Interview w/ Saul Conrad

Back at it again with another interview in my ongoing series with artists that have been featured on the blog in the past. Today, we catch up with emerging Boston based singer-songwriter Saul Conrad. I reviewed Saul's debut release "Poison Packets" on the blog back in October and he has quickly become one of the most intriguing new musicians coming up in the Boston area today. We caught up last week as we were partaking in some lunch at City Feed and Supply right in his hometown of Jamaica Plain and we touched base on various topics such as how he made his foray into music and what inspires him each and every day to craft such thought-provoking songs. Here is the transcript from that interview:

Give us your name and where you're originally from?

Saul Conrad. I'm from Somerville first, but then Brookline and JP, I live around here.

What is your earliest recollection of being exposed to music at a young age?

My parents took me to Longy Music School when I was 3 or something, and I remember dancing around the room while this Russian lady played Greek waltzes and stuff, and then I started taking piano lessons with her and I did that from age 3 to 18 or 19, so I started with her and went with her for a long time.

What has music done to enhance or enrich your life up until this point?

I think when I was younger it was more of something I probably cared alot about deeply, and I got alot of emotion out of and I figured alot of things out while doing it, but it was always sort of a thing I was forced to do, like practice a certain number of hours every day, classical piano and I was always very resentful about that. Everybody would be playing wiffle ball on the street and I don't know if I ever admitted it, I was sort of in a constant rebellion because of the way it was with my parents and I don't know if I admitted how much I was enjoying it, but when I got older there was alot of obstacles and difficulties in life and some days every thing's just shit but if you have one record you're really into of some sort and you go out and drive or listen to it on your headphones while you're walking or something, I find those are central to my day and my life whatever record I'm listening to, it really changes the day from something hard to get through and maybe not worth getting through to something that you strive through. I feel you can relate to something and kind of feel like a purpose that other people shared in the past, especially with people who made music you really admired who are dead now, it really attaches you.

Where do you draw inspiration from to write your music, is it autobiographical in nature?

I think with "Poison Packets" I know it's not always completely clear, maybe it's a little vague because I really like the idea that you write something in my own code and language, it all makes perfect sense to me, but I want it to be open enough that it's a guide that once it's out, other people can sort of fill in the shapes I made with the words and it kind of acts as a skeleton for their story so that it's transferable, but I was trying to be as open as I could psychologically, really describing things that happened or continue to happen that caused me to live the way I live or feel the kind of situations I have, so I think maybe the new thing I'm working on is a little more abstract or about groups of things or history or mountain ranges or longer, less intimate psychological things.

Let's go behind the creation of your debut album "Poison Packets" and the story behind the genesis for the album?

I had all these songs written out, and we made "Poison Packets" and went to Rochester, NY (Katie Schecter and I) and we knew this guy who we used to work when we were in college and we've made some records that's long since lost, but then he's a very obsessive compulsive, very bizarre strange guy, but we were both comfortable with him. They had no idea what the songs were about and they were a little concerned there wasn't anything upbeat or dancy because they hadn't really heard the lyrics to have gotten the whole feel of what it was going to be about, and I just did acoustic guitar, and I would lay down a vocal, and pretty much in that time Katie would have learned the song and then she would put harmonies down, and we got it all done with vocals and acoustic guitar, and then in Boston I had people come over to the house, and had a mandolin and all the other instruments around there, and we added that all slowly, and I went to Rochester and moved it. And by the time we were halfway through the album, they had kind of given up on the idea of any dancy numbers, and they started to realize what it was about. But I don't think they had ever been listening to what I was listening to, I was listening to alot of stuff that the album was based on and it didn't make sense to them at first, but then is started to.

Can you talk about the creation of the title track on the album and "Sycamore" and talk about the lyricism surrounding it and what inspired it?

"Sycamore" is probably my favorite song, we did a video for it. Catherine Please, the girl who made the video sees these two birds, and one's in a cage at home and one's out traveling to get back home and at the very end of the video, that bird gets home and it's almost as if the two birds are seeing each other, the one bird is on the porch and the other is in the house and it's where it becomes clear is that the bird inside the house sees the bird outside but the bird outside maybe only sees its own reflection in the window, and that was Catherine's idea, but I guess that's kind of an interpretation that the song is about love is vanity or thinking you love someone else, but you really love yourself or not really seeing the other person, I guess in one way it's a gentle, romantic song where the protagonist is feeling like he's not really understood and he's a mess, but it's really his fault and he's sort of amazed by the miracle he's worth something or worth the time to the other person, but then I guess in another way you could kind of think of it as sort of a very self-indulgent thing all about me and how much of a mess I am, am I worth it to you or not all just for my own sake, and I think that's what she was getting at, so I think it has those sides in it.

