Who and Where We've Been
In sifting through our archives, we found an unreleased episode (episode 6) for the Paper Street Post recorded in February of 2017. Since it was recorded so long ago, I originally thought that we should just scrap it and move on to the most recent episode we recorded this year. But, after listening to it, I don’t think we can let it go unheard. A lot has been happening on Paper Street; 2017 was a productive year, but a very different one than we expected. Change is sometimes difficult to predict; and even when we know it’s coming it can still be difficult to anticipate exactly what form it will take. If there’s a theme to this interview I gave to Bobby — or even to the entire year of 2017, when it was recorded — it would be that change is how we can look back on who we were and where we came from to recognize who and where we are now. Most importantly, that “who” and “where” are not independent of one another. This old interview, like Dave mentions in the Preface of sorts, shows such foreshadowing for who and where we are here in 2018. Our songwriting, lineup, relationships and goals are maturing. We’re no longer just Ohio-born guys anymore. We’re not settling in the writing process or in the studio.
There’s an irony which can’t be ignored in our labeling the Post a monthly podcast in this episode’s opening moments, but Bobby and I quickly dive into “Going ‘Round.”[1] It’s interesting that I’m reflecting on an old podcast in which I was reflecting on, even at the time, an old song. “Going ‘Round” was the first song I wrote with Tim in Nashville (2013), and it marked, as I say in the interview, a change for our writing style. In college we wrote music together for over three years. We got to the point that we couldn’t even write separately – not truly. I would naturally begin to anticipate elements I knew Tim would bring to a song of mine, and instead of waiting for him I would write it in myself. Tim would foresee suggestions I would make to chord structure and make changes before he even showed a song to me. We were writing alone, but not independently. From the outside that may sound like a burden or a barrier to creativity, but I assure you it was not. Some of the most beautiful music I have written was with nothing more than a Steinway baby grand, a pad of paper, a nice pen and the spirit of Tim Koly looking over my shoulder making tweaks, keeping the beat or singing harmony.
But that period of moderate musical proliferation was followed by a drought. Tim, Dave and two of our friends moved to Nashville in 2011, and I went two years writing with true independence for the first time. When I followed them down in 2013, after having spent that time leaning into my own writing voice, “Going ‘Round” was one of the first songs to come of the new dynamic. It was much less aggressive than our college sound, it was more mature, more vulnerable, and more melodic. Our harmonies were beautiful sounding. The music was simple. We found that we didn’t need to shout to be heard. We learned to “[invite] confidence without demanding it,” as Steinbeck says. And maybe, for the first time in either of our lives, we truly had something to say. And maybe we also knew that we didn’t have to do all the talking.
That instrumental bridge in “Going ‘Round” felt like a symphony in length and complexity when we first played it. I’m sure any writers can relate: the first time you hear an original work from start to finish is exhilarating. This thing you created with meaning and purpose is standing on its own! It can be hard to look at it objectively for a few days. It resonated so strongly with me those first few times because we had never done anything like that before. In college an instrumental section meant a loud, aggressive guitar solo. Obviously, nothing like that would fit in “Going ‘Round,” so this needed to serve a different purpose. It was, in fact, not complex nor long, but without it the song would be lacking. The entirety of the song rests on those peaceful moments where the music can speak for us. I told Bobby that the lyrical guitar riff closes out the song, but really it occurs much earlier than that. From the opening lines there is a balance — between the lyrics sung by Tim and me and Dave’s lyrical guitar that responds to us, or the wordless oo’s that we harmonize on – between what is said and unsaid. That the song doesn’t truly end until the last notes are played is too simple a statement. The song can’t be fully understood until the listener recognizes, not the gaps between the words, but the words unsung — between the lyrics and everything that could have been but wasn’t for the song’s conflicted speaker.
While “Going ‘Round” was a departure from what had come before 2013, Bobby and I talked about how the band had just made another shift. He asks me what “Going ‘Round” brings to the table, and I say it’s not significant for what it brings, but for what we’re leaving. Tunes like “Out West” that you heard in the intro, “You Break My Heart,” “Patiently” and other songs we’ve recently added to our stage repertoire aren’t as safe. Lyrically they’re more open and vulnerable. Musically there is more interaction between players. I have a feeling we have an entire episode dedicated to this “new sound” of ours, so I’ll have to stop myself here.
One of the struggles we’ve had as a band is defining our sound. In submitting to festivals, hopping on gigs other bands have put together, or trying to reserve a show for ourselves, someone always ask what genre of music we play. And our answers have often varied. Now, I could be wrong, but it’s never felt like we’ve had any sort of identity crisis. Many of our songs sound different from one another, but it’s not because we try to play all these different genres of music. We don’t want to get stuck playing incarnations of the same song for the rest of our careers, and more importantly, each song has its own voice. In one of the few interviews he gave, J.D. Salinger was speaking about hating being labeled as a certain type of writer. (He hated many things, maybe labels most of all.) Essentially, he said that he wished we could do away with labels all together. He referenced how someone called Franz Kafka a religious sensationalist[2], and Salinger could never forgive him for it. Instead, he proposes that, when confronted with the question of what kind of writer or artist we are, we reply with all the artists whom we admire.
This is where our covers come in. Yes we’re Americana, and Rock ‘n Roll, and Blues occasionally, even Poppy at times, but we’re not one of those at once or for very long. So what do we sound like? Well, we love The Band, The Rolling Stones, The Lone Bellow, Leon Russell, Bruce Springsteen; all of whom we cover. If Mumford and Sons, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, The Wildfeathers or Nathaniel Rateliff come out too, we’re not going to upset about that. And that’s a short list: one which changes constantly for me from month to month. But, again change just shows us who and where we are.
So, if change is the relationship between what was and what is then let’s spend just a moment addressing the “now.” At this point in the episode Bobby and I start to talk about anticipating the show we did with a full horn section, and if you’ve seen us live this past year then you know that it went pretty well. Jordan Fredrick joined our ranks full-time on tenor sax, and Ben Shaw joined us on Bass full-time. For the first time in Paper Street history we are cramming a six-piece on stage, and I can confidently say it’s been one of the best changes that we have made. I won’t give too much away on that front as we’ve already recorded an interview with Jordan which we’ll be posting next month and another with Ben soon after that. (For real. I promise not to forget about this episode.) Everything that is heading your way, from the newly recorded songs, the new band members, the new sound — all of it is tied to the experiences we've had. Who and where we were leads naturally to who and where we are now, and I think you'll like what you see.
Once upon a time we had a beast of a time titling this track, as the chorus is really “why you got me goin’ ‘round?” in place of “going around,” which obviously has zero flow to it. However, the title “Goin’ ‘Round” just had too many apostrophes and quotation marks. I’m sure that was a moment the rest of the guys lamented my obnoxious attention to detail and the stubbornness I can bring to these discussions.
I have searched high and low for my copy of the J. D. Salinger: The Last Interview so I could include this quote, but it has apparently evaporated. I know for a fact that nobody would want to borrow it from me….