DecoyMusic.com

Interview: Jimmy Gnecco

I guess the first thing - I don't know if it was a great thing - I read a little ahead of time before the interview by looking up a couple of different other interviews. I don't want to ask you the same stuff that you pretty much have gotten to the point you can parrot out an answer, you know. I don't want to be redundant and I read a really great interview with you by Laura Antonelli for Music Vice and she pretty much hit every question I wanted to hit so I am going to try to not be too redundant for you. One thing she addressed, that even the most casual reader would probably want to know, was you know what made the difference between a Jimmy song and an Ours song? What did make you decide “ok this is going to go solo song, this is going an Ours song”, what differentiated that?

OK, sometimes there's a feeling when I'm working on a song that just feels like if I was to have any collaboration with anybody, it would be to make the song possibly bigger than I could have done it on my own. I think that, for me, we hit that stride for Mercy where I would bring a song down to the band and we would work on it and then the Static parts, or maybe the piano parts, it would really add another perspective to the song that started to feel they were counterparts, you know. It started to feel like this song holds on its own, but I really loved that part and I can't hear the song without that part. So for these songs, they are pretty much all songs that didn't require any counterpart or contribution necessarily from anybody else. I felt like the best thing to do was to leave it one singular vision so that's how I picked the songs. They were songs that felt like they would stand completely on their own without... you know, the parts that I put on the record. Even though its not just my acoustic guitar and my voice or the piano and my voice, all the parts are designed to enhance the one main part, not to be a counter part to it. You understand what I mean?

Oh absolutely! Actually after I spoke to you in Charlotte I liked that you mentioned that a lot of times Ours records were written where a piece almost kind of fought with another piece versus on this one everything kind of went the same direction. It was more a complimentary thing rather than a contrasting thing.

Exactly. Exactly. Everything is supportive. Sometimes, if you picture this ball of energy and picture these kind of beams coming out every once in a while - one from the left, one from the top and they're kind of shooting out and that's how I see Ours - as this kind of energy where its getting me, other beams coming in from different angles as well if you can picture a circular kind of thing that was growing as we add the parts. That was kind of more of how I approached it if that makes sense.

That definitely does. I like that metaphor actually. And I guess another question being why the solo stuff now? Was a big reason for putting a solo record out now having to do with the big life changes and the loss of your mother needing that outlet more immediately than Ours could accommodate or did it just happen to coincide with this was already the plan?

The plan was in motion before my Mom got sick because we just felt like we made a - we are really proud of the record that we made with the band and we felt like it didn’t get a push. [It] didn’t get marketed enough or promoted enough, and so Sony wasn’t going to work on that anymore. So I figured maybe the best thing to do was to take a break from that and let people discover that record, as I did something else; I could possibly go out and tour for a while on my own. It was also really expensive keeping the band on the road for as long as we were on the road.

I can imagine, especially as that seems to be the thing you hear a lot of the bands talk about - the touring expense is pretty ridiculous at this point.

And we were out there in the height of gas prices , traveling with a van and sometimes two vehicles - a van and a truck so it just started to - it was just really difficult to keep everybody. We did it for a long time; sometimes with the support of a label but most of the time without. I just felt there were a few things that were giving me the feeling that it was the time to do this record, and yeah, like you were mentioning, I had a bunch of other songs that I really felt would be on the record and I came into the process planning on putting them on but as it went on I started to write more and there just wasn’t the space. There was already 15 songs.

Yeah, its definitely a nice solid release and definitely no shortage of good material on it.

I just figured unless I was going to do a double record, which I wasn’t opposed to, I was thinking of different concepts and ways to do a possible double record, maybe some songs that were maybe stripped down and then others that were more built up with other instruments. That was a thought that I had, but it just ended up doing it this way. I felt the other thing about putting a lot of songs on, I felt it was a new way to start catching up with my catalog because I had so many songs written but unrecorded. In a good way, it didn't help my case as I started to make a record I was writing a bunch more.

I guess kind of keeping in line with that exact same thought process, do you have any where people say “when are you going to put this particular song out”, I don’t know, that maybe you have outgrown the song, that maybe it was great at the time you wrote it, but I have kind of moved on and not even feeling it anymore? Do you run into that ever or do they all still feel pretty relevant to you?

