Misty Island Interview
Q: Can you talk about your musical history?
A: When I was 13, I started learning how to play piano by ear, trying to learn my favorite songs as a kid. I was surrounded by music growing up. My dad hosted karaoke in his spare time and was always blasting his favorite Motown-era songs. I grew up hearing the Temptations, Four Tops, Diana Ross, and of course Michael Jackson, who was my favorite artist as a kid. Then, by chance, my dad played a Beatles song called “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” on his karaoke machine, and I became obsessed with learning the song’s piano part. That was the first song I learned to play.
At the time I didn’t know it, but looking back, what I really wanted to do was learn how to write songs. I couldn’t have cared less about the piano; it was a tool for me to express musical ideas. I didn’t look up to any pianists and think “wow, I want to be like them.” I listened to these songs that spoke to me and thought “wow, how do I do that?!” I was picking out baselines, chords, rhythms, and melodies and trying to make sense of it, and the piano was the only instrument in the house. My parents soon bought me a Yamaha keyboard and I started composing instrumentals by stacking individual tracks in Audacity. I did that through my teen years, collaborating with my friends until I got better at composing & producing. I then went to college for music, where I met some very talented friends of mine. Together we formed a pop rock band, and because we had a lead singer I started writing lyrics to my compositions. So, from about age 19 I really grew as a songwriter, expanding my horizons from making instrumental electronic music into writing indie rock for what would become my solo project, Misty Island.
Q: What are some of the themes and topics you explore on your release of Illustrations?
A: One of the big themes of Illustrations is self-analyzation and self-improvement. One of my long-time childhood friends, John, said that after he listened to the whole album, he found that “all of the songs seem to be about private suffering, and the juxtaposition of the lyrics and music really reflects that.” The music on the album is so colorful and pretty (most of the time), but the lyrics are just about some of the most dismal stuff. There are themes of social anxiety, depression, ego death, existentialism, loneliness, betrayal, so forth and so on. I was doing a lot of soul-searching writing those songs, and the pandemic helped to kind of isolate me from being social. Not that I was really much of a social butterfly anyway, but a lot of the time I really only had myself and my thoughts, and the album explores what it’s like to really look inside yourself.
When I was writing some of the last songs on the album, I really wanted to give Illustrations a complete concept. “All of this looking in the mirror, what would that thematically resolve to?” I thought. I found it kind of liberating, personally. I figured, “well now I know some of the things that are holding me back, and I can make strides to better myself.” That’s why the album opens up with “Morning High,” which talks about getting away from stresses and troubles “lost to yesterday,” and then comes full circle with “Tomorrow is Calling My Name,” which talks about freeing oneself from their own mind and looking forward to improving in the days ahead. I think in the end there was a solid, complete concept there.
Q: Can you talk about the songwriting process?
A: It depends on the song, really! I don’t go around trying to follow a formula, so I just try to let whatever comes to me flow. Sometimes it results in a full song, or maybe just a single riff idea. For example, “Flowers in the Sand” was written with very strong feelings about a very particular person, so I wrote the music and the lyrics all at once in a couple of hours. “Watercolor Fairytale,” on the other hand, was three separate musical ideas that I came up with over the course of two years and mashed together into one song. Sometimes I just have an instrumental and a melody in mind, but the lyrics don’t come until much later. “Stargazer’s Lament” didn’t have lyrics until I actually went to record them! I had the whole backing track recorded and ready to go, it just needed vocals, and all I had for lyrics was one garbage line about floating in space. I had to really crack down and write some good lyrics for it, and then immediately record them, so I restructured the whole concept of space from being vaguely sci-fi, to being an existential cry to the stars for meaning. It took a couple of weeks, but sometimes that kind of pressure really gives you a gem.
Q: Can you talk about your musical history?
A: When I was 13, I started learning how to play piano by ear, trying to learn my favorite songs as a kid. I was surrounded by music growing up. My dad hosted karaoke in his spare time and was always blasting his favorite Motown-era songs. I grew up hearing the Temptations, Four Tops, Diana Ross, and of course Michael Jackson, who was my favorite artist as a kid. Then, by chance, my dad played a Beatles song called “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” on his karaoke machine, and I became obsessed with learning the song’s piano part. That was the first song I learned to play.
At the time I didn’t know it, but looking back, what I really wanted to do was learn how to write songs. I couldn’t have cared less about the piano; it was a tool for me to express musical ideas. I didn’t look up to any pianists and think “wow, I want to be like them.” I listened to these songs that spoke to me and thought “wow, how do I do that?!” I was picking out baselines, chords, rhythms, and melodies and trying to make sense of it, and the piano was the only instrument in the house. My parents soon bought me a Yamaha keyboard and I started composing instrumentals by stacking individual tracks in Audacity. I did that through my teen years, collaborating with my friends until I got better at composing & producing. I then went to college for music, where I met some very talented friends of mine. Together we formed a pop rock band, and because we had a lead singer I started writing lyrics to my compositions. So, from about age 19 I really grew as a songwriter, expanding my horizons from making instrumental electronic music into writing indie rock for what would become my solo project, Misty Island.
