Ricky Patel Interview
Q: Can you talk about your musical history? In particular, how did you get into production and transitioned into songwriting?
A: I think music found me before I found music. I was pushed into keyboard and piano lessons as a kid by my parents, and even though I took to it quite easily, I never really enjoyed or appreciated it back then. However, when I picked up a guitar at age 11, I started to fall in love with it, and it kind of spiraled from there. I was never that fussed about learning other people's music, which is perhaps one reason why I wouldn't call myself a guitar virtuoso, but one thing I did really take to was writing my own stuff. As soon as I had the basics down, my only focus was songwriting, and I spent most of my free time as a kid and teenager writing song ideas and recording them using a guitar hero microphone plugged into my computer. The results, as you can imagine, sounded pretty awful. But it was that drive to write and record my own high quality music that led me down the production path. And production is certainly a skill that I didn't naturally take to. Many aspects of it are pretty technical and boggled my mind for a very long time, and it wasn't really until long after completing my music production degree that I started to find my groove with it and get results that I was pleased with. I've also shifted towards a more cinematic sound in my songwriting and production lately. As a freelance video producer, I work with a lot of audio for visuals, which I really enjoy. So this album is in a lot of ways an attempt to try and bridge the gap between cinematic score music and more contemporary rock and pop.
Q: What are some of the topics and themes you explore on Silent Awakening?
A: Silent Awakening is, ultimately, an album about discovery. To be honest, I never actually planned to write an album as the thought was completely overwhelming, so I was just writing and producing one song at a time. But as soon as I had a few under my belt, I could see the end in sight and a body of work forming with more cohesive themes and ideas. The first track I wrote on the album was “Glasspane,” back in 2020, when we were all in the midst of COVID lockdown, and I was feeling a little directionless with my life and ambitions. The rest of the album would take two further years to write, record and release, and throughout that time I got married, started working for myself, moved to the city - nothing out of the ordinary, but I felt these developments and moments of enlightenment are very much reflected within the album in a more abstract and metaphorical way. In terms of lyrical translation, I quite like what I write to be interpreted by the listener based on the feelings they get out of the musical content - I think music and lyrics are very much entwined in that way. However, there's definitely themes of feeling helpless and trapped in some of the earlier tracks on the album, such as “Pilot Dread” - a song exploring the idea that while we are technically in control of our bodies, our minds and our choices, we can still feel trapped, like a pilot trapped inside a malfunctioning plane, trying to stop it crash landing. We then move on to some more reflective songs in the middle of the album, like “Glasspane” - a song that contemplates what we, as humans, leave behind when we no longer exist. And the latter stages of the album focuses on the overwhelming force of discovery, overcoming our fears and doubts, and how doing so is both scary and exciting - like standing at “The Prow” of a ship, sailing into the unknown.
Q: I loved the way the album sounded from an engineering perspective. Can you talk about the process?
A: Thank you! Well as I mentioned earlier, production has never been an easy skill for me to learn, but I think being aware of that has led me to carve out a nook within the production space that works for me. Silent Awakening started as a massive experiment. My roots are in heavier guitar-based music, but to be honest I was getting a little fatigued with writing that kind of stuff, so I used this opportunity to try and incorporate some more cinematic and soundscape-type elements into the production. There's a blend of electronics, pianos, synths and strings alongside the traditional fare of guitar and drums. I still wanted to achieve that 'wall of sound,’ so there's a lot of reverbs and delays to add some extra depth. Plus, the entirety of this album was written in a tiny home studio environment, with limited tools at my disposal. I had recorded in more kitted out studios in the past, but could never get past my complete sense of being overwhelmed with so many options to play with. So this time I worked with a really limited set of tools and stuck with it until it started to come together sonically. I recorded vocals for the initial demos through a pencil condenser mic in an untreated room, but after adding some reverb and distortion I was really happy with how they blended into the mix, so I did all the vocals this way for the entire album. I've also never been very confident with my voice so I liked how these sat a little lower in the mix and sounded a bit more ethereal and less direct. When I finished the mixes, I went to a local recording studio where I used to work to get the masters done. This helped to give the album an injection of analogue warmth and depth, which has made the world of difference.
Q: How do you approach songwriting? How do you find your creativity?
