1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?
For me it was not so much a moment of becoming a singer but to be a guitarist at first. The defining moment for me was listening to a local college radio station in New Jerseyplaying hard rock and grunge music one night in the early 1990s. I was hooked to that music.At that point I was curious how to make the sounds the bands played, learn how to play their songs, and then write my own. The singing part came along later after I'd learned guitar. I began singing in the high school chorusand in musicals, then was the backup singer in my first band.
2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites? These days with the Internet and lots of music services, I'm always finding new bands or getting recommendations from friends on what to listen to. There's so much out there that it's hard to give everything a true and full listen to completely get what the bands are doing. One thing I try not to do is listen to too much music all the time as it can influence my songwriting. Some of my all-time favorite artists though are: Bruce Springsteen, Elliott Smith, Van Halen, Blind Pilot, Alice in Chains, The Beatles, Vertical Horizon, Rogue Wave, Miles Davis, Chris Cornell, Nirvana, and King's X.
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live? It happened very recently for me and that was putting my first solo album out. The effort took over a year to complete during which time I lost my job and began pursuing music full-time. But getting my art out there, seeing people enjoy it, and make a connection with it is gratifying. I also had a release party for the album that I organized which was the most fun I had had playing on stage in a long, long time.
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to? How much can music influence current events? I do believe that music can change people or at least influence people in certain ways. Music can make people angry or it can make people cry--it depends what the artist is trying to do with a song. Some of the best songs in my opinion are the ones someone can connect with to a feeling they have or an event in their life or an issue--and always remember that connection throughout their life when they hear the song. On the other hand, some songs are just meant for listening--it goes both ways I think. What it comes down to in my mind is if the artist is challenging the listener to get past just listening and coming away with an emotion or purpose in the song. In terms of influencing current events, time to time there's an album or a song or even a concert that defines our times in a way that does get people to notice, think, and even take action on a current event. The most recent example I can think of is artists who raised money for Haiti with a TV concert.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician? Great questions and there are books and blogs that answer that first question better than I can. I see technology affecting the music industry in four key ways. One, I definitely see how we consume music has changed. We can get more music, more quickly, more effortlessly and store more of it in than ever before thanks to technology. Second, it's easier than ever for artists like myself to get their music out to the public. You don't really need a label to have a career. There are an overwhelming number of online tools I use everyday to organize and promote my music. Third, music is starting to return to the hands of fans. Social media, email, websites, etc have allowed fans to have more input into music, artist's careers, and they now have more power over what they want to hear and how they want to hear it. And the final thing I'll say is that technology has made the music industry more uncertain in where it's heading. Laws affecting music are years behind, labels are dying off, there are always new ways of marketing and promoting--so much is in a constant evolution right now. For me, technology has been a time saver and great vehicle for most aspects of having a music career. I especially love to connect with my fans. Along with that, it's very simple to upload songs, pictures, and videos to just about any communication device, get instant feedback, and have conversations with anyone in the world you wouldn't otherwise have about your music. So, yes, technology is a HUGE part of my career and I use it everyday.
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be? I'd say a pair of flip flops, I hope that counts as a type of shoe. Flip flops are a laid back type of shoe, comfortable, and they don't hide what other shoes might--your feet. Those are some qualities my personality hold--laid back person, honest, and putting who I am out there for who I am through my music.
1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?
The moment I knew I wanted to be a singer was when my cousin Josh Groban got his big break with his famous single "You Raise Me Up". I knew right then that if I worked hard and didn't quit, I might just be able to be successful with my music just like Josh and not just have it as a casual hobby. I finally realized I was capable of being something I never could have imagined being. I wanted to make music my life and Josh's success was my motivation.
2 . When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of
your favorites?
My favorite musician is Elliott Smith. He is my biggest musical influence. Also, I am a huge fan of a genre called "post-rock". Post rock is a genre that consists of long instrumentals. Post Rock bands I love include Caspian, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Rachel's, and Balmorhea.
