For George Clarke and Kerry McCoy of Deafheaven, it’s the ritual before the creative process that’s more important than the ritual during it.
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“Not having to travel has opened me up to different ways to be creative that I didn’t have before.” For Alex Skolnick of Testament, isolation has proven to be a boon to his creative process, and deadlines have been a source for some great ideas.
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I'm sure you're thinking, "How in the heck did you get these two guys together?" I've interviewed Fallon twice for Songwriters on Process, and I've been an LA Guns fan since their first s/t album. I first saw them live on the "Cocked and Loaded" tour in the late 80s while in college. I follow both of these guys on social media and noticed that they'd always comment on each other's posts. I figured they knew each other, so I reached out. They were both game to talk.
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For Mark Morton (Lamb of God) and Alain Johannes , inspiration for songs often comes from the ordinary, everyday life. The environment is an especially fertile place: Morton says songs come to him while gardening, while for Johannes it can be the sounds he hears throughout the day.
This is the second time I’ve interviewed Morton and Johannes; I interviewed Morton in 2014 and Johannes in 2010. I’ve kept in touch with both since then, so it was easy to get these two guys together to talk about their creative process, especially since there’s mutual admiration between the two. In fact, they collaborated on the recent Mark Lanegan solo album Straight Songs of Sorrow: Johannes produced and played on it, while Morton co-wrote and also played on it.
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"I can’t imagine being a songwriter and not reading. How is that possible?"
No truer words of wisdom have ever been uttered by a songwriter. It should come as no surprise that Neil Fallon, utterer of those words and the the singer/songwriter of the metal band Clutch, is a voracious reader. Fallon is a huge fan of Cormac McCarthy (a favorite among many songwriters I've interviewed) and William Faulkner, but he’s also devoured his share of science fiction over the years—which is why he wanted to branch out to other genres. So Fallon recently decided to tackle some light reading in the form of Russian literature.
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"I was just telling my girlfriend the other day, 'People don't take the words of Yoda seriously enough." And with that, J.D. Cronise of The Sword just gave me one of my favorite lines in the six years I've had this site. Most songwriters I talk to usually can pinpoint an ideal emotion or state of mind under which they get their best writing done. To Cronise, though, it's an absence of emotion. He tries to get, in his words, into the most Zen state possible: a mind free of clutter, thoughts, distractions, anything. "It’s the non-emotional space that’s best for me. I like to be in a very Zen headspace. Peace and calm is the most important thing to me when I write." Cronise never forces the writing process, only writing when he feels ready. In itself, this puts him in a relaxed state: there's no pressure to write, so he never gets blocked.
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For almost thirty years, Tom Keifer has had seeds rolling around in his head. All day long. They never stop. But Keifer wants it no other way.
Keifer achieved tremendous success as the frontman for the 80s hard rock band Cinderella, selling over 20 million albums worldwide. Throughout his career, Keifer's creative process has involved the sifting of these "seeds," as he calls them. These seeds take the form of melodies and lines that he's always juggling in his mind. Those that he forgets are probably not meant to be anyway, he figures. But those seeds that stick around for weeks or even months are probably, in Keifer's view, meant to be songs. It's not surprising, then, that Keifer's songwriting process always starts with the lyrics. The guitar hooks, he says, are "the easy part." He can write those all day long.
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This site is woefully short of interviews with metal songwriters. I've been a Lamb of God fan for a while, but it was only recently that I watched the 2014 documentary about the band "As the Palaces Burn." No less a metal god than Slash calls them one of the biggest metal acts in the world in the trailer (below). I was impressed by the introspection and thoughtful responses in the band member interviews, so I figured that Mark Morton, guitarist and songwriter for the band, would make a fantastic interview. And boy was I right.
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This site is woefully short on metal, which surprises me given that I grew up listening to the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. My tastes have expanded, but I still love to revisit my roots (and play "Hallowed Be Thy Name" at ear-splitting levels). Sadly, the only other metal interview on this site is with J.D. Cronise of The Sword.
A few weeks ago I was at the Red Palace here in DC. Above the din of the bar, I heard a killer riff (you can always hear metal over crowd noise). I was mesmerized. I asked the bartender who the band was. "Red Fang," she replied. "They're from Portland, and they're awesome." And she's right. So last week I talked with Bryan Giles, one of the songwriters and guitarists in the band. He's in the passenger seat in the video below. Their new album Murder the Mountains(Relapse Records) drops in April, so read my interview with Giles about his creative process, including how endless repetition is an integral part of his songwriting.
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When he was a little boy, J.D. Cronise wanted to be a comic book illustrator. To those familiar with The Sword's lyrics, this should come as little surprise. Their three albums are filled with images and narratives from ancient mythology and science fiction. And like a visual artist with an illustration, Cronise, the band's songwriter/vocalist and guitarist, starts his creative process with a single image. It's a process that he describes as "organic": he never forces himself to write, instead waiting until the ideas come to him. If Cronise writes because of extrinsic motivation, it's not true art.
The Sword is touring in support of their new release Warp Riders on Kemado Records. You can read my review of Warp Riders in the Washington Post here.
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