I don't really know how it came to be. I mean, I was writing all those songs and I just had little sections of music and I had lyrics that I hadn't tied down to anything yet and I just had placeholder words like "I love you" and "I want you", just stupid little phrases that were holding, and I then replaced all those phrases with lyrics that I had been working on that I didn't know what song it would be for, and so the songs kind of came together.

What do you enjoy the most about performing your songs live in front of an audience?

It's nice when people are actually listening! (Laughter) I think they way we were doing it was just me playing guitar and me and Katie singing on the tour, and Katie is great and she knows me really well and the way I play, so I was sort of able to be very free and improvise alot and go off on solos that weren't supposed to be there or have an extra verse, and we were kind of free to just go where ever because it wasn't a band meant to stay together, and I had a really fun time where we just started playing a few covers that we got alot better at as time went on and the covers are meant to show off the influences of what you're listening to, where it comes from and it's sort of a lyrical portrait of the tradition of music I thought I was a part of, and I was also practicing with the way of relating to people live. I started listening to some recordings of some of my favorite artists live and especially when you're playing alot of dark, slow, and meditative stuff, you know the way you can kind of tell jokes in between or try to control the mood like bring it down and pull it up, and I felt like there are sometimes where people were really listening where we would have a song that was almost upbeat and then feel the people were really getting into it, and then pull it back and create a big effect so when you can really start to control the energy in the room, it's pretty cool.

Away from music, what do you like to do in your spare time when not making recordings?

I'm usually always recording, performing, or writing music. I've been working on playing organ and piano and helping alot of other people work on their records and helping people record in my house so I'm usually working on somebody's record when it's not my own.

What's on tap for the rest of the year musicwise, any touring or recording plans?

I'm hoping to at least for a couple of months play alot around New England and the Northeast, and I'm trying to set up shows and maybe towards the end of the summer do another bigger tour. There are some bands who were saying we can open for them, but I don't know if that will really come through. I've got a new album that just needs to be mastered that I'm really excited about, although it's totally different than the last one so I don't know if it's going to help my career at all, but I'm starting to work on another one where I really want to have symphony and horns and multiple lines going all at once with classical instruments, and hopefully some big choral parts. It's almost more of like symphonic music, but I guess I'll busy myself with trying to figure how in the world I'm going to get that recorded.

Lastly, how has music helped shape you to the person you are now?

Well, I guess for whatever reason I've always felt like I can't really care about anything, the only thing that ever really mattered to me is that I see as using my life in a way besides things that are joyful: horseback riding, or loving summertime where you can go boating everyday which is great if that's available. I think of my life as how much creative work have I done, and have I gotten about. I guess in a way, I get less scared of death the more I get work done, every time I get on an airplane I'm like, "Well I've done this, I've got that record out", those things exist you know. I really do think day by day the amount of work I've created is how I value my life and what makes it make sense that I'm here, something for me to do or worry about, and that I feel is important and I guess felt it was important to express myself and I was writing short stories before I really started taking music seriously, and I tried to make a movie at one point, and now I feel that I don't have to use completely words or short stories to express myself, maybe words aren't the best way at sort of the deeper emotions. I like words but having words sort of be something that's an added seasoning on top of something where the real emotion is getting across more abstract through the music, then I can have fun with the words and then I can sort of explain the words with feelings in the music, that I couldn't do with just words.

So, music is seeming to be the combination of things that is working best for me to express myself, and I hope at some point and time, a larger audience will somehow get to hear about it, and maybe it will be of importance to somebody. I think with this new record, I'm starting to write in a kind of way that is pretty different than anyone has ever done, I don't think people are going to like it right away, but I do think it's opening new doors for sort of new ways to conceive songwriting maybe, and it opens up alot of possibilities to really get at deeper, more careful portraits of emotions, so that's what I'm trying to do.

Thanks once again to Saul Conrad for taking some time out of his busy day to conduct this interview. Saul has definitely fascinated me with his uncanny ability to weave authentic emotion into his song that it almost makes you feel like one of the subjects he's writing about and strikes a chord almost immediately the second you hear it. If you would like to check out his music for yourself, visit his ReverbNation page here to get a sense of what Saul's music is all about, and check out his debut album "Poison Packets", now available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, and Spotify among fine digital music retailers.