Some Kind Of Muffin

How to introduce this guy….He loves life, he loves music, he loves people. I’ll let him tell the rest.

Photo by Suzan Jones

I want to go way back in time to start. When did you first realize that you wanted to devote your life to music?

Brandon Schott: Glad I had my coffee this morning, that’s some rememberin…hmmm…I think it first started just hearing music, my earliest records – Culture Club, Bruce Hornsby, Duran Duran and Huey Lewis back in the day. Especially, Bruce Hornsby – that led directly into my starting piano lessons at age 9. I don’t think I *decided* I wanted to devote my life to music even then but I definitely felt the power it had over me and I couldn’t ever really see it letting go. And it was constantly evolving too – from studying Beethoven and Mozart pieces on piano, to the days wearing out my Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John cassette or watching Billy Joel’s Nylon Curtain tour on VHS. Then, the time I was supposed to be spend running scales and chords (for right or wrong) became figuring out how to play LEVON or ROOT BEER RAG. That led to me wanting to make my own classic recordings (which of course they were not), but I started experimenting recording on a 4-track and on and on. Years later, I’m still on this crazy discovery path. Music was all I ever wanted, it’s my connection to the universe’s larger plan – as a geeky pre-teen/teenager to present day – it makes me feel so vastly less alone in the world.

Tell me about Berklee. What attracted you to Berklee? What was the experience like and what did you get out of it?

Brandon Schott: Somewhere in the middle of my junior year of high school I visited the campus in Boston. My father is a big Red Sox fan so it was a lovely excuse for him as well to get up to bean town and visit the great green monster. As I mentioned, I was very much 4-track geek by this time (those cassettes are LONG buried in time thankfully), but it wasn’t long down the first set of hallways filled with keyboards and computers and recording interfaces that I was sold. I didn’t look at any other schools after that, I was done.

Berklee was an amazing experience, and completely overwhelming. I studied songwriting and music business and aside from the great knowledge and tools I picked up in those courses- the greatest gift I got from Berklee was an overwhelming sense of community. The friendships and camaraderie I built during my time there continue to have reverberations over my career, and I’m still meeting and working with people who knew people who knew people I knew while I was there. In many ways, the overwhelming talent I saw there prepared me for the larger music world I’m now in. There’s a shared spirit that I’m very proud to carry with me.

Your newest album is “13 Satellites”. What can you tell me about the concept and how it all came together?

Photo by Madelynn Elyse

Brandon Schott: I had a whole other 4th record written and in the wings ready to record – those songs are still unrecorded – and coming off the heels of the DANDELION project which was very different and much more reflective, I knew I wanted to do something more lighthearted. In early 2010 (DANDELION dropped in the fall of 2009) my friend Billy Hawn – a tremendous drummer and percussionist – and I started casually trading tracks together. The first of which was the song EARLY MORNING NIGHT. He was in Pennsylvania at the time, I was in Glendale, and one song led to another which led to another, we developed quite the groove together – our sensibilities locked right in. I’d have the songs and create a skeleton arrangement w/ guitars, ukes, keyboards and background vocals etc – and he’d add these amazing percussive textures on top, send the files back. And because I wasn’t thinking about it as a record, my approach was more adventurous than it may have been if I thought “I’m making a Brandon Schott record” – I didn’t feel tied to any conceived definition of myself, chose more off kilter tunes to work on – I just let my inner geek fly, let the moment take me wherever it would. And before I knew it we had a record on our hands – almost the whole record is just Billy and I coming together cross continent. This became 13 Satellites.

What is your song writing process?

Brandon Schott: Man, it changes from song to song – sometimes, and very rarely, songs come fully formed, like they’re being channeled through me by some kind of other worldly force of nature. Most of the time, though, a spark of an idea will present itself – I usually write to a title – and I’ll usually very quickly get the architecture of the song in place, the chords – the melody – the framework (verse / chorus etc), and then over time (and hopefully not TOO long) start chipping away at the lyric until it rises to the vision I set out to cultivate.

Your last album, Dandelion, was written and recorded while you were going through treatment for stage three cancer. It obviously affected that project. How did that experience and beating the cancer into remission affect your approach to “13 Satellites”?

Brandon Schott: DANDELION was recorded (mostly live) in a church over the 1 year anniversary of my diagnosis and treatment, and featured songs that were all written during that experience. It was my musical diary/therapy workout – a way to put the whole thing in some kind of context, and hopefully along the way – heal a bit further. Consequently, it was a tremendously reflective and spiritual record and “13 SATELLITES” became the result of that project for me – a celebration of my living and an exercise in joy. I felt a certain return to my roots on SATELLITES in a lot of ways, the way the album was recorded there was a lot of spark and re-discovery – reminded me of the giddiness those early years on my 4 track, making music on my own radar without doubt or social roadblocks. In many ways it was the least self-conscious record I’ve ever made, because the fear was gone. I’d already lived through enough of that energy, this record is the sound of me casting that fear out. “13 Satellites” gave me that freedom in a musical context.

What’s the story behind “A Daydream (…or 2AM Serenade) ?”

Brandon Schott: That’s actually one of the oldest tunes on the album – I wrote it and demoed it around the time of the GOLDEN STATE record. That piano track is actually from those sessions, was a tune that just fell by the wayside as we turned our attention to other songs. So, when Billy and I started working together I was looking through the archives at songs that were a little left of center and that was one of the first ones to come up. I remember writing it, my wife had gone to bed and I started noodling around at the piano at around 11PM or so – demoed the piano melody and framework that night, couple of ‘placeholder’ lines scribbled on a notepad (the “2AM Serenade” came from that night, it was LITERAL). I wrote the lyric very quickly the next day, separated from my family for a spell – a longing in my heart. For as rambling as it is musically, the lyric itself is very simple and direct…a snapshot of a day in time I just wanted to be anywhere other than where I was.

