Dearest Dorothy,
I hope you enjoyed the last letter. It should comfort you to know that I'll be going back to my usual schedule of writing. Before I move on however, I wanted to let you in on something. Some spill-over from the last post, if you will. Two VERY interesting facts were brought to my attention:
1. The release date for SUADADE was March 11th, 2014. March 11 was also Romeo and Juliet's wedding day, according to Shakespeare (albeit 712 years earlier). In some aspects, it's quite appropriate when you consider the story of the album.
2. I recently released another song on Halloween (yes, I guess it's a thing now). It is a cover of Slipknot's "Prelude 3.0”. Funny enough, Slipknot's newest album debuted at #1 around the same time.
Do you see? None of that was planned! Things just fall together so magically! It's all quite astounding, really.
Anyway, I have something new to shine your attention onto. As I mentioned before, I've had the pleasure of talking about SUADADE with those who've already heard it quite a few times now. Hearing all the theories and connections make for quite the conversation, especially for me. But one of the most common questions asked is who the songs were about. Or who from my life are the characters based on. Or simply; "How much of your music is REALLY YOU?"
Now I think I spoke about this already in a previous letter where I mentioned: "... I wanted the same artistic freedom that a director would have fleshing out a movie in his head..."
This means I don't want my music to be solely based off of my life. I don't want my songs to feel like a page from a journal. At the end of the day, I didn't want to limit my music to my reality.
Because why should I? Did George Lucas base "Star Wars" on his experiences during college? Did Alexander Dumas base "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" on his uncle? Did Mary Shelley base "Frankenstein" on an actual man made from different peoples’ limbs sown together, and animated by electricity? I'm aware my last two examples aren't film directors, but I think you get what I mean.
With all that being said, the real answer is that my music is ALL ME. It's all about me. It's all from me. It's all from my life.
For the longest time, I've been saying that my songs don't contain any particular element or influence from my life. That it is simply their distinct presentation which is informed by my perspective. Perhaps I needed to think this in order to have finished the album. Perhaps I needed some sense of distance or separation between me and the events of the album's story, in order to feel comfortable enough to tell it. However, I've recently began doing some honest retrospection, and I've come to realize that no matter how much I divorce myself from the content of my music, it has to all come from somewhere, and for me, that place happens to be my life.
What this basically means is that while I might not name anyone in a song about losing a loved one, or describe certain events with the utmost veracity (or heck, even lost a loved one to begin with), I can still harken back to the actual emotions I felt during then or a time similar to it, in order to fill in the gaps between the poetic embellishments and artistic liberties of the song. So is the song about losing a loved one, or about not getting the last slice of pizza? Ahhh, well grasshopper, that’s the beauty of what I do! In all seriousness, I’ve come to learn that my perspective doesn't only shape a song’s presentation, but also its inception and core meaning. I felt this necessary to share with you.
I think this is all I can say on the topic for now. A magician never should reveal his entire bag of tricks. Besides, I don’t wanna burn you out. Save your energy for the next letter. I’m gonna weigh in on a conversation that is quite heated at the moment, so it should be quite the read.
Enjoy The Fall,
theRave
