A Brief Philosophy on Songwriting w/ Allan Wachs
What is writing music compared to the process of recording and playing it live like for you?
I’m still working on the recording and playing live part. I love both, but obviously there’s been some issues recording as I’m still working on a proper follow-up to “MRCS” 45 years later. I love playing out for appreciative crowds, ones that catch the vibe, catch the lyrics. Writing songs has just been an ongoing thing in my life since middle school, so I’m much more comfortable with that part of the process than the other two at this point
What is your particular process when manifesting material? How much does your environment impact your writing and approach to songwriting?
I’ve been writing a long time so I have deep archives to draw from whenever I find I don’t have any current inspiration. Lines, or images come from out of the blue so you just have to be ready for them and try to catch as much as you can at the time. It’s easiest when life is calm and I can get in a daily groove playing, practicing and writing. When there’s outside disturbances that make themselves present inside my life it makes it more difficult to finish pieces, but the process still goes on. You know, perseverance furthers as it’s said.
How much does the instrument, the guitar, play a role in the actual channeling of the music for you as a songwriter and performer? Do you have a set of themes, or familiarness you like to commonly touch on throughout your music’s?
Sometimes a guitar riff will inspire a song, or help elicit the feeling I’m trying to realize. The guitar creates the atmosphere of whatever the song is becoming. For me a song isn’t really finished until I’ve found a way to perform it, meaning I need to develop a comfortable guitar and rhythm approach. Life, love, death and the apocalypse in all it’s forms.
What is your particular process and approach when readying for a new album? What kind of headspace is that like for you compared to the early stages of writing and sort of roaming around looking for inspiration to write and create?
I seem to take 45 years between albums and by then I’m really ready to record. I have such a backlog of songs to record and share that my headspace now is excited to realize I might actually get to do that.