I love your instrumentation. It goes from lush and full to simple and understated. Do you hear the songs like that in your head or does that come about during the songwriting/recording process?

Brandon Schott: Thanks, man. I don’t usually think too hard about the arrangements as I’m writing, though I do think about the feel I want or the dynamics I want to encourage pretty early on in the writing. But it’s not usually until I have a scratch demo – acoustic / vocal or something – inevitably pieces of counter melody start to creep into my head, and once I’ve started recording that’s when all hell breaks loose and I have to do a good bit of editing to get all these melody fragments sit together and make sense – that’s when the real arranging comes into play. I do have to watch myself and make sure that my editor is sharp as a producer, sometimes the best textures or harmonies have to go if they stand in the way of the song, the lyrical voice.

What inspires you lyrically?

Brandon Schott: This is gonna sound really hokey – but being present. When I’m able to pull myself out of my routine, and just see something for what it is. There’s a whole world inside the world around me (to paraphrase Rhett Miller), and when I’m given that gift – and I’m grounded – there’s poetry in the air. Beauty inspires me – anger, joy – a turn of phrase, a perspective. Oh, and Josh Ritter – have you heard him? That guy can write a novel with a verse let alone a whole song (and he’s actually written novels too – talented so and so)- but his way with words just inspires the hell out of me. Any great song inspires me, the simplicity of a Sam Phillips or the scope of a band like Elbow – my friends send me tracks from time to time, hearing their work always makes me smile and kicks me into gear. Or a great film, TV show, my kids, and my wife is a tremendous muse…



Your video for “Satellite” was featured on BoingBoing. How did that video come about and how much did you have to do with it?

Brandon Schott: Here’s what I had to do with it: I said YES.

My friend Matt Barrios approached me about doing an animated video for a track on DANDELION in the spring of 2010. When I asked him how long it would take to put it all together, he mentioned a number of months, and I suggested he take one of the new tracks I’d been working on. I gave him SATELLITE and when he heard it after a few days he pitched, “Monty Python meets Planet of the Apes meets Yellow Submarine” and then rattled off some kind of story line that I truth fully didn’t hear after the elevator pitch line – I just said YES. All I did working on the video was show up one afternoon for a green screen shoot for the bridge section footage of me you see in the clip, and Matt just otherwise worked his magic on his own. It was amazing to see that come together, it was his vision – I’m still honored by it.

Tell me more about what you are doing with Defying Gravity.

Brandon Schott: I’m SO stoked about Defying Gravity. It’s a monthly multi-media series on songwriting that I started with my partners over at Spinbridge.com . Each month we tackle a musical theme, and through an essay – video interview – an audio download – and an audio podcast, we explore the theme and the song from a variety of different angles as it fits into our creative lives. We’ve done a couple that have been my own submissions and song offerings, but most episodes we’ve done have been conversations with my peers – fellow songwriters and their backgrounds, influences. They’ll write an essay in a song of their choice (sometimes a cover, sometimes a song from their own catalog), and we’ll talk about it on camera and in the podcast. It’s been interesting because during the context of these chats I’ve learned a lot about my own approach, as well as been really inspired just hearing people talk about their loves and passions. We’ve had Marvin Etzioni (of Lone Justice) on the show, Steve Barton (of Translator),Rob Shapiro (Populuxe) and I wrote a brand new song for last month’s show and very shortly we drop a new episode with Steven Wilson (of Plasticsoul).

Also, something like this is a really fun creative outlet outside of the usual touring / album cycle. With this series my collaborators and I have a unique framework outside of the normal model to work within, so that’s a really cool benefit of the show as well. It’s a little home away from home online, a community for us songwriting nerds – a little musical residency – if you will…

People have a jaded view of the Los Angeles music scene. What has been your experience? What do you think would surprise people about the LA scene?

Brandon Schott: Here’s where I get sappy and romantic again…I’m constantly surprised at how incredible supportive and beautiful the scene can be if you surround yourself by beautiful and supportive people. I think it’s very much like anything in life, the energy you cultivate toward others and the people that you pull into your life makes a tremendous difference in your outlook and output. There are a lot of things about LA that can be a drag, and the nature of the business these days can be a seemingly unending struggle – but I try not to buy into that hype as much as I can, when there’s so much love within the music scene, for the work and for each other. Creatively, my time in LA has been some of the most fulfilling – inspiring – and joyful years of my life. The greatest compliment I can give my LA family is just that – they are family. While my parents and extended blood family are all back east – it’s a real drag to not see them more, but with there’s a balance of my long-distance interactions with them and my dear friends and creative family here in LA, I do feel very blessed. They all lift me up. They make me want to be a better artist – a better person, and I only hope I can repay that love someway someday…

What do you hope people get from “13 Satellites”?

Brandon Schott: An intense desire to listen to it again once they’ve finished it. Oh, and to share it with all their friends. And buy more of my music.

If you could only have one dessert for the rest of your life, what dessert would it be and why?

Brandon Schott: Strawberry ice cream. You got your desert, you got your calcium, there’s a little protein in there. If you had to live on it, you could. OK, not really…but it’s a lovely thought right?

Catch Brandon Schott live Oct 16 at Witzend 1717 Lincoln Blvd., Venice, California 90291 show starts at 7:30pm

Keep up with Brandon at all of these fine locations:

www.brandonschott.com
www.defyinggravitymusic.com
www.facebook.com/brandonschottmusic

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