hello hello everyone, welcome back to In the Know magazine, where we cover your favorite topics including music, lifestyle, fashion, pop culture, wellness, etc. Today I am joined by a very special guest who I know personally from CSULB's Musician Club and their name is Claire. Claire just released their new EP called Thumbs Up on January 18th so if you haven't had the chance to listen, do it. You won't regret it. I had one of my colleagues, Andrew Vanhaaster interview them in person so I'll put the link at the bottom of the article for you guys to listen to while on your daily walk or chill time. This is the online interview, where I ask them just a couple of questions on the process of making the EP, songwriting, and the cover art. as always, if you like this content, please be sure to share it and subscribe to our mailing list so you can get notified when we post something.
Going into the process of songwriting for you, what is usually the event that sparks a wave of inspiration for you to create an entirely new song? Does something strike you as inspiration or do you mix and match old and new ideas to make one?
Typically, the process starts with a melody getting stuck in my head. I’m always humming
to myself; even if I’m listening to music, I might be having a little vocal solo the whole
time. If I have any lyrics written down, which could also be poems that would work sung,
then I may use those, but it’s not a guarantee that they’ll fit the sound of whatever
melody I want. In cases like that, I try to write new lyrics entirely, based on the visual I get
from the sound of the music. I usually don’t get waves of inspiration, because I’m always
brimming with ideas, even if most are just kinda silly. I also wrote every instrument part
with Google Chrome’s Soundation program. It’s not that good; I don’t recommend it. I get
waves of motivation to work on it, because I don’t exactly love the process. I don’t want
to make music; I want to have an already-finished product that is mine.
What is going through your head when you write the lyrics to your songs? Do you want them to convey a message or are you more focused on the musical aspect of the song and how it sounds?
It depends on the song, really. The ones that have spoken word sections are just me
having a little fun, no real message or anything. But most lines had at least 3 takes,
because I wanted to get the timings just right for every word delivery. There were only
three songs on the EP that had lyrics more than just a little intro or outro or anything like
that. For all three of those - Through and Through, Or Oring and Getting Better - they
were each very different processes. Through and Through started with the whole verse
chorus verse bridge chorus structure, and I had the first verse written down in a
notebook as a poem. I just read that poem again, and I thought I would be able to write
lyrics about how much better my life is than it was before. It wasn’t really any deep
message, I just wanted to celebrate I guess. Or Oring was written in my notebook also,
but during the process of making the EP. I was originally not gonna have that song, but I
was frustrated with how much time it was taking up so I just made a really simple
instrumental for it and stuck it in. Getting Better was definitely an interesting project,
because I created the instrumental for it, and I decided I wanted to challenge myself by
not writing anything else. I was just gonna have really interesting vocals. I ended up just
writing something spoken and putting it to the music to see how it sounded. After a lot of
fiddling and twiddling, and rerecording, I got it sounding real nice. But what I wrote was
more vulnerable than I was willing to put onto the internet, unedited. So I wrote a bunch
more really vulnerable stuff, and a couple of vocal tracks with little gags in there, and I
smashed it all together so it’s hard to make out anything specific. So far, writing each
song has been its own unique experience, so it’s hard to say exactly what goes through
my head for each.
Your title track Thumbs Up is basically 3 minutes of instrumental, why did you choose that to be the title track and why did you name your EP that? Did you feel like it adequately summed up what your album was going to be? What’s the story behind the dialogue you decided to put at the end?
To be completely honest, in the beginning, I thought the EP was going to be instrumental,
apart from the little gags. I wrote Thumbs Up second, and I finished making it last. I know
that the beginning is really weird and abrasive, and the whole thing is repetitive but that’s
the kind of music I like. By the end of making it, my goal was to create something that my
bloody valentine would make with my technology. The song was originally just going to
be called Intro, then I thought that sounded too pretentious, so I changed it to Hello.
Then, I thought that was even more pretentious so I decided to decide later. The title of
the EP came from a little doodle I made in my notebook with the intention of making
cover art. The drawing was originally much more simplistic than it ended up being on the
final release, but the basic idea is the same. I guess I just called the song that because I
wanted it to have a name, and nothing else made sense. It was also the one that I put the
most effort into I think. I know it’s not a perfect summary of the album as a whole, but it
still has that chiptune quality that’s present on pretty much every song. The layers of
dialogue on Getting Better was just me ranting essentially. There were a lot of things that
I was frustrated with, a lot of negative thoughts that I was having. I wanted to have some
outlet for it so I just wrote out some of my thoughts and I felt better. After recording them,
I realized that I would be too embarrassed to post it as is, so I killed two birds with one
stone and wrote out a lot of the stuff I had been worrying about, and layered it all
together so it’s hard to get more than pieces at a time.
the original cover art in question
What is Through and Through for you? To me, when I listen to it, it seems like a sort of
relatable diary entry. This song gives me the slightest bit of Bleachers’ influence, what inspired you to make this song? Are there a significant few bands that you always look to for inspiration or do you like to switch around what you listen to?
Through and Through was the first song that I started writing. The opening melody is
what had been stuck in my head for a few days at the time. I didn’t think it was from a
song that already existed, so I wrote it all out. It took forever; I don’t own a midi keyboard
so I was writing each note individually with my mouse. I think it is very much like a diary
entry; I had a rough time in high school, and I’m doing pretty close to the best I ever have
before. Through and Through is just about me enjoying it. I actually don’t know the
Bleachers that well. I know “I Wanna Get Better,” and I love the song, but I just never got
into them. I think the biggest influence on that song specifically was The Strokes,
specifically their song 12:51. I didn’t realize how similar they were at the time, but the
form of the song is essentially the same. I also really like a lot of indie rock bands with
chiptune influence. Two of those bands, Crying and The Depreciation Guild for sure were
huge influences for me also. I typically don’t listen to music specifically for inspiration,
but I am trying to get out there more in terms of listening. I used to be stuck up enough to completely ignore some genres, claiming I didn't like them.
HERE IS THE LINK FOR THE INTERVIEW: AVAILABLE ON ANCHOR AND SPOTIFY
https://anchor.fm/tanya-rogers30/episodes/thumbs-up-an-interview-with-jake-mcloy-on-their-new-EP-e1ua22j
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