Hey Tired Kid! Welcome to BuzzMusic! Your latest single "Pat's Travelling Device" is full of feel-good fun vibes! In your lyrics it almost sounds as if you're describing someone; how do you personally connect with the lyrics? What is the underlying story? TK: Thanks for having me! The song revolves around the idea of a guy who’s up in space traveling on his own and is reaching out to his friend AKA Patrick Stewart because he knows the ropes of traveling through space. I guess in a sense I’m kind of describing a fictional friendship between myself and Patrick. I definitely connect with the theme of space itself, star trek, the enterprise, and the idea of feeling somewhat isolated and coming back into a world where things have changed and having to adjust accordingly. Kind of like what’s going on in the world right now actually. The tones of this release are almost as if the '70s had come back and hit you with a modern wave of detailed sounds. What had gone into the production and recording of all these unique sounds? The guitars in particular almost sound like synths at some bits and are quite cool. TK: I worked with Aaron Goldstein in the studio and he has produced everything I have put out so far. We are also working together on a full-length record at the moment. Aaron had some ideas regarding reverb sent to additional reverbs which give you a really cool larger than life effect for the guitars. I definitely wanted the song to sound 'big' in terms of space and I think he captured that exactly. On top of that, I think a tape echo or delay was used and with direction from him, I played some guitar parts that made good use of the echoey sounds we were going for. As for guitar tone, there was some chorus if I remember correctly and there was some fuzz pedal action in there too. We are definitely catching some of your influences of the '70s, '90s, and 2000s here. What had inspired you to go in this artistic direction? What elements of each era do you draw influence from? TK: I think it had a big part to do with what I was listening to at the time. I really love the band Alvvays, I find their sound to be super distinctive. I tried to capture the essence of that as a starting point anyways. I think Aaron brought a real classic element to the production hearing bits of the Grateful Dead in the influence along with other older bands and I think it worked really well combo wise. As for lyrics, they just kind of came randomly together. First I had an idea about space, and then every other thought was an off-shoot of that…Patrick Stewart, Gandalf, the enterprise. I just tried to have fun with it. The synth tones are lovely! There are some vintage and modern flairs being used here. Which synths were used on this record? Were there any interesting stories on how you had acquired some of these? TK: The synth we used for the key solo was a micro moog i think. Very vintage and mono synth sounding. We doubled it to add harmony and give it just a bit of extra flavor. The moog has been in the studio for at least as long as I have been there and we don’t use it on everything but when we do it’s a lot of fun. It’s like saving a nicely aged wine for a special occasion. :)
This being your first single after an EP, how do you think you have grown in your songwriting and production since that original release? Do you set aside any challenges that you try to do for each release?
TK: I think I try to do something different with each song. The songs themselves are usually written apart from each other so they all end up sounding a bit different anyway but I kind of like that. I get bored if things are always sounding the same. In this case, the whole production approach was completely different from the last EP we did because we were using tape delays, synths, and chorus effects this time around. However, it had to be different based on what I was listening to. I wasn’t in the same space as I had been when we were working on the first record so this ended up sounding a little more ambitious. I’d say now I tend to think outside the box a bit more when it comes to songwriting and production.
What can we expect to see from you throughout 2020?
TK: Well on top of this single, I just released another song along with a music video. Both songs will be appearing on a record later this year which is getting close to completion. Aside from that, more shows hopefully as well as getting the music out there to the people as much as possible!
Listen to "Pat's Travelling Device" here.