make the lyrics keep you guessing in a way like, ‘what is he gonna say next?’.”
A.E.: “Is ‘Time Waster’ a breakup song of some sort?”
P.P.: “I don’t think it’s a break up song actually. I guess when I create songs, especially now, I wanted to create some sort of an emotion in me. I guess the emotion this song created in me was it kind of made me laugh a little bit. Because originally it had different lyrics. It was kind of ridiculous.
My friend had a dream about somebody in a restaurant repeating a phrase over and over again, and bothering the waitress. So the waitress was really offended and I was like okay. He kept repeating in her dream the words ‘bagel beggar’. It sounds really weird so the original lyrics that were just a draft were ‘Don’t tell me you’re a bagel beggar’ or something. And I’m like, ‘You know that sounds kind of weird. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not relatable.’
So I’m like what would a person do that’s being obnoxious in a restaurant? They’re gonna call somebody something and I just kept thinking of something and my friend was like ‘Time waster.’ And I was like, “Yeah, yeah,” that that’s what I was thinking you know, time waster, that makes sense. So ‘Don’t call me your time waster.’ Somebody’s just bothering this person in a restaurant and then it kind of took on a life of its own from there. Like ‘Don’t call me your time waster. You’re the one who’s living in a restaurant.’ To me that’s kind of like, they’re living in a completely different world than you are. They’re from a different walk of life. They’re coming into this restaurant and giving you a hard time as a blue collar worker. And I was also thinking of the service industry and how sometimes they do get mistreated. Or if you wanna go even further, how billionaires are so out of touch from the rest of the population, in a way.
I remember, I’m not gonna say his name, but I remember a certain billionaire launching a rocket at the peak of the pandemic, launched this spaceship. And that’s kinda where the plane metaphor kinda comes down to, is during a harsh time in our society, where people were reportedly dying, getting sick and you had a billionaire launching a rocket and people clapping for it. And to me that just represents just maybe somebody, people that are extremely wealthy being a little out of touch and it kinda took that route a little bit.
But it’s almost like somebody dissing back on somebody for calling them a name. Like it’s in the simplest form, somebody calls you a name, they feel like they’re above you and you kinda just let them have it, in a way. Don’t call me your time waster, you’re the one living in a restaurant. You’re kind of dissing them back. And then ‘you’re plane’s in the air, and then it lands and people are in their first-class seats clapping.’ …..I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an airplane, but I think one of the weirdest things in an airplane is when it lands and people start clapping. I don’t know why I just always found that extremely, I don’t know I found that odd, kinda of…I was like people in their first class seats are clapping in a way. They’re excited about something, you know. So the life of the song took on its own. And the plane’s all flying over me. ‘I am humbled but seriously, don’t call me your time waster.
So that’s kind of more or less the thought process going into that song. People your feel that are out of touch with and it goes every walked of life. You could be extremely impoverished and you feel like somebody else out of touch. Then the people that you feel are above, they’re struggling. There’s like tiers to feelings.”
A.E.: “Laugh Track” closes out the EP. It’s got a lite feel to it and a great piano part. I also liked that announcer sample as well. How did this one come about?”
P.P.: “This one’s an interesting story. So ‘Laugh Track,’ when I lived in Tampa Bay, Florida for a few years, I would do a lot of open mics in Tampa Bay. I was trying to get better at singing, get better at playing the guitar, even though I don’t consider myself a guitarist, I was just trying to get better at everything. In the community I met, you know, who would do open mics with me and one of the musicians performing quite frequently with me or coming on after me or before me, his name was Josh Paul. And he would play this song called “Laugh Track” and it immediately just stuck in my head, like, I couldn’t get it out of my head.
And I had my own idea of what that song should sound like since I first heard it, and I asked him, I was like, ‘What are you going to do with this song?’ He would only play it acoustically at shows, little open mic shows, or he’d have his own little acoustic shows, and he goes, ‘Oh, nothing. I’m not gonna do anything with it.’ And I’m like okay, ‘Who wrote it?’ And he told me it was one of his friends that wouldn’t give his name out and his friend called himself Silver Wren and I always to this day don’t know if that’s a made up name, if that’s really Josh Paul. I don’t know. I was like, ‘Who’s Silver Wren?’ And he wouldn’t tell me he’s like, ‘That’s just what he goes by.’ I’m like, ‘Um, okay. That’s your friend?’ and he’s like, ‘Yeah.’
