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Short Interview
How has your first musical memory influenced you?
We had very little music of any sort, but as a four or five year old child I
remember being very aware of sound....and liking the sound of the vacuum
cleaner, the sound of the trains that went past our house, the sound of the
car engine on long trips. I think I tended to grow up being more aware
aurally than visually and later when I was about thirteen and finally
discovered pop/rock music it was the sound of the songs that intrigued me
more than anything else.
What got you started writing songs?
I very much enjoyed some of the poetry we studied as part of high school
English and French, especially Dylan Thomas and Baudelaire, and even
attempted to write the odd poem myself. I had also became increasingly
interested in rock music and on leaving school started to play with Stephen
Cogle in the earliest version of the Victor Dimisich Band. He was interested in
writing music so it seemed only natural to try my lyrics with his music. At
first we imitated other styles but after a while we developed our own
'voice'.
Over the years how has your approach to songwriting developed?
Over the years my approach to lyric-writing has become a lot less
structured, leaving more space for different voices within the song. Because
I am always relying on someone else to sing my lyrics I am also conscious
how they might interpret them so I tend to write for a particular singer
more than I used to.
What songs are you most proud of?
It's difficult for me to separate lyrics from songs....and I do tend to
think in terms of 'songs'...if a song works it is because both
components work. As far as lyrics go I am most proud of Claude (Victor
Dimisich Band), written when I was 19 and my first 'abstract' lyric (I had
no idea where it came from), Mothlight (The Terminals), very much a
maverick lyric in the context of the other things I was writing at the time.
Black Creek (The Terminals), and the atmosphere it conveys, and Burn
(Flies Inside the Sun), just because of its sheer darkness.
How does a song develop through writing, rehearsing, performance, and recording?
The original song is only a blueprint (with different people writing words
and music there will inevitably be different interpretations even at the
earliest stage). During rehearsal and performance it will be further
interpreted by the musicians and a consensus will develop as to which
direction it should go (in the early stages there are usually several
possibilities) and how it should sound. The sense of the original song may
change, sometimes quite radically. After it is recorded it becomes much more
fixed and consciously or unconsciously musicians will refer back to the
recorded version.
©Peter Stapleton 2004
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