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record
or live?
My greatest moment as an artist has to be when I played before a fashion show in Minneapolis, MN back in 2008. There was a huge draw and it was my first big show. The crowd really loved the set and I had never felt so comfortable in front of so many people. I was later invited to participate in Battle of the Bands, which to me seemed pretty cool considering I was a solo acoustic artist when I played live.
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to?
How much can music influence current events?
Music can change the world. The power music has in surfacing certain emotions is incredible. It can either match your mood or create it. Certain tunes can cause specific emotions and if enough people share these same emotions, change can occur. I believe music is very powerful.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected
your career as a musician?
Technology has made the music industry more accommodating to the consumer. Music is now more easily accessed and downloaded. Music is shared more easily and for no cost. CDs aren't purchased or used as much, so it is hard for musicians to profit as much from them. Everything is online now and with free music downloads more available, profit from track sales is decreasing. This makes it hard for me to work my way to the top by being able to support myself with only my music. It stalls things having to work two jobs.
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of
shoes would you be?
If I were a pair of shoes, I would be a pair of vans.
1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?
When I was in Fourth Grade on a Sunday me and some friends watched a Sunday Matinee Movie called “A Hard Days Night” starring the Beatles. I found myself riveted to it. I was blown away by the bands music, charisma, wit and personal charm. I could sense from that young age that there was something very special that I was watching. A group of people, The Beatles, almost at the height of their careers having a huge impact on world culture that can still be seen and felt today. I knew I wanted to be apart of that too somehow.
2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites?
I enjoy the sounds and musical styles of Andrew Bird, St. Vincent, Elliott Smith, Eddie Vedder and Neko Case. I like Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell for the songwriting. Cole Porter and Igor Stravinsky for the amazing arrangements and tone color. Kurt Cobain and B.B. King for the powerful emotion in their work. I really enjoy the work of most British groups over the years.
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?
I think the song “A Survivor” from my new CD “Child Indigo” is a real accomplishment for me personally. The song places someone (probably me) in a backyard or something observing their surroundings and trying to come to grips with what it means to have survived a terrible disease, like cancer. I think that the writing and performance of the song is completely authentic to some of the questions I’m facing in my life now. The response by audiences has been overwhelming.
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to? How much can music influence current events?
I believe that music has a profound effect on the world and culture. Ultimately music stimulates peoples thoughts and emotions. It can change the way people look at themselves and the environment around them. It can be a catalyst for positive or negative trends. For instance. Many scholarly people believe that The Beatles played a key role in the break-up of the Soviet Union. It was illegal to listen to Western music in the USSR, people went underground to make and exchange bootlegs of Beatle music and posters. They even went so far as to play their music at numerous underground locations. This grew into a huge thing by the 1980’s, the vast majority of Soviets were listening to the Beatles, even Gorbachev. The walls came done. Peace , love & understanding via The Beatles triumphed.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician?
I think the technology has really killed the old music business models as far as the mega-media Record companies go. There’s less money, so they can take fewer, if any chances. I think the technology has helped make it easier for someone like me to not only create better music but to reach a lot of people with my music that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?
A pair of medium-healed slippers with Mountain-climbing tread on the bottom.
1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there sucha defining moment for you?
Absolutely. It was upon adopting my older brother's vinyl collection when I was about 12 years old. The first time I spun Neil Young's Harvest I was sold. I also discovered The Who, Pearl Jam, and Simon & Garfunkel around this time, and that sealed the deal.
2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites?
It's a really vast canvas for me. I go from Leonard Cohen, to Tool, to Elliot Smith, to Mozart. Throw a little Sinatra in there and we've got ourselves a party!
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?
Every time I get an email from someone who tells me my song brought them to tears, or inspired them, or simply gave them peace. That's what it's all about. The rest is details.
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just somethingto listen to? How much can music influence current events?