I’m like can you ask him if I could possibly produce and record it for my next EP?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, he said you could use it. He’s not gonna record it. It’s just a song he wrote for fun.’
So, essentially, it was just an acoustic track with just the vocals on it. And I kind of took to a next level and interpreted it, almost paying homage to one of my favorite songwriters in Tampa, and one of my favorite performers.
I heard piano, my producer hear upright bass, I imagined somebody talking in the beginning. Like an old school announcer just kind of like what you said. The piano player, I imagined a grand piano so we had a piano player in Minneapolis, Mark Zagenhagen, he did a fantastic job. And I kinda told him to like, ‘Okay, you’re in a bar. People are fighting in the background, but you don’t know what’s going on, you’re just playing piano.’ Thats kinda the vibe I gave him. I think he did a fantastic job and that voice you hear in the beginning is actually, it was famous actor I believe in the 50s and 60s, Gary Cooper. That’s his voice and I forgot which movie he said that in, but you can hear it again towards the end of the song, and his voice is being played in reverse, kind of paying homage to ‘Recall’ in a way. That’s the last thing you really hear is his voice playing in reverse. And in this particular song, “Laugh Track,” it’s got the words on ‘liar, fires’ in there, too. It kind of leant itself perfectly in this collection of songs. I thought I just had to use it.
So I went ahead and recorded it. Piano, upright bass, vocals, I got one of my friends to do back up vocals, Ali Daniels. I got my guitarist on it, Stafford Christenson, to put a acoustic on it. So kind of an overall collaboration of just a lot of different people on this one, and I think that’s what makes this one so special. And the chorus just saying ‘ha ha ha’ over again. To me, that’s just very unique.”
A.E.: “With these songs, there seems to be a mix of electronic elements and also more traditional elements. Was that a hard balance to strike to make sure one doesn’t overtake the other?”
P.P.: “Yeah, I think that’s something you learn over time is to not let certain instruments overpower one another. You gotta be okay with sometimes burying one of the instruments. Because I think some musicians, they want their parts to stand out. But every part can’t stand out, you can’t create a healthy balance that way. You have to be okay with maybe your part isn’t the highlight of the song. It’s more of a, I wouldn’t say filler, but it compliments the song in a different way.
There’s certain instruments you have to highlight. So like when mixing, I know Steve Vealey mixed all the songs on here, he’s really talented. He’s actually a protege of Michael Brauer, who has mixed a lot of really big name bands like Coldplay and John Mayer. He’s out of New York.
But Steve Vealey, he’s very good about creating a balance of a few key elements in the songs. Because you gotta pick a few key elements to stand out, and the rest you gotta kind of be able to either pan hard right, left, or possibly create an effect to have them pan left and right at the same time throughout the song to create that kind of a balance or an atmospheric element to the songs.
Yeah, you definitely as a musician, too, when you give him your feedback, you have to be okay with saying, ‘Okay, I think this is too loud. We need to make this instrument a highlight instead or need backing vocals.’ Sometimes I would be like, ‘Yeah, I think these are too quiet. We need to hear them more.’ And sometimes the mixing engineer will push back and be like ‘Well, it’s competing with this frequency if you do that.’ And I’m like ‘wow, I never even thought of that.’
If you have too many competing frequencies in a mix it just doesn’t sound sonically pleasing. So I think that is a rough decision you have to make. Sometimes you have to cut the song shorter than it was, because originally some of my songs were like six minutes that are now less than 4 minutes. Gotta make those tough decisions.”
A.E.: “Your way of creating a song is very non-linear. You’re always trying to keep it fresh or try something new. For you, how do you know when you’re done with a song?”
P.P.: “Yeah, so here’s how I know. I’ve definitely wrote many songs so how I know when I’m done, when I’m releasing the finished product, if I can honestly tell myself in this moment in time, have I tried everything and gave this song my best shot to the best of its ability right now. And if I can say yes then it’s done. I’m done with it.
