Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?
Jon - Usually I try to stick with one idea until it's written enough to perform. Sometimes more than one song idea will come to me, and I'll try to come up with at least a title for song B (in order to remember it) so I can focus on song A.
“Clockwork Romance” was pretty much a single project. I really wanted to write a song that fit the Faeries' aesthetic and instrumentation. It's a great way to broaden your creative perspective in my opinion. I don't think I could've written that song if I hadn't joined the Dust Bowl Faeries.
Liz - When the ideas are flowing, I often come up with a number of riffs or melodies at once. I usually record a quick, rough version of the new idea on my phone, so I can explore it more later. That way, I capture the new idea without getting totally sidetracked.
There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?
Ryder: The creative state can be an escape for me (and I love escapes). When I really get into a zone, it can feel cathartic or euphoric for a while, until reality comes crashing back in.
Being creative is a way of coping and dealing with life and all of the confusing, absurd and upsetting things that are going on at any given time.
Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?
Ryder: Recording is really the only way to finish a song for me. Songs are alive, they're always shifting and changing.
Recordings are more or less fixed, although even recordings take on a life and sound of their own, depending on how and where they are being listened to.
Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practice?
Ryder: I like finishing songs because that means that I can start a new one! Once a song is recorded, I let it go. I rarely listen to my own recordings once they are done.
Liz (River Faerie/bass) - Whether it's songwriting, sound art, prose or other creative projects, I love to revise! So it's definitely an ongoing process for a piece to evolve from idea to song.
It usually starts with a riff when I'm practicing or just noodling around on the bass or guitar. From there, I keep returning to the idea until the songform is in place. Lyrics often come afterwards, but sometimes they co-evolve with the song.
I really like the recording process. I work in Logic Pro or Reaper - playing all the parts, and laying down vocal tracks. Lately I've been recording drum tracks using the musical typing function in Logic, which is so fun!
On the down side, I tend to be pretty shy about sharing my originals, so I sometimes never feel like a song is ready.
Andrew - This is a group which really edits the material collaboratively. Before I joined the group in 2019 and became the “Maniacal Time Faerie” (re: drummer), I can clearly remember the older renditions of the songs we play now.
The development of our sound and the clear roles each musician plays mean that we are always refining and trying new things, with older material just as much as the new stuff. If you were to compare a song we play now to how it was played even a couple years ago, you’d hear the amount of nuance and orchestration that has gone into crafting the work.
When it comes to a new song, I think the band would agree that we can rehearse it as many times as we’d like but we really don’t know the piece until we’ve put it in front of an audience a few times, and it may change significantly in those first months.
Ryder is a wonderful collaborator in that she welcomes any and all feedback, trusts her band mates to try different things, but always keeps the Faerie identity intact. Intact and spooky.
What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?
Ryder: I love mixing, it's kind of like cooking, you need to get the right balance of spices and textures, you don't want to over cook it or burn it and too many spices / effects might ruin it.
It took me a long time to understand mastering, which I now think of as introducing a recording into the world (like a Bat Mitzvah) fine tuning the overall sound is crucial so that the songs will sound good in the context of other songs, on the radio, in the car, in headphones, etc. It's all so important.
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?
Ryder - I enjoy emptiness. I tend to feel overwhelmed and inundated with so many things. Emptiness is a gateway to creativity for me.
Jon - It's great to finish a project and get it out there, but there's always room for new and different ideas. I've had dry spells of course, where nothing has come to me creatively, and that can be frustrating. But I think songs are made up of more than just written words or melodies.
I've written songs based on creative ideas, a line from a book I like, a chord progression exercise that I want to practice on the guitar, a memory I don't want to forget, a joke punchline that nobody got except me ... There are so many sources of thought that can become a song in life, as long as you make time to find one.
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?
Ryder - Writing music is very unique, it's like sending a little piece of your soul out into the world, there is nothing else like it.
Liz - Playing music is such a physical act. It involves your whole body and your whole brain. When I'm really in the flow, it's kind of like being in a trance. I usually need the coffee to ground me down from that trance-like state.
But, although coffee is an important ingredient to my creative process, making it has never put me in a trance (although drinking it is mundanely divine!). Music is unique in that it gives me the ability to express emotions without words, using melodies and dynamics - like changes in rhythm, volume and tone.
Even coffee can't make me feel like crying one minute and dancing the next in the way that music can.