It's both. My preference leans towards to the former. Not to say that the lighthearted tunes don't have their place, but I tend to connect more with the stuff that gets down to your core. I believe it can change the world. But I'm not talking about topical, "start a revolution" kind of music. That's fine too, but real change comes from within, not without. So for me, when a song cuts through to your very being, extracting your demons and presenting them before you, fully exposed in the light where they can't survive... that's when it changes the world.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician?
This has obviously been a hot topic for a few years now. Just like a hammer, you can use it to build or destruct. The choice is in the beholder.
I'm hopeful that we'll continue to progress towards proper and fair use of emerging technologies. I learned to embrace it a long while back. With this new album, "Tilt" we decided to only sell and promote it online. As a result we're able to reach our audience across the globe, to places we might have never gotten to tour!
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?
1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance ofElvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?
Lonny: Singing wasn’t exactly what I was looking for in life. I really would have rather been a guitar player. It really came as a shock when ten years later the singing was becoming more primary. It was a very gradual change though and somewhat undefined.
Deb: I must have had a defining moment at about the age of 6...because I remember sitting on the sidewalk in front of my Bronx apartment building with the song book to "scarborough fair", singing to it and waiting to be "discovered"!..I just don't remember what brought it on. Now, every time I see a well executed artistic performance,(be it graphic art, drama , music, etc.) it is a "re-defining" moment of being in love with the "creation of art".
2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites?
Lonny: My musical tastes are similar to Deb’s minus the Beethoven, and Dvorak, and adding some old Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. I love the modern indie sounds and the old rock to a slightly lesser degree.
Deb: I listen to the likes of The Flaming Lips, Death Cab for Cutie, the Shins, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., Margot and the Nuclear So and So's,The Dandy Warhols,Nick Drake, Wilco, Tori Amos,Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliot Smith, The Delgados, Crooked fingers, as well as Beethoven, Dvorak, and some Native American music that incorporates elements of that culture and newer music. Pink Floyd is a long lasting favorite which I can hear by just thinking about it!
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?
Lonny: Any show that we have managed to show an audience a good time has been pretty much equally the top of my list of great moments. There is absolutely nothing more satisfying and beautiful than a set of music that creates a true connection with an audience.
Deb: My greatest moments are associated with artistic triumphs of creating something I am really satisfied with...Our new album "Light Bright" has made me very happy in this way, and is the latest "great moment". Going on tour with The Flaming Lips could be the next!
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to? How much can music influence current events?
Lonny: Music is more a force of rebalancing than a force for change. Our natural state is probably the most amazing possibility to achieve. Music definitely nudges us back to that state. The current world is constantly pushing us towards thousands of external stimulations per day for most of us. The actual miracle is probably closer to who we are and how we interact. Music is a true compass to bring us back to the rare and exceptional thing we call reality.
Deb: Music changes the world, as does everything that happens. I consciously try to make music that helps everything evolve in a positive way. You go in the direction you are looking, and that's where I try to keep my eye on. Sound in particular is intrinsic to our physical presence...the original "creation" of life, as interpreted by physicists, was an organization of matter BY sound waves that "compressed" and "stretched out" matter... Music to me is an incredible flow of energy that is not limited by the physical or time realm. Music is limited in it's "ability" to change "current events" by how much consensus it does or does not have...Most of the time that music is a by-product or reflection of what already exists.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician?
Lonny: A large subject to broach I must say, and clearly a mixed blessing. In a nutshell, with technology, music making is accessible to every Tom, Dick and Harry. This is good because we all have an opportunity to express and grow, however individuating yourself is exceedingly more difficult than in the past. You pretty much have to be a genius and very hard working to break through the musical clutter out there. Electronica and Hip Hop are now such different forms of electronic sound that have changed the soundscape in fairly dramatic ways. These forms of music have fairly clear pluses and minuses of there own. I am probably not saying anything new here.
Deb: Everybody has heard the news that the "old" music industry is dead, long live...what?
