H.pe Interview
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: In the early ’90s, everyone (of a certain age) was inspired by Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. The next logical step was to obviously get a guitar and start a band. The band names at the time were always derivatives of something related to Nirvana: “In Bloom,” “The Negative Creeps,” “Molly’s Lips” or “The Sons of a Gun.” Really bad names! My favorite was “The Cobainers,” which included a guy with a homemade Flipper sweatshirt. At the time, my music knowledge was quite limited so songs were always three power chords in a verse, a chorus and then a bridge with a heavy outro. As I got older, I started to become more interested in punk and it’s offshoots, and I started a band that cited influences like Black Flag, Minor Threat, Clutch, Helmet and Failure. And then I remember getting a copy of The White Album for Christmas and my world changed. At the time, The Beatles weren’t considered the coolest thing to listen to, but I loved the diversity and the melodies. John Lennon quickly became a huge influence on me. I spent the summer of 1996 in Dublin, Ireland with my grandparents. I didn’t have a guitar with me, so my grandfather surprised me by buying me an acoustic. I spent that summer writing songs that were completely different then anything else I had ever created. I also spent that time really discovering music for the first time. I loved the evolution of things. How The Beatles had influenced nearly everyone. How Bowie came to be and how he constantly changed his sound. The transition of punk to post-punk and then to new wave and dance music (Joy Division to New Order fascinated me). All of this really changed how I went about writing songs. The problem, at the time, was having the skills to create music like that, and finding other people who had the same interest. Over the course of the next few years, I went to college, started working, got married, had kids, etc. etc. Music was always an element, but most of my gear was packed away with the exception of the acoustic that my grandfather had bought me. It was always one of my prized possessions, which I frequently picked up and played or started writing. The 2000’s brought such a great influx of new sounds and I really got into music like Elliott Smith, The Postal Service, The Knife, Beirut, Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Sleepy Jackson, The War on Drugs, Bon Iver, etc. And then GarageBand appeared and everything became so much more accessible. I could make the music I wanted to make by myself. I don’t use GarageBand anymore, but it definitely opened the doors to experimentation and eventually investing in more and more recording gear.
Q: You mention while in quarantine you were inspired to create something new. Can you expand on that?
A: I felt that a lot of art had reached a saturation point by 2014/2015. The amount of fresh “stuff” seemed to be dwindling. At the time, I connected that to the fact that I was getting older and I didn’t have the same passion or the time to invest in music. When quarantine started, it obviously came as a shock. But then I realized that there may be a silver lining: we now had more time to spend doing the things that we really enjoyed. One thing that occurred to me was that the best music wasn’t the “best” on a first listen. It usually took time to grow on you. And that was one of the main by-products of buying CDs. You had invested in it, so you generally gave it a good few listens before it either became something you liked, or you gave up on it. Streaming made it so easy to move on. If the first few bars weren’t appealing, you could just skip it. The album died as a result and catchy hits took over (the ones you usually get tired of). Finding new, good music felt harder. But you really just had to be more conscious of how music is experienced. And how it becomes something that feels important to you. You needed to give it more than a quick listen. It deserved time. I also thought that “good times,” like the last ten years, very rarely produced great art. Difficult or challenging times are what create emotion that resonates. My hope is that the factors that have affected us recently (pandemics, politics, economics) will drive new art and new ideas. And being overly optimistic, maybe a turning point for music, film, and literature.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: I like to start a song with a drum beat or a guitar or a synth. I play around until I get a rhythm and melody that appeals to me. Then I slowly layer on instruments and sounds until I get a complete sonic state that I’m happy with. Vocals are usually the last part. It generally takes me hundreds of cuts until I’m satisfied with the output. And then I build the song like that, part by part. Sometimes I have ideas like trying to transform a traditional alt sound into a synth pop sound by the end. “Moment of Discover” is an example of that. But basically the process is to start with something that I find interesting and then see what happens.
