Q&A: (Paul Brill)

The first time The Beach Reporter interviewed musician Paul Brill in January 2004, he'd already embarked on a different kind of musical pilgrimage in the writing of songs for his new album, "New Pagan Love Song."

At the time, Brill attributed his shift in symphonic direction as a departure from his past singer/ songwriter endeavors - "Sisters" and "Halve The Light" - and rooted himself in a solo exploration of the world of electronica, transpiring within the confines of his New York City apartment.

Since then, Brill has released the new album on his label Scarlet Shame Records, which achieves an intriguing and distinctive stylistic palette by incorporating samples, loops and beats from the electronic side with live acoustic instrumentation.

Of course, the method of fusing two stylistic palettes is nothing unique for either listeners or musicians, but the element that sets Brill's work apart from others on the market is his delicate approach to a new sonic medium and his strong footing in live performance. This kind of mindfulness is what creates the sentiment that he built the songs from the bottom up.

Aside from the engaging arrangements and charming melodies, Brill also illustrates his clever knack for writing poignant songs, which stream like miniature stories, augmented with keen imagery as he has demonstrated so impressively in the past on previous songs.

Brill, a native of New York, labored over the songs in his home and eventually recorded them with a group of rather impressive musicians whom he has collaborated with on prior recordings.

Brill this week talked about the new work and some of the stories behind the songs. He will perform at the University of Southern California April 5 and at Spaceland in Silverlake April 6.

I heard you were in the band SF Envelope while living in San Francisco. What ever happened with that group?

We were in California in the mid- to late-1990s and we had some good success in San Francisco. We had a nice following and we started to grab the attention of a lot of labels but we just decided to do it on our own and tour a lot. We were getting a lot of interest and by the end there were a few offers that were getting close but our hearts weren't in it as much. Personally, the music that we were doing didn't jive with what I was listening to and the stuff that I wanted to be doing, and it was hard to try to make that whole band change because it wasn't just me.

What kind of music was it?

It was rock. It was kind of loud and heavy at times, and sometimes it was really soft and ethereal. It was a very important and formative time in terms of getting to know the road and see if it was something that I would want to do, if I could hack it and get a taste for what the business is all about.

Is this time when you got into the whole country and bluegrass scene?
Yeah, pretty much. It wasn't just country but a lot of old-time traditional, American roots music, black and white and western swing and old country blues. But just not the straight-ahead heavy electric guitar with a Marshall stack. I haven't really done a lot of live electric work since then.

Did your opinion of the heavy stuff change for good?

No, I definitely love it still and I'll always lean back to that period. There was so much good music made then and a lot of stuff that is still being done now that I love. I'm still a sucker for a great pop rock song in an AC Newman kind of way, Fountains of Wayne, even.

Did this change in music alter your approach to songwriting?

Kind of. I think I pretty much have the same approach to songwriting initially up until this last record actually. I would still sit down with an acoustic guitar or piano, write a song, work out the words and come up with its structure. If I was in a professional studio environment there was always that limitation that I'm rushing through because of time and budgetary restraints, and we'd end up recording it very literally according to the way it was written. This last record, which I recorded myself, I had afforded myself a much broader and greater length of time and freedom to experiment.

The idea of telling a story in the context of a song has always been really important to you just like in many old country songs.

Yeah, especially on this record. I've always attempted to tell a story in a song and I think some of my earlier stuff was a little bit more oblique in the writing. I made a conscious effort on this record to try to be a little bit more literal and more direct with the narrative. Sometimes, I think it worked (laughs), it still has its oblique moments. I still got to keep a little mystery in it.

You're from New York City and live there now, but you have lived in the woods of Vermont for a couple of years, too. What do you think living in the city versus living in the country does for your creativity?

It's tough to say. I think I was too young to know any kind of difference in the inspiration or creativity. At this point, I think I'm a little too wedded to the lifestyle, buzz and rush of the city and its cultural assimilation. You walk down the street and you're bombarded with all of these images of culture and language, and it's overwhelming. It's also inspirational, eye-opening and mind-boggling - it's every emotion mixed into one. It's kind of a natural environment for me. There was a time when I was going to try and move back to Vermont and live that life, and I just don't think I could do it now. It's a little too homogenous, but there are elements of that life I do still miss. It was so bucolic and ideal, but that is the continual urge to get away from where you are, the grass-is-greener notion.

The last time we spoke, you mentioned how much time you were spending alone making music in the comfort and solitude in your own home. Did you ever find when working alone that you kind of got sucked into a space in which after a while you had some challenges in determining what was good, decent or something considered a dead end?

Sure, that's a great point. That's exactly what happens. I feel terrible for writers, it's just so much harder and a far nobler pursuit in my mind. Generally, when you do a record in a collaborative situation, there are people around you who are going to give you your feedback along the way and you do get a sense that you are accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. But when you're sitting at home for eight months laboring over tempos and moving things around - I was doing stuff that I had never done before with this record - and I remember thinking that people might not like this. I just thought that was where my heart was since I was listening to a lot of electronic music. I was reaching for something and I still am but I just had to try because I couldn't do another singer/songwriter record. It was killing me.

With this album, I think I was most impressed with the synthesis you've created between electronic textures and acoustic instrumentation. They blend so well together and it's nice to hear that kind of continuum.

A lot of it is happy accident. I really did think that I was going to be doing more of an electronic record, to me it was an electronic record, but then I listened back and it was my version of an electronic record. I didn't want to abandon songwriting or the organic side of what I do. I thought it would be interesting and fresh if I could somehow mix what I had been doing in the past, and bring in instruments and sounds that could elevate it and give it a distinctive voice. Each time you've got to step into the breach and just say, 'To hell with it," and go with what sounds good at the moment.

The song 'Weekday Bender' sounds like it was written on the beach somewhere about you and friends back in the day.

Yeah, that's way true, definitely. That's when I was living in San Francisco and it was a great time. I had just gotten there and my friends and I, none of us had jobs, and we would tour and rent out our apartments and hit the road for two months. We'd come back, live off the little money we made off the road and then go back out. We'd go on these trips during the week and let it rip. Those are some of my greatest memories and I made a conscious effort to capture that dusty California feeling in the song.

From this song you transition to a song like 'Power Lines' which I don't know if it was written in the winter but it definitely feels like a winter song.

Yes, it was and it is a wintry tale. It is a very autobiographical song, probably the most I've ever written. It was really satisfying to record and I struggled with it because I didn't want it to be a sappy acoustic guitar ballad. No disrespect to anyone who does that, I've done plenty myself. I feel like I hit something new with myself.

One of my favorite songs is 'Everything I Believe In' which has a beautiful sound to it but with some sad lyrics.

That song is loosely based on a friend of mine who was killed. It's just a horrible story. He called me to say that he was moving to New York, he had just got a job here and the first day he was here, he went out with his sister. They came home really late and a little drunk, and he and his friend went to an ATM to get money for the cab. They were held up and details are pretty sketchy, but the story his friend tells is that he was going to fight the muggers and they just shot him, but there was a big investigation and they actually arrested the friend on suspicion. It's still an open case.