A: Over the years I've realized I get the most out of songwriting when I find the balance between something that sounds comfortable in one moment and then veers towards eeriness and uncertainty in another. I like to think a lot of the songs on my album aren't just loud or quiet or nice or nasty all the way through, but straddle the line between both sides of the coin and dip into each side throughout the duration of the song. I like working with a relatively pleasant chord sequence that momentarily becomes dissonant, throwing in a jarring time signature, or having a really loud guitar-driven section that dissolves into quiet textures, things like that. I like to try and create a mixing pot of different feelings and emotions and transition between them throughout each song, as I think it makes each emotion more impactful when it hits - at least for me anyway! To be more cliché, I like each song to be a bit of a rocky journey. As for how I find my creativity, honestly I don't really know myself a lot of the time! I'll go through massive droughts where I've got nothing, but then I'll hear a particular sequence within a piece of music that really resonates with me, and my mind starts racing trying to come up with my own ideas that capture those moments and feelings. I can remember one of the last times this happened was last Christmas when I went to a choir service at my local cathedral. I wouldn't call myself a religious person, but the choir completely floored me. They would hit these incredible harmonies, only every now and then, but each time I got massive goosebumps. I was completely mesmerized by the sound and setting and ambiance. So yeah, I got a lot of inspiration from that experience! I do have to switch up what instrument I write on too, as I've burnt out a lot on guitar lately and am finding a lot of inspiration on piano and synth.
Q: Have you played this music live and if so how does it translate given the grand scope of the release?
A: The short answer is no. But I am in the early stages of seeing if it's something that might be possible in the future - more specifically for a live performance video or stream, as I definitely have more of an online presence as opposed to a local one. Most of the fans I'm aware of are from other areas of Europe, USA and Australia. But I wouldn't rule out live gigs in the future too. Like you say, there's a lot going on within the album, and when I was writing it I never had any plans to make it work live, so I basically threw the kitchen sink at it. But I am lucky to have a few really good musician friends around me that have said they'd love to be involved in a transforming it to a live environment. In an ideal scenario, I'd need something like a ten-piece band to pull off all the elements throughout the tracks completely live, but that's just completely out of the question, so I think if it happens it'll be a case of performing as much as we can live and leaving the rest to programming and samples. I'd definitely want to do the album justice and make the performance sound as big as possible. But it really would be a dream come true to perform the album live in some way, so I'm going to do my best to make it happen.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: Only that I'm eternally grateful for everyone that's listened / bought a copy / reached out to me. Writing and finishing this album was a complete stab in the dark and I'm amazed to see it resonate with as many people as it has. It's given me boundless motivation to keep writing and releasing more music, and hopefully learn and improve along the way. And there will be more music to come this year, so watch this space!
Q: Can you talk about your musical history? In particular, how did you get into production and transitioned into songwriting?
A: I think music found me before I found music. I was pushed into keyboard and piano lessons as a kid by my parents, and even though I took to it quite easily, I never really enjoyed or appreciated it back then. However, when I picked up a guitar at age 11, I started to fall in love with it, and it kind of spiraled from there. I was never that fussed about learning other people's music, which is perhaps one reason why I wouldn't call myself a guitar virtuoso, but one thing I did really take to was writing my own stuff. As soon as I had the basics down, my only focus was songwriting, and I spent most of my free time as a kid and teenager writing song ideas and recording them using a guitar hero microphone plugged into my computer. The results, as you can imagine, sounded pretty awful. But it was that drive to write and record my own high quality music that led me down the production path. And production is certainly a skill that I didn't naturally take to. Many aspects of it are pretty technical and boggled my mind for a very long time, and it wasn't really until long after completing my music production degree that I started to find my groove with it and get results that I was pleased with. I've also shifted towards a more cinematic sound in my songwriting and production lately. As a freelance video producer, I work with a lot of audio for visuals, which I really enjoy. So this album is in a lot of ways an attempt to try and bridge the gap between cinematic score music and more contemporary rock and pop.
Q: What are some of the topics and themes you explore on Silent Awakening?
A: Silent Awakening is, ultimately, an album about discovery. To be honest, I never actually planned to write an album as the thought was completely overwhelming, so I was just writing and producing one song at a time. But as soon as I had a few under my belt, I could see the end in sight and a body of work forming with more cohesive themes and ideas. The first track I wrote on the album was “Glasspane,” back in 2020, when we were all in the midst of COVID lockdown, and I was feeling a little directionless with my life and ambitions. The rest of the album would take two further years to write, record and release, and throughout that time I got married, started working for myself, moved to the city - nothing out of the ordinary, but I felt these developments and moments of enlightenment are very much reflected within the album in a more abstract and metaphorical way. In terms of lyrical translation, I quite like what I write to be interpreted by the listener based on the feelings they get out of the musical content - I think music and lyrics are very much entwined in that way. However, there's definitely themes of feeling helpless and trapped in some of the earlier tracks on the album, such as “Pilot Dread” - a song exploring the idea that while we are technically in control of our bodies, our minds and our choices, we can still feel trapped, like a pilot trapped inside a malfunctioning plane, trying to stop it crash landing. We then move on to some more reflective songs in the middle of the album, like “Glasspane” - a song that contemplates what we, as humans, leave behind when we no longer exist. And the latter stages of the album focuses on the overwhelming force of discovery, overcoming our fears and doubts, and how doing so is both scary and exciting - like standing at “The Prow” of a ship, sailing into the unknown.
