J. Michael & The Heavy Burden Interview
Q: Can you talk about your background and how J. Michael & The Heavy Burden got started?
A: This band originated toward the latter half of 2020 after my previous band, Stella Noon, had broken up. That previous project had already felt like things were starting to splinter due to some personality conflicts within the band, and at that time Covid was really at its peak, so it felt like the right time for me to step away and move on to something else. By that point I had written a few new songs and had various musical ideas I was working on that really hadn't turned into anything, so I decided to try and start forming a band with the goal of it being ready to start gigging sometime in 2021. I then went searching for some new musicians and at that time was able to connect with our lead guitarist, Andrew Pfeiffer, through a Craigslist add. We quickly met up for an introduction and jam session, and then by the second meet up, Andrew had come up with some really cool counter melodies to some of the musical ideas I had shown him. Needless to say he showed me pretty quickly he was the right choice for the lead guitar spot. After that, I brought in our drummer, Chris Georges, whom I had previously reached out to when I was recruiting for my last project. So the three of us had an opportunity to start jamming a little bit, and things seemed to click pretty well right from the get go. Soon after that I had reached out to a couple members from my last band, whom I was interested in bringing into this new project, and basically things were off and rolling by then. I think we started recording some demos by spring of '21 at the studio of our now current engineer/keyboardist, David Roof, with the goal of being able to start playing some of the material live that summer.
Q: What are some of the themes and concepts you wanted to explore with the album Where We Belong?
A: If I'm being completely honest I didn't really have a particular theme in mind when we decided to start working on this album, but ultimately I do think the songs do touch on a similar theme throughout the album. The very first track on this album, Where We Belong, is actually a song that I originally wrote during my time with my last band. This was written at a time when I was going through difficult times in my then marriage, and is essentially a chronicle of my own search for purpose and happiness amidst difficult life circumstances. I’ve always been a very introspective and curious person, but once I began songwriting it really allowed me to dig a little deeper and start exploring parts of my life and the world around me in new ways that I hadn’t seen before. So essentially most of these songs are really a journal about various times and people in my life, and my search for deeper meaning in those relationships.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: For the most part I stick to a pretty basic process of finding new and interesting little riffs or melodies I’ll build when messing around on the guitar and then I’ll just try to fit different pieces around that. When I do find something I like, I’ll typically just start mouthing random words to begin to start forming the building blocks of a song. When I get lucky in this process, I’m able to come up with a phrase or two that maybe has some sort of meaning to my life, and I’ll then build the lyrical structure of the song around that. Or in some cases, if that particular story doesn’t actually apply to me, then I’ll just start building somebody else’s story. This is pretty much how the track Blind Luck Eddie came about. In that case, the story didn’t feel like it really applied to my life, so I just invented a character in my head and before long there were various lyrical phrases that started forming around that.
Q: Can you talk about your background and how J. Michael & The Heavy Burden got started?
A: This band originated toward the latter half of 2020 after my previous band, Stella Noon, had broken up. That previous project had already felt like things were starting to splinter due to some personality conflicts within the band, and at that time Covid was really at its peak, so it felt like the right time for me to step away and move on to something else. By that point I had written a few new songs and had various musical ideas I was working on that really hadn't turned into anything, so I decided to try and start forming a band with the goal of it being ready to start gigging sometime in 2021. I then went searching for some new musicians and at that time was able to connect with our lead guitarist, Andrew Pfeiffer, through a Craigslist add. We quickly met up for an introduction and jam session, and then by the second meet up, Andrew had come up with some really cool counter melodies to some of the musical ideas I had shown him. Needless to say he showed me pretty quickly he was the right choice for the lead guitar spot. After that, I brought in our drummer, Chris Georges, whom I had previously reached out to when I was recruiting for my last project. So the three of us had an opportunity to start jamming a little bit, and things seemed to click pretty well right from the get go. Soon after that I had reached out to a couple members from my last band, whom I was interested in bringing into this new project, and basically things were off and rolling by then. I think we started recording some demos by spring of '21 at the studio of our now current engineer/keyboardist, David Roof, with the goal of being able to start playing some of the material live that summer.
Q: What are some of the themes and concepts you wanted to explore with the album Where We Belong?