They luckily all still feel pretty relevant. I play songs live from 18 years ago when I was really young writing songs. Luckily, my goal when I first started to write was to write songs that I felt would stand the test of time and that I could sing about subject matter that would be timeless and that you know I could continue singing. So luckily for me for the most part, the songs still hold up and I feel good about them. There might be small details about an older song that when I redo it I change a little but for the most part if there were something that moves me about that song when I was writing it, usually it holds up for me.

Nice.

Yeah, I am really happy about that.

Moving along with some other ones we got...

Just to go back on that...

Sure...

Because, I have had some things in the past where I have gotten a little discouraged because I felt like I was on to something with a song, with the feeling of a song, and the sound of it... then it would take so long to make the record and I felt, even a few moments where I felt kind of a sting where another band may have beaten me to something that I was doing long before that came out. It reinforced my views that everything that I did had to be of a timeless kind of approach to subject matter because then it’s not so much about when you do it and when the record comes out . It’s not built around a current sound or a fad. You know what I mean?

Oh, absolutely.

So, luckily when I go back to the songs for the most part they all feel like I wrote them yesterday. They all feel that way to me. If they don’t, I just make sure that they do.

Well, obviously, like you said this solo album kind of gave you time to kind of get some more material out, catch up the catalog, give people time to catch up on the last album. Hopefully, [it will] draw more attention, with this solo album and people will go back and maybe rediscover the back catalog of Ours. Turning to the future, what do you see it being? Is there a set path in mind, such as “Ok, I kind of want to do an Ours album, then a solo, then Ours, then a solo...,” or is it going to be a roll with the flow?

I think we’re just going to go with what feels right in that time and hopefully with the way that my goal with signing with a new label was to be able to actually release them as I am feeling them in that time and do what I am excited about in that moment so with that its hard to say exactly what will come next. I have a bunch, a few records worth of songs already written that I would consider to be songs that Ours would do. I have, again, another couple records that I can do solo.

Do you ever see a song kind of crossing into both like maybe Ours recording anything that was on The Heart or something making both sets of albums or is that a little too redundant?

I do because that would be the goal, in a sense, with Ours to dress a song up in way that is unique to that group of musicians. Once you do that, successfully, and then you do a more stripped down version of that song, I think that it shows two completely different sides. There is definitely the potential out there for that and it happens all the time with us. The song, “Worst Things Beautiful”, a pretty upbeat, layered kind of song, I enjoy playing that on my own acoustically, and I think it takes on a different kind of life when I do it. I think there may be a bunch of those and we’ll see what happens in the future with that.

Nice! Well that probably kind of answers one of the other questions I had written down about the next time you go on tour as Ours, are many of these songs going to make an into Ours set list or, but if you don’t mind dressing them up...

I would like to keep most of it separate - most of it. There’ll be a couple that I think that will make there way. There's a couple Ours songs, that will make their way into my solo set these days and I think there will be a couple vice versa. Ultimately my goal was to have two different kinds of things and not have solo material sound like Ours. Maybe [it] sound like it comes from the same place, but would end up different. I think if we were to do some of these songs with Ours, they would be done in a unique way that you know, that group of people would do them and I think it would take on a new life.

Referring to the album, it’s very emotional, very gripping. Having said that, I also, as a music reviewer, don’t see it being one that I am going to hear when I turn on the hits 95.1 or anything like that. I mean it's probably not what the music industry viably thinks is going to be the number one billboard chart topper, going to make it in the dance clubs kind of thing. What are your personal hopes and expectations for that album? If you are judging by artistry alone, it’s phenomenal and should sell tons, but as you said the music industry is very fickle.

Yeah, it seems like the window with pop music has gotten smaller and smaller as to what fits through it. I don’t have any expectations as far as that. I think that there’s some really strong memorable songs on the record that people can sing along to, but I’ve never made a record thinking that it was going to fit into current radio. I never made that my goal or have stressed too much about that. I have only tried to write great songs and I like pop songs, I like songs that are epic, of a journey, and that take their time to get where they are going. I like those kinds of songs so that's why the Ours records usually have all those different kinds of songs but I don’t have any expectations for this record. My hopes should be that it makes people feel good. As far as expecting anything, that’s a tough game to play and it only lets you down. I’m so committed to the craft of song writing and recording that I don’t, like I said, I don’t think about that. I just want to make music that feels good to me and makes other people feel good and you know I can only gauge it by what feels good to me and that what’s I have always done and so expectations are always dangerous. I try to never have them. Hope is good, you know, you got to have hope. Absolutely, and goal as well. I like to set goals and work towards them but I don’t like to do that with expectations, you know. Its just like any relationship. I don’t do anything with the expectation of it returning to me or coming back. I do it because I want to do it and I try to live that way all the way across the board both with with my life and with music. I love somebody because I love them and not because I want anything in return. It feels nice when it comes back. It really does, and you can hope for that, you can hope for that feeling to be part of something that feels special and powerful but you can’t expect it. That’s a rough road.