Q: I loved the way the album sounded from an engineering perspective. Can you talk about the process?
A: Thank you! Well as I mentioned earlier, production has never been an easy skill for me to learn, but I think being aware of that has led me to carve out a nook within the production space that works for me. Silent Awakening started as a massive experiment. My roots are in heavier guitar-based music, but to be honest I was getting a little fatigued with writing that kind of stuff, so I used this opportunity to try and incorporate some more cinematic and soundscape-type elements into the production. There's a blend of electronics, pianos, synths and strings alongside the traditional fare of guitar and drums. I still wanted to achieve that 'wall of sound,’ so there's a lot of reverbs and delays to add some extra depth. Plus, the entirety of this album was written in a tiny home studio environment, with limited tools at my disposal. I had recorded in more kitted out studios in the past, but could never get past my complete sense of being overwhelmed with so many options to play with. So this time I worked with a really limited set of tools and stuck with it until it started to come together sonically. I recorded vocals for the initial demos through a pencil condenser mic in an untreated room, but after adding some reverb and distortion I was really happy with how they blended into the mix, so I did all the vocals this way for the entire album. I've also never been very confident with my voice so I liked how these sat a little lower in the mix and sounded a bit more ethereal and less direct. When I finished the mixes, I went to a local recording studio where I used to work to get the masters done. This helped to give the album an injection of analogue warmth and depth, which has made the world of difference.
Q: How do you approach songwriting? How do you find your creativity?
A: Over the years I've realized I get the most out of songwriting when I find the balance between something that sounds comfortable in one moment and then veers towards eeriness and uncertainty in another. I like to think a lot of the songs on my album aren't just loud or quiet or nice or nasty all the way through, but straddle the line between both sides of the coin and dip into each side throughout the duration of the song. I like working with a relatively pleasant chord sequence that momentarily becomes dissonant, throwing in a jarring time signature, or having a really loud guitar-driven section that dissolves into quiet textures, things like that. I like to try and create a mixing pot of different feelings and emotions and transition between them throughout each song, as I think it makes each emotion more impactful when it hits - at least for me anyway! To be more cliché, I like each song to be a bit of a rocky journey. As for how I find my creativity, honestly I don't really know myself a lot of the time! I'll go through massive droughts where I've got nothing, but then I'll hear a particular sequence within a piece of music that really resonates with me, and my mind starts racing trying to come up with my own ideas that capture those moments and feelings. I can remember one of the last times this happened was last Christmas when I went to a choir service at my local cathedral. I wouldn't call myself a religious person, but the choir completely floored me. They would hit these incredible harmonies, only every now and then, but each time I got massive goosebumps. I was completely mesmerized by the sound and setting and ambiance. So yeah, I got a lot of inspiration from that experience! I do have to switch up what instrument I write on too, as I've burnt out a lot on guitar lately and am finding a lot of inspiration on piano and synth.
Q: Have you played this music live and if so how does it translate given the grand scope of the release?
A: The short answer is no. But I am in the early stages of seeing if it's something that might be possible in the future - more specifically for a live performance video or stream, as I definitely have more of an online presence as opposed to a local one. Most of the fans I'm aware of are from other areas of Europe, USA and Australia. But I wouldn't rule out live gigs in the future too. Like you say, there's a lot going on within the album, and when I was writing it I never had any plans to make it work live, so I basically threw the kitchen sink at it. But I am lucky to have a few really good musician friends around me that have said they'd love to be involved in a transforming it to a live environment. In an ideal scenario, I'd need something like a ten-piece band to pull off all the elements throughout the tracks completely live, but that's just completely out of the question, so I think if it happens it'll be a case of performing as much as we can live and leaving the rest to programming and samples. I'd definitely want to do the album justice and make the performance sound as big as possible. But it really would be a dream come true to perform the album live in some way, so I'm going to do my best to make it happen.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: Only that I'm eternally grateful for everyone that's listened / bought a copy / reached out to me. Writing and finishing this album was a complete stab in the dark and I'm amazed to see it resonate with as many people as it has. It's given me boundless motivation to keep writing and releasing more music, and hopefully learn and improve along the way. And there will be more music to come this year, so watch this space!