A: If I'm being completely honest I didn't really have a particular theme in mind when we decided to start working on this album, but ultimately I do think the songs do touch on a similar theme throughout the album. The very first track on this album, Where We Belong, is actually a song that I originally wrote during my time with my last band. This was written at a time when I was going through difficult times in my then marriage, and is essentially a chronicle of my own search for purpose and happiness amidst difficult life circumstances. I’ve always been a very introspective and curious person, but once I began songwriting it really allowed me to dig a little deeper and start exploring parts of my life and the world around me in new ways that I hadn’t seen before. So essentially most of these songs are really a journal about various times and people in my life, and my search for deeper meaning in those relationships.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: For the most part I stick to a pretty basic process of finding new and interesting little riffs or melodies I’ll build when messing around on the guitar and then I’ll just try to fit different pieces around that. When I do find something I like, I’ll typically just start mouthing random words to begin to start forming the building blocks of a song. When I get lucky in this process, I’m able to come up with a phrase or two that maybe has some sort of meaning to my life, and I’ll then build the lyrical structure of the song around that. Or in some cases, if that particular story doesn’t actually apply to me, then I’ll just start building somebody else’s story. This is pretty much how the track Blind Luck Eddie came about. In that case, the story didn’t feel like it really applied to my life, so I just invented a character in my head and before long there were various lyrical phrases that started forming around that.
Q: What was the recording process like?
A: In the case of this band, we recorded both of our albums with David Roof as our engineer (Rooftop Recording) with most of the tracks being recorded at his home studio. Luckily for us however, David also collaborates with Willis Sound (Willis, MI), so we had the opportunity to record about half of the tracks for this latest album out of that studio, which was a real treat. Willis Sound studio is basically a repurposed old church, and it has these really old vibes and the room just sounds great, so that was a lot of fun. Due to everyone’s busy schedules, the whole album ended up taking almost a year and a half to complete, which is not what I originally had in mind. But all in all I think we all enjoyed the process, and I overall I’m pretty happy with the results.
Q: How do you hope people connect with your music?
A: Our music is available on the various streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, so it’s always nice to get new subscribers through those various channels. But for me at least, I’d prefer to grow our music a little more organically by reaching new fans through our live performances. We’re a 7-piece band and we bring a pretty big live sound, so that’s where I think we come through in the most authentic way.
Q: What else should we know about your music? Any live dates we should know about?
A: We’ve got several shows lined up for the summer in the mid and west Michigan areas that we’re looking forward to playing. Our entire performance calendar can be found on our website at www.jmheavyburden.com. If I had to single out one of my favorites that we have coming up, I’d recommend River Rhythm Festival in Manchester, MI (www.rivertreatsllc.com). We played this one a couple years back and it was a ton of fun. This will be our first time as one of the evening headliners at this festival, so we’re really excited for that.
A: In the case of this band, we recorded both of our albums with David Roof as our engineer (Rooftop Recording) with most of the tracks being recorded at his home studio. Luckily for us however, David also collaborates with Willis Sound (Willis, MI), so we had the opportunity to record about half of the tracks for this latest album out of that studio, which was a real treat. Willis Sound studio is basically a repurposed old church, and it has these really old vibes and the room just sounds great, so that was a lot of fun. Due to everyone’s busy schedules, the whole album ended up taking almost a year and a half to complete, which is not what I originally had in mind. But all in all I think we all enjoyed the process, and I overall I’m pretty happy with the results.
Q: How do you hope people connect with your music?
A: Our music is available on the various streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, so it’s always nice to get new subscribers through those various channels. But for me at least, I’d prefer to grow our music a little more organically by reaching new fans through our live performances. We’re a 7-piece band and we bring a pretty big live sound, so that’s where I think we come through in the most authentic way.
Q: What else should we know about your music? Any live dates we should know about?
A: We’ve got several shows lined up for the summer in the mid and west Michigan areas that we’re looking forward to playing. Our entire performance calendar can be found on our website at www.jmheavyburden.com. If I had to single out one of my favorites that we have coming up, I’d recommend River Rhythm Festival in Manchester, MI (www.rivertreatsllc.com). We played this one a couple years back and it was a ton of fun. This will be our first time as one of the evening headliners at this festival, so we’re really excited for that.