You talked about getting back from people, when playing live. How do you really sense what the audience really is getting out of you, especially something like where you are opening for Greg Laswell? How do you really tell that they are getting in line, what’s that like for you?

Um, well, it’s tough walking into any crowd that’s not your own and winning them over when you’re not a part of - I’ve never been a part of any one sound or clique - you know what I mean - I don’t fit. I’m not a part of pop culture. I’m not a part of heavy metal. I’m not a part of reggae. I’m not really a part of the emo culture so I’ve never really fit any one. When lots of bands have a certain kind of sound, their fans grow accustomed to that sound. Its easier for them to swallow that, and for me I pretty much go in cold and play something that I feel is a unique thing so it's always interesting watching whether or not people want to feel it or if they are going to just not like you at all.

I know when you performed in Charlotte, you even made mention towards the end of the set, “I know a lot of you people are like 'who’s this guy up here?'” but I definitely watched the audience myself, just from an outsider perspective and watched them kind of sway from a kind of dead stare to rousing applause. I bet it is hard getting up and totally having a blank slate and its not like what you do is just middle of the line. It’s very... you don’t play it safe is the best way to put it.

Yeah, I, for me, I’ve always wanted to go bold, I wanted to be musically bold, and I just think that being middle of the road is not necessarily where I ever wanted to be, so with that you get a kiss and a curse. When people feel it, they really appreciate it when they feel and either one or the other for me. They is never really a - “yeah it was ok”. It's usually love it or really don’t like it, and I’m ok with that. That’s where I want to be.

I guess given that the subject matter that you did write for The Heart, and so much of it dealing with the grieving and the loss and the sickness of your mother, do you think that years down the road, that some of this material might be kind of hard to go back and revisit, playing them live?

It might be, um, songs I’ve had in the past are about similar things, but just from similar experiences, people close to me, losing people close to me so, I think it will be ok. It’s been difficult to sing now.

I can’t imagine, but you do it with conviction.

Yes, you know, my mother died November 27 and I was already out by December 4 doing shows, or December 6, something like that, so I kind of got right back to it for two reasons - its what I do, and I have to feed my family so you have to keep going.

“Bring You Home”, how did that become the lead single off the album?

It just felt right to all of us, unanimously. There were a couple other songs, potential singles on the record, again, maybe, not one that would fit on maybe the big rock stations necessarily. Maybe “Gravity” would, but I think “Gravity” and “Mystery” are two more potential singles in that way “These Are My Hands” is another one.

That’s a favorite of mine

Thanks. I don’t look at it in a way of, again, of if it fits in with what’s going on, I look at it when people walk away from the record if they’ll singing it and it will become one of those songs. That's what I gauge it on, that so many records that I’ve loved in the past, those big songs off the record haven’t necessarily been on the radio but I still put it on. It’s one of my favorite songs on the records so, as far as other bands, so again it's “what’s a great song to me?”, not necessarily what’s going to work on the radio. So I think there are a handful of those. One of my favorites off of Mercy was “Run Away to Tell the World” and that's because of just what resonated in the song and I think that’s what I think a song should be picked by. I think that’s what’s wrong with current radio, it’s just part of one formula, and it used to be much different than that, all sorts of different songs could be singles. You had classically written songs and then you had other songs that were singles in the 70’s and even the 80’s that didn’t even have a vocals on them and they were singles because you walked away singing that melody. Remembering the hook was what it was. But what it was it didn’t have to necessarily fit that one mold so, I don’t know, “Bring You Home” stuck, right, and it seemed to... it wasn’t too slow, it was uplifting, and I didn’t want to come out with the first single that was too......

I don’t want to say heavy, because that was a pretty heavy song.

Yeah, um, I think its good when people can feel and sing it and not have to know that it’s heavy and that’s to me when I feel like I really have done something well I can sing a song like that and people walk away singing it. They don’t have to know, don’t really have to look into all the words and feel that its that heavy, you know.

As far as performing live, is there a particular song off this album, or out of the whole catalog that is your favorite one to throw out live even if you don’t play it often, its the favorite one. Is there a particular one in there?

