It’s a tough thing to know that when you’re making your album, you’re going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.
But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that’s the center of it, that is it. It’s almost like there’s something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you’re a songwriter that sings your material.
I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.
To the modern ear, it seems soft. When you hear it against other things, it seems vulnerable. Lyrically and musically, though, this is more subtle. And, yes, it’s asking a lot of someone who’s used to being hit over the head with bright neon to listen to this.
If the melody is telling me this is what the song is about, then I’m sort of forced into confession, autobiography or fantasy. If I don’t do that, I’ve hamstrung the melody.
Everyone grew up with a piano in their living room, so rocking out on the piano was accessible – it wasn’t an upper-class thing. Now pianos have become very much a piece of furniture.
I’m older than I was, and I’m still washed-up, and I haven’t changed my music one iota. It’s just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.