Q: What are some of the themes and topics you explore on your release of Illustrations?
A: One of the big themes of Illustrations is self-analyzation and self-improvement. One of my long-time childhood friends, John, said that after he listened to the whole album, he found that “all of the songs seem to be about private suffering, and the juxtaposition of the lyrics and music really reflects that.” The music on the album is so colorful and pretty (most of the time), but the lyrics are just about some of the most dismal stuff. There are themes of social anxiety, depression, ego death, existentialism, loneliness, betrayal, so forth and so on. I was doing a lot of soul-searching writing those songs, and the pandemic helped to kind of isolate me from being social. Not that I was really much of a social butterfly anyway, but a lot of the time I really only had myself and my thoughts, and the album explores what it’s like to really look inside yourself.
When I was writing some of the last songs on the album, I really wanted to give Illustrations a complete concept. “All of this looking in the mirror, what would that thematically resolve to?” I thought. I found it kind of liberating, personally. I figured, “well now I know some of the things that are holding me back, and I can make strides to better myself.” That’s why the album opens up with “Morning High,” which talks about getting away from stresses and troubles “lost to yesterday,” and then comes full circle with “Tomorrow is Calling My Name,” which talks about freeing oneself from their own mind and looking forward to improving in the days ahead. I think in the end there was a solid, complete concept there.
Q: Can you talk about the songwriting process?
A: It depends on the song, really! I don’t go around trying to follow a formula, so I just try to let whatever comes to me flow. Sometimes it results in a full song, or maybe just a single riff idea. For example, “Flowers in the Sand” was written with very strong feelings about a very particular person, so I wrote the music and the lyrics all at once in a couple of hours. “Watercolor Fairytale,” on the other hand, was three separate musical ideas that I came up with over the course of two years and mashed together into one song. Sometimes I just have an instrumental and a melody in mind, but the lyrics don’t come until much later. “Stargazer’s Lament” didn’t have lyrics until I actually went to record them! I had the whole backing track recorded and ready to go, it just needed vocals, and all I had for lyrics was one garbage line about floating in space. I had to really crack down and write some good lyrics for it, and then immediately record them, so I restructured the whole concept of space from being vaguely sci-fi, to being an existential cry to the stars for meaning. It took a couple of weeks, but sometimes that kind of pressure really gives you a gem.
Q: One thing I loved about your album was the psychedelic elements. Is that something that comes naturally or did you go into the album wanting to achieve that type of sound?
A: Yeah, I like to think the psychedelic elements come naturally to me. I’ve always loved really weird music, through my teens I always wanted to listen to the strangest sounds. Of Montreal is one of my favorite bands because their music is so demented, but jaunty and childlike at the same time. Those kinds of vibes manifest in my arrangements a lot, because if a song is sounding too dry or straightforward, I start augmenting sounds and adding effects until I feel something. One of the first albums that really blew me away as a teenager was Sgt. Pepper, and I could have a field day talking about the ways that album influenced me. I have synesthesia, which means I associate songs with color, and when I heard that album, it was like hearing multiple colors at once. It opened me up to psychedelic music and more experimental ideas very early on, and it changed the way I approached composition. That kind of atmospheric arranging has been a staple for me since then, and from that point on I wanted to make music that transported the listener somewhere unusual. So yeah, it shows up on Illustrations in stuff like the “The World Will Turn,” which is probably my favorite song because it’s so bleak and weird, or “(You’ve Got) Nothing Left to Hide” where every instrument and vocal just starts going backwards, or the end of “Ode to Jupiter,” which is just one big sound collage. Making the trippy bits are where I have the most fun in recording!
Q: Can you talk about your time in the studio?
A: Well, I recorded pretty much all of Illustrations in my bedroom. I only went to a professional recording studio for drums, and the string quartet on “Watercolor Fairytale.” Everything else on the album was overdubbing on top of overdubbing in my room. Basically, the way it worked was, I went to Rain Cat Recording Studios three times over the course of a year and a half to record a batch of drum tracks. Just the drummer, Rickey Brown, and I would record backing tracks for three or four songs at a time. The goal was to get the drum part right, and then the engineers Bryan Lamar and Jeff Coulter would e-mail me the individual drum tracks. Then I’d build the song instrument by instrument at home with my recording equipment & ProTools.
