The Record Jape
I’d email versions over to him and he would come back with brutally honest assessments of what he thought. That’s something I think is important and fun for a musician or songwriter: you should have to fight for your parts. Good natured arguments make great music as long as the bottom line is, “we are serving this song”. Being in Sweden is a little bit like living in a bubble for me, to be honest. I basically stick to myself and try to get to the studio as much as possible. People have asked me if living in Sweden has changed the way I make music and the only thing I can say to that is that it’s definitely easier to
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The Thin Air Magazine
get more work done, as there are a lot less distractions. For some reason, as well, I find it easy to be reflective up there in Scandinavia - something to do with the weather perhaps or maybe that fifteen minute studio walk, where thoughts seem to hang around and make themselves cups of tea. This is helpful when you are songwriting because these thoughts, which become lyrics, always have some hidden meanings. They are crossword puzzle clues and you have to mull them over in order to get them to reveal themselves. I listened a lot to a lot of music in the writing process but I would say one of the
biggest influences on this record was Johnny Jewel from The Chromatics. Not so much their music - which I adore - but more so his work ethic and the way he continually works and just does his thing and gets better all the time. Johnny is a very pure artist and that is so inspiring to me. I’d say David Kitt is like that too actually, just super hard-working - get the head down and get the tracks made and keep going. I would sometimes think to myself when recording, “WWJD?” Johnny, not Jesus. My mother got sick with cancer and died during the making of this album, too. I can’t forget getting the call