The digitizing of our world's information, including music has opened up a lot of abilities as what can be accomplished by fewer individuals using less resources,so there is a lot more music just a mouse click away. For artists there is exposure to a lot of different influences that I think has increased the interaction of different "genres", and, as this gene pool mixes, sped up the development of "new" genres. Listening to some of the younger artists I am really impressed at how, despite this age being so information-saturated.they have filtered through it, finding an original sound that reflects their exposures. As a musician, technology is the interface that connnects my music with the public, except when I am playing live for the audience.,.so it is a lot of how the music gets heard, and how the audience gets their say. Also, for recording music, technology has made it possible for our band to record our music in our own studio at our own pace...for a band without a big recording budget it enabled us to produce exactly what we wanted, and made us better musicians in the "reaching higher" process.
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?
Lonny: I have to invent this one. Merrell’s Morphing shoes, hiking shoes completely able to be very nice looking on an evening out. Fashionable, durable and forever lasting? I am just a man you know.
Deb: Shoes I would be Italian,leather, dark brown, 1 and 1/2 inch heel,side buckle...are boots allowed?
John Brodeur is a singer/songwriter from New York.
1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?
As a small child I discovered music through my parents' records--the Beatles and their solo records, the Best of the Bee Gees, '70s songwriter stuff like Billy Joel and Neil Diamond and Cat Stevens, and so forth. Those records were my best friends back then, and I knew from a very young age that I wanted to make music. I guess if there was one defining moment, it was just after I got my first electric guitar for Christmas after my 11th birthday--the kind with the built-in speaker, from the back of a JCPenney catalog. After playing along with the radio for a few days I had learned my first song (Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me," if you must know), and I realized that this wasn't just something that lived in my head.
2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites?
Everything. Not kidding--my playlist today was Gil Scott-Heron, Sparklehorse, Ke$ha, and Jawbreaker. I really try to listen to anything I can get my hands on. Some favorites: Elliott Smith, Big Star, Jellyfish, the Flaming Lips, Beatles, Radiohead.
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?
Don't take this as a cop out, but . . . I'm proud of all of my records, and I think my greatest moments are yet to come. A few things that stick out in my 15 years of playing original music: The first review (a rave!) of my first "real" band's demo tape; releasing my first solo album; and sharing stages with bands and songwriters that I admire, like Sloan, Glenn Tilbrook, Freedy Johnston, Fountains of Wayne, and Greg Laswell.
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to? How much can music influence current events?
Music has the capacity to drastically affect our moods and emotions, so it can definitely have an effect on social change. But I think more often music is influenced by current events, not the other way around.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician?
How hasn't technology affected the music industry? In many respects technology has made recording, marketing, and touring much easier. But it's a double-edged sword: The industry is now more crowded than ever, and it's harder to get your voice heard without relying on some kind of gimmick.
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?
Probably an old beat-up pair of Converse All-Stars. Or maybe that's just how I'm feeling tonight.
Patti is a talented artist from New York. She recently released her new album Double Standards.
1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?
I used to sing to myself in my plaid pants on the lawn of my parent's home when I was only 3 It might be my earliest real memory. But the defining moment in culture may have been when Olivia Newton John was a rollerskating singing muse in Xanadu, 1982 or so.
2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites?
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?
That might be a tie between the solo that flew from my fingers on Looking 4 a Girl, and my ridiculous spoken word event in the fade of Eggshells on Candelabra Cadabra (my second record). Frank Zappa would have been proud.
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to? How much can music influence current events?
I believe music changes the world every day. It only takes one set of two ears to hear and believe in someone like say, Bob Dylan and play telephone...pass it on until soon music, fashion politics and the world are affected!!! Political messages thru music are like the medicine that make the spoonful of sugar go down.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician?
Video killed the radio star. The internet killed video. everything is much too diluted now. Next!?
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?
Part of me would be stilletos or 70s platform boots, the other part would be barefoot!
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