Um, I really enjoy playing “Light on the Grave”, “Mystery”, I like playing “Bring You Home”. As of now, they are all pretty enjoyable. I played “Patiently Waiting” a couple of weeks ago in front of 20,000 people at a show up in Buffalo, NY, and that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that!

There was one song you played in Charlotte that I thoroughly loved and after getting to hear the album it wasn’t on there so I guess it’s going to be more an Ours one, but a song called “The Bells”.

That’s actually my favorite one, believe it or not, um, right now, because I feel like, I didn’t put it on this record because it fits in with what I was saying about an Ours’ song where its better when Static is working on it with me, in my opinion. He adds something to it. The song holds up on its own, but he makes it better when he’s a part of it and I’d like to keep it true to Ours. We are putting it on the European release.

Really?!

We just decided that a couple of days ago because Ours has never gotten to release a record in Europe and we felt like it would be a good idea to kind of give a little sense of what Ours does and maybe bridge the gap a little for people. It will be on that and I guess that will be available as an import or something. I am sure the song will be floating around the whole world. We’ll be sure to put that on the next Ours record in it‘s full form. There’s an acoustic version of it now with Static and April playing with me and that’s what will be on the European release and then we’ll finish it for the next Ours record probably.

I’ll definitely have to track that one down because I remember live making notes that it was great.

That, to me, is what I had hoped to accomplish - that feeling, that kind of energy and that kind of just all around, a journey of the songs, the feeling of it, all of it, the urgency, it has a creepiness to it, that’s what I’d hoped. You know I had this for Distrorted Lullabies... I had part of it written back then and I didn’t put in on, and I just, that was what I was going for on Distrorted Lullabies, that feeling, and so I’m really, really happy about that recording. It’s probably to me, one of the best vocals that I have recorded as well, as I see it. I just did it live, I tracked it with my acoustic live and its just something about the recording that feels really connected and right . We struggled with that, you know, Distrorted Lullabies is a certain kind of record and then live I felt like we were, I don’t know, I just felt like we were better live, like the songs translated better live, than it did on the record. Most of them, not all of them, but most of them, just because of the process that I went about in making that record, and its always been a challenge to get the songs to be recorded as well as they feel to people live. Probably the last thing to say about The Heart is that I feel like I accomplished that on this record where they feel like they would live and as far as the connection. There is something that, like I say, has been happening over the years when I play live and I wasn’t really getting on the recording ,and that’s another bonus to me about The Heart and I feel like we got it on Mercy as well, but just continuing that pattern makes me happy knowing that. I feel like I captured that. It's not like the record is going to feel cold and not performed and that’s what I really enjoy about this record. It sounds performed to me.

Well I can definitely attest to the truth in that. Like I said in having seen it live and even though it was only a matter of a couple of weeks after that I got the advance copy of it, and I was very impressed with the way it did translate so I can back you up on that. You did a good job.

Thanks!

No problem. I guess one last question being as to the future, you know obviously that you said to the tone of this album was very much set and it kind of dictated what would have went on there, do you think for future albums, do you see yourself getting a little more playful with the solo stuff, maybe even throwing in instrumentation you never tried before or anything crazy like that?

It’s possible. I’ve always tried to maintain a feeling that’s just honest to me. I’m not much of a fan of quirky kind of music, like quirky things. I gravitate to certain kinds of sounds and feeling so I’m not sure if I’ll ever get too wacky in that sense, but playful is a good word that you used because I’m sure that I’ll do things here and there that will be a little bit more playful; Maybe as one-offs. I have a couple of songs that are more playful, but I just haven’t found a way to record them that feels right, but I look at other potential projects to do that with. Whether its recording one or two songs for a movie, or somebody else’s record, doing a song here or there that’s not exactly what I would do with Ours or on my own, so I’m hoping for those opportunities to be out there. Maybe even just somebody else recording one of my songs or a couple of my songs that are more playful like that.

I would definitely be intrigued to hear it, I would like to hear what other little things are rumbling around in that head of yours, so... well, sir, I could easily run all day with questions so I won’t take up any more of your time. I appreciate very much you doing the interview with us.

Thank you man. I appreciate you wanting to do this and I thank everybody for their, you know, submitting questions, if you could send out a message thanking them for participating in this. [Referring to a comment made prior to recording the interview where I mentioned to Jimmy that I had a few questions that were received as a result of me emailing a few random fans on the Jimmy Gnecco facebook page]