So I always find myself going in this moment in time are you happy with it? Did you try everything that you could in this song. Did you add everything you wanted, and if my answer is yes then I’m done. I can’t possibly work on it anymore, because if you keep adding certain things sometimes it just doesn’t compliment the song at all. So you gotta really think of that in mind, too. That’s essentially what I have to ask myself.”
A.E.: “When you were going in this new direction, did you draw any new influences musically or in terms of songwriting that you hadn’t drawn on before?”
P.P.: “Yeah, definitely. You want some particular artists?”
A.E.: “Sure! Of course!”
P.P.: “I would say the artist I’ve been listening to a lot lately would be a band called Everything Everything. I mentioned them a little earlier, they’re out of the UK (United Kingdom) I believe. They have a lot of electronic elements, and I just love how unique they are and how bold their lyrics and the guy’s vocal stylings are. Everything Everything is a band that definitely influenced me creatively.
I wouldn’t say I tried to sound like them, it’s just they inspired me. They’ve created a different kind of way to think about a song. They’re the band that definitely helped me on this one. Inspired me to write this particular EP. I mean obviously there’s the foundational bands like, when I was younger I loved a lot of Motown. I like Stevie Wonder, I like the Beatles, I like Oasis, Tears for Fears, even bands like Korn. They’re out of close to my hometown.
But definitely lately it’s been more electronic based music, such as the band Everything Everything, or there’s a band called CHVRCHES, there’s a band called All We, which is so vibes. But then you gotta also be yourself and draw from your influences and just make it your own.”
A.E.: “How would you compare the Florida music scene to the Minnesota music scene?”
P.P.: “The music scene in Tampa Bay isn’t as many people there, in general. It’s a little bit smaller of a music scene so I think the musicians in Florida tend to stick together a little bit more. I think the musicians in Minnesota, there’s so many very talented ones here, they tend to get in their own musical circles. It’s a little harder to break into that circle in Minnesota. But that’s not saying it’s a bad thing, that actually can be a good thing, because you get challenged more as a musician here in Minnesota than you would in Florida, I would say.
In Minnesota I would say there’s just more talent here. More talent moves here. We got a musical backbone here with Bob Dylan, Prince, and many other that are from here. And that’s one of the reasons why I love Minnesota so much is I’m able to challenge myself professionally, musically, and just learn from others and really challenge myself and my creative process to be the best I can be.
I’m not saying that didn’t happen in Tampa Bay, but it didn’t happen as much. I met some really, really good people in Tampa Bay, really good friends. But when it comes to creating music, I believe Minnesota is definitely one of the top places on my list, to be honest, that I’ve been to. Tampa Bay just doesn’t have as many venues. Didn’t have as many producers in the area. Here we got many places, many studios here that have created some classic songs and sounds and Tampa Bay, Florida doesn’t have as much of that.”
A.E.: “How has moving here to Minnesota and being in this music scene effected your creative process? You said you’ve just been challenged to be better, right?”
P.P.: “I’m able to collaborate with super, super talented minds that have been in the industry. Like Alexander coming from San Diego and he’s got a California vibe and then for ‘Recall’ I partnered with Jack Vondrachek from Tangerine Studios. And he’s lived here I think all of his life.
I think it’s just the creative process, you know, being in the bitter cold and having four seasons. It definitely changes your perspective on the creative process. It changes how you think of things, and just being surrounded by a lot of talented musicians. That definitely does affect your creative process. In a way, you want to challenge yourself to be just as good as them or maybe even try to impress them a little bit. So I think that it’s kind of like being on a basketball court sometimes. You want to make some baskets. You want to stand out once in a while.”
A.E.: “What do you want listeners to take away from this record?”
P.P.: “Honestly, the most I could hope for is they listen to it, enjoy it, and can relate to it in some way. And they like it enough where they want to share it with some of their friends or family. That’s all I can hope for and if it evokes any type of emotion in them where they remember this song and go wait I kinda hear that again, that’s all I can really ask for.
As with doing music and creating some art it’s like going back to the painting. When people stare at a painting and they start talking about it, that’s probably one of the best feelings. And they start interpreting it in their own way because, based on their own life experiences. That’s all I can hope for.”
