Straylight Run still stands, as does a massive collaborative
musical outreach. JOHN NOLAN is still managing to branch off in yet another direction- the solo tour. Nolan’s solo material is more introspective than emotional, drawing from other sources like religion rather than his personal plight. He’ll be playing THE on Saturday, JULY
25th thanks to Manic Productions.
SPACE
Is there any source from which you get most of your inspiration for songwriting? I’ve drawn from different inspirations at different times, and I think in the past I tended to draw from more negative feelings I would have. I would use songwriting as a way to tap into frustrations and things that I’ve felt that were negative but didn’t know how to express otherwise.
More recently, I’ve gotten tired of that. It’s kind of like-if you keep doing that--a lot of what you’re putting out and sharing with people is negative. I’ve tried to draw inspiration from a more thoughtful place, not forcing things to be positive but not drawing from emotionally negative feelings that I have. That’s what I’m hoping for.
Do you going
notice your style changing while through different projects?
I think that there are things that are always going to be there through whatever project I’m doing. There’s something in the melodies that I write that usually stays fairly the same- I could look all the way back through any band I’ve been in, all the way through high school and there’s something in the melody’s make up that doesn’t change very much. It’s just a consistency. I tend to mess around with different projects but I always come back to songs that have basic chord progressions, songs that you could break down to just playing on the acoustic guitar no matter what the style of that is.
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ELISE GRANATA | INKWELL PRESS | ELISEGRANATA@YAHOO.COM
It’s definitely not a conscious kind of thing. There are chords, chord progressions, and melodies that I think I like, and gravitate toward to without much thought.
What direction are you trying to take your solo work in?
I’m really trying to embrace the idea of simple, straight forward song with basic chord progression and solid melody, but I’m also trying to go further than I had in the past with arrangements around the song. It’s a slightly different direction with slightly different songs. It’s me and the producer [Mike Sapone] (Brand New, Straylight Run), who got the album from me after I did everything at home. He added drum machine stuff, and bass and guitar and keyboard. It’s because while mixing it, he heard things he thought would enhance the songs and did some drumming, added little bits of instrument to fill things out. It’s collaboration in a pretty serious way.
What are your plans for the tour you’re going on? Who are you touring with? We’re going out with MANSIONS and we’re gonna do a kind of thing where we get involved in each other’s set. Their band is going to be playing on some of my songs and I’ll maybe play something here and there with them and collaborate on performances. So far what I’ve done is have my wife play keyboards and a little bit of guitar with me, recreating some of the arrangements on the songs in a more low key way. I’m still figuring out how many songs we can pull together that Mansions can play with me.
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ELISE GRANATA | INKWELL PRESS | ELISEGRANATA@YAHOO.COM
What are you going to do with the material? As long as everyone who worked on the songs are okay with it, I’m going to put it up for free download at some point. Haven’t talked to people who’ve sent it to me yet, but they’re probably as happy to get their music out there as much as I am.
And
your
plans
for
the
solo
album?
Set to be released in September. [Not having the record available on tour] will probably be an obstacle. Going to put some songs out on my myspace page, gonna get at least two of the songs from the album up for people to listen to. Maybe I’ll just record some acoustic versions of songs and make a little EP out of that to sell for the shows on the tour or just to give away. I’m trying to think of some things to do. EG
16
ELISE GRANATA | INKWELL PRESS | ELISEGRANATA@YAHOO.COM
7PM| 12 dollars
It kind of started a while before I was gonna get the songs from my album up on myspace. I think it’s an interesting way to get music out there before the songs from album. To have people send music to me and collaborate on it seemed like an interesting idea, a good way to get some music going, and was a challenging project for me, too. Some people sent in songs with vocals over it, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. The songs I ended up going with were songs with instruments that people sent me, so far I’ve only added a little to the songs instruments like guitar or synthesizer. Mostly what I’ve done is written lyrics. Put it up on my myspace, that was all I did. Absolute punk put a post up on their website. Got like one hundred-something songs sent to me I na couple of days. Didn’t take much to get the word out.
wi. mansions | modern hearts break faster | the tired and true |
Tell me a little about your collaborative project. Why are you doing it? Process?