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: In the early ’90s, everyone (of a certain age) was inspired by Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. The next logical step was to obviously get a guitar and start a band. The band names at the time were always derivatives of something related to Nirvana: “In Bloom,” “The Negative Creeps,” “Molly’s Lips” or “The Sons of a Gun.” Really bad names! My favorite was “The Cobainers,” which included a guy with a homemade Flipper sweatshirt. At the time, my music knowledge was quite limited so songs were always three power chords in a verse, a chorus and then a bridge with a heavy outro. As I got older, I started to become more interested in punk and it’s offshoots, and I started a band that cited influences like Black Flag, Minor Threat, Clutch, Helmet and Failure. And then I remember getting a copy of The White Album for Christmas and my world changed. At the time, The Beatles weren’t considered the coolest thing to listen to, but I loved the diversity and the melodies. John Lennon quickly became a huge influence on me. I spent the summer of 1996 in Dublin, Ireland with my grandparents. I didn’t have a guitar with me, so my grandfather surprised me by buying me an acoustic. I spent that summer writing songs that were completely different then anything else I had ever created. I also spent that time really discovering music for the first time. I loved the evolution of things. How The Beatles had influenced nearly everyone. How Bowie came to be and how he constantly changed his sound. The transition of punk to post-punk and then to new wave and dance music (Joy Division to New Order fascinated me). All of this really changed how I went about writing songs. The problem, at the time, was having the skills to create music like that, and finding other people who had the same interest. Over the course of the next few years, I went to college, started working, got married, had kids, etc. etc. Music was always an element, but most of my gear was packed away with the exception of the acoustic that my grandfather had bought me. It was always one of my prized possessions, which I frequently picked up and played or started writing. The 2000’s brought such a great influx of new sounds and I really got into music like Elliott Smith, The Postal Service, The Knife, Beirut, Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Sleepy Jackson, The War on Drugs, Bon Iver, etc. And then GarageBand appeared and everything became so much more accessible. I could make the music I wanted to make by myself. I don’t use GarageBand anymore, but it definitely opened the doors to experimentation and eventually investing in more and more recording gear.
Q: You mention while in quarantine you were inspired to create something new. Can you expand on that?
A: I felt that a lot of art had reached a saturation point by 2014/2015. The amount of fresh “stuff” seemed to be dwindling. At the time, I connected that to the fact that I was getting older and I didn’t have the same passion or the time to invest in music. When quarantine started, it obviously came as a shock. But then I realized that there may be a silver lining: we now had more time to spend doing the things that we really enjoyed. One thing that occurred to me was that the best music wasn’t the “best” on a first listen. It usually took time to grow on you. And that was one of the main by-products of buying CDs. You had invested in it, so you generally gave it a good few listens before it either became something you liked, or you gave up on it. Streaming made it so easy to move on. If the first few bars weren’t appealing, you could just skip it. The album died as a result and catchy hits took over (the ones you usually get tired of). Finding new, good music felt harder. But you really just had to be more conscious of how music is experienced. And how it becomes something that feels important to you. You needed to give it more than a quick listen. It deserved time. I also thought that “good times,” like the last ten years, very rarely produced great art. Difficult or challenging times are what create emotion that resonates. My hope is that the factors that have affected us recently (pandemics, politics, economics) will drive new art and new ideas. And being overly optimistic, maybe a turning point for music, film, and literature.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: I like to start a song with a drum beat or a guitar or a synth. I play around until I get a rhythm and melody that appeals to me. Then I slowly layer on instruments and sounds until I get a complete sonic state that I’m happy with. Vocals are usually the last part. It generally takes me hundreds of cuts until I’m satisfied with the output. And then I build the song like that, part by part. Sometimes I have ideas like trying to transform a traditional alt sound into a synth pop sound by the end. “Moment of Discover” is an example of that. But basically the process is to start with something that I find interesting and then see what happens.
Q: What are some of the themes of your release Interfaction?
A: I like the idea of relationships. How we communicate. How we interact. How we misunderstand each other. How we love each other. The rise of social media has enabled those same elements to define how we also connect with the world around us. A lot of my songs try to create that connection between relationships with each other and relationships with the world. They used to be different, but now they are nearly the same. And what has that done to us over the past ten years or so? I also don’t like to give too much away. I have always felt that art should be experienced individually. Everyone finds their own emotional attachment to a piece of work. And they are the only ones that can understand that idea. The artist can give a vague overview, but the listener should do the connecting.
Q: Have you played any of the material live or perhaps virtually?
A: I have not played anything live in quite some time, but I do occasionally put “live” versions of songs on Instagram (@h.pe_music).
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: Just that it’s important to give all music a proper listen, or we will eventually lose it as an art form. When you want to find great music #listentothewholealbum and then #listentoitagain.
A: I like the idea of relationships. How we communicate. How we interact. How we misunderstand each other. How we love each other. The rise of social media has enabled those same elements to define how we also connect with the world around us. A lot of my songs try to create that connection between relationships with each other and relationships with the world. They used to be different, but now they are nearly the same. And what has that done to us over the past ten years or so? I also don’t like to give too much away. I have always felt that art should be experienced individually. Everyone finds their own emotional attachment to a piece of work. And they are the only ones that can understand that idea. The artist can give a vague overview, but the listener should do the connecting.
Q: Have you played any of the material live or perhaps virtually?
A: I have not played anything live in quite some time, but I do occasionally put “live” versions of songs on Instagram (@h.pe_music).
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: Just that it’s important to give all music a proper listen, or we will eventually lose it as an art form. When you want to find great music #listentothewholealbum and then #listentoitagain.