I started with “Flowers in the Sand.” We captured the acoustic guitar and drums at the studio, then at home I recorded piano, tambourine and vocals. Then I’d bring my friends Warren Williams (bass guitar) and Tristan Johnson (electric guitar) over to my house to record their parts. Then I’d mix the song and move on to the next track, rinse and repeat 14 times. I went through a lot of different personnel for each song, depending on the availability of my friends to participate in the recording. It was very informal like that. On the second half of the album, I’m the one playing bass guitar, just because I wanted to. Rickey wasn’t available for drums at some point toward the end of making the album, so Warren played drums on the last three tracks on Illustrations. He’s a multi-instrumentalist genius! I had three different people play electric guitar on the album, and sometimes I even play electric guitar, like the entirety of “Morning High.” I had very specific arrangements in mind for each track, so that’s why everything sounds so unified despite the line-up changing track-to-track. Check out the Bandcamp page if you want to know who plays what!
Q: What else do we need to know about your music?
A: If you think you know where Misty Island is going based on Illustrations, you’re dead wrong. I’ve got a batch of new songs ready to go for the next album and they’re bringing a whole different vibe. My goal with my art is to always try to do something unusual or unexpected, and it helps that my songwriting seems to have stylistic ADHD. There’s a bit of that variety on Illustrations, you know, it’s mostly psychedelic rock but there’s a disco song, a classical baroque song, a drum-and-bass song, and so on. The stuff I have planned next for Misty Island is gonna go a little further into the deep end. So, I hope you stick around to join me for the journey!
A: Yeah, I like to think the psychedelic elements come naturally to me. I’ve always loved really weird music, through my teens I always wanted to listen to the strangest sounds. Of Montreal is one of my favorite bands because their music is so demented, but jaunty and childlike at the same time. Those kinds of vibes manifest in my arrangements a lot, because if a song is sounding too dry or straightforward, I start augmenting sounds and adding effects until I feel something. One of the first albums that really blew me away as a teenager was Sgt. Pepper, and I could have a field day talking about the ways that album influenced me. I have synesthesia, which means I associate songs with color, and when I heard that album, it was like hearing multiple colors at once. It opened me up to psychedelic music and more experimental ideas very early on, and it changed the way I approached composition. That kind of atmospheric arranging has been a staple for me since then, and from that point on I wanted to make music that transported the listener somewhere unusual. So yeah, it shows up on Illustrations in stuff like the “The World Will Turn,” which is probably my favorite song because it’s so bleak and weird, or “(You’ve Got) Nothing Left to Hide” where every instrument and vocal just starts going backwards, or the end of “Ode to Jupiter,” which is just one big sound collage. Making the trippy bits are where I have the most fun in recording!
Q: Can you talk about your time in the studio?
A: Well, I recorded pretty much all of Illustrations in my bedroom. I only went to a professional recording studio for drums, and the string quartet on “Watercolor Fairytale.” Everything else on the album was overdubbing on top of overdubbing in my room. Basically, the way it worked was, I went to Rain Cat Recording Studios three times over the course of a year and a half to record a batch of drum tracks. Just the drummer, Rickey Brown, and I would record backing tracks for three or four songs at a time. The goal was to get the drum part right, and then the engineers Bryan Lamar and Jeff Coulter would e-mail me the individual drum tracks. Then I’d build the song instrument by instrument at home with my recording equipment & ProTools.
I started with “Flowers in the Sand.” We captured the acoustic guitar and drums at the studio, then at home I recorded piano, tambourine and vocals. Then I’d bring my friends Warren Williams (bass guitar) and Tristan Johnson (electric guitar) over to my house to record their parts. Then I’d mix the song and move on to the next track, rinse and repeat 14 times. I went through a lot of different personnel for each song, depending on the availability of my friends to participate in the recording. It was very informal like that. On the second half of the album, I’m the one playing bass guitar, just because I wanted to. Rickey wasn’t available for drums at some point toward the end of making the album, so Warren played drums on the last three tracks on Illustrations. He’s a multi-instrumentalist genius! I had three different people play electric guitar on the album, and sometimes I even play electric guitar, like the entirety of “Morning High.” I had very specific arrangements in mind for each track, so that’s why everything sounds so unified despite the line-up changing track-to-track. Check out the Bandcamp page if you want to know who plays what!
Q: What else do we need to know about your music?
A: If you think you know where Misty Island is going based on Illustrations, you’re dead wrong. I’ve got a batch of new songs ready to go for the next album and they’re bringing a whole different vibe. My goal with my art is to always try to do something unusual or unexpected, and it helps that my songwriting seems to have stylistic ADHD. There’s a bit of that variety on Illustrations, you know, it’s mostly psychedelic rock but there’s a disco song, a classical baroque song, a drum-and-bass song, and so on. The stuff I have planned next for Misty Island is gonna go a little further into the deep end. So, I hope you stick around to join me for the journey!