They like. Thanks for joining me. Yeah. Of course. Taylor, thanks for coming over. Yeah. So we're here in your home studio. it's really lovely down here. so I thought maybe we could start off with tell me how 2023 was for you. What kept you busy? and maybe what's in store next for you in 2024? Yeah.

let me just get the memory banks going here. 2023 was a lot of gigs. which is fairly typical. Most concentrated in the summer months. My bass player, Chris Krieger, and I got to do quite a few road trips down to …

They like. Thanks for joining me. Yeah. Of course. Taylor, thanks for coming over. Yeah. So we're here in your home studio. it's really lovely down here. so I thought maybe we could start off with tell me how 2023 was for you. What kept you busy? and maybe what's in store next for you in 2024? Yeah.

let me just get the memory banks going here. 2023 was a lot of gigs. which is fairly typical. Most concentrated in the summer months. My bass player, Chris Krieger, and I got to do quite a few road trips down to big Sky Bozeman Red Lodge to play shows which is always a joy to get to travel the state and play music.

I didn't I'm trying to remember what my recording production was like last year. yeah. I started a, recording in the spring of last year, a collection of piano songs, and, with with the great ambition that I would be done before my summer gig schedule really picked up. Of course, I didn't get finished, and so I'm still working on that album right now, but getting close to the end, so that's good.

Yeah. Have you delved into piano as much before this? You know, I'll save some of the detail for, you know, future questions. I know you might ask about how I got into music. Piano was where it all began for me. However, as a kid it wasn't necessarily my favorite hobby or pursuit. So I spent many, many years without touching a piano, only to sort of come back to it in recent years and really enjoy it, especially writing music on it.

So this will be my first album that has primarily, you know, focused piano as the main instrumentation. Cool, cool. So you're gonna be working on that a little bit this year, and then you're going to get back to playing gigs in the summertime and springtime. Yeah. You know, we keep a fairly moderate gig schedule all year round for the most part.

so right now we're playing, you know, 2 or 3 times a week. in fact heading on the road next week for a short run of shows around the state, which will be great. And sometime around, Memorial Day, the calendar really picks up to probably 4 or 5 nights a week. mostly around the Flathead Valley, a few jaunts around the state.

But yeah, we're lucky to have so much opportunity to play around here. Yeah, there's lots of cool opportunities to play here. I mean, from, like, bars and restaurants and stuff to like, events like weddings. Are you often booked up for, like, special events like that in the summertime? Yeah, we do pretty, pretty good collection of weddings throughout the summer, which is, you know, it's a wonderful, unique experience to add to the performance repertoire of, of more standard gigs.

Being a part of those special moments is really neat. We offer at playing ceremonies, which is a really it can be an intimidating thing to be involved in, but very rewarding as well. Yeah. You seem like such a busy guy because from the moment I started at the paper, I was like doing events and stuff in my. But how many gigs do you think that you guys do a year?

Well, we've gotten soft in our old age, I will say. There was a time where Chris and I would play over 200. You know, there were a few years there in like 2016, 17 where we were, I think in like the to, you know, 215, 220 gigs a year. I, I got a vocal injury around that time, which is not surprising given the amount of strain on the vocal cords.

So we have slowed down. But I would imagine that we play somewhere between 100 and 50, 175 shows a year. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, we're so lucky to have as much opportunity to do that around here as we do. Yeah, yeah. You think, I'm from, like, the Nashville area or, like. Yeah, Nashville. And it surprised me when I moved out here.

How many people can make a living here? Yeah, it's it's a that's a very special thing. the uniqueness is not lost on me. I know there's a lot of places where there just aren't the right set of circumstances to create that vibrant music scene where you can have a lot of musicians, have a lot of venues, but still have this sort of economy that supports live music.

It's really wonderful. Something I hope is always a part of our valley. And I'm I'm really grateful to be here, at least at this time while it is. Yeah. I was looking at your bio a little bit, and I saw that as well as, like the, you know, the normal gigs you guys play. You also, get to play these, like, really big, you know, like under the big sky.

I saw you played at South by Southwest. Yeah. Did that happen? We played down in Austin and South by Southwest two years in a row. I think it was 2015 and 2016 that we did that. Yeah. That was a great experience. Every year seems to always pepper in a few larger, type of shows or festivals or experiences like that.

And they're a huge highlight, you know, and there are a lot of fun. So, yeah, I'm very thankful for those opportunities, too. Yeah. How do you, like, play to a bigger audience like that compared to how you would normally play to like, a more intimate? Yeah. Well, I'll. I'll try to get a bigger band together for sure.

For one thing. so if I can, you know, and that's another thing that's so great about living here is we have such a wonderful talent pool of musicians. It's just trying to get them booked before they're doing something else because there's so much work to. So. Yeah. A bigger band, perhaps different songs. I might pick some of my more high energy songs.

Would you define your. Define yourself as Americana? Are you. Yes, I would, in. I would say that's a conclusion I've come to only recently because I have always struggled to sort of pin myself down in the genre. You know, I've done everything from rock to blues to folk, country type of stuff. And I because I get asked a lot, you know, what genre are you?

You know what? I'm always stumbling to try to find the words. And I kind of realize that Americana is a good way to describe that because those are very, very much the quintessential American genres of music. You know, folk, country, rock, blues, not the not that that's the the exhaustive list, but I felt that that was somewhat of an umbrella that can describe that breadth of genre that I like to explore.

Yeah. what inspires you when you sit down to write new music? Well, it's usually the inverse order. It's it's, I think as a songwriter, I move throughout the world sort of with my antenna up, sort of open to topics and ideas and moments of inspiration that seem like a song could come from that. So it's usually more in that day to day comings and goings of life that something will pop out at me as, an experience or a moment or feeling that I could write about.

Then typically I'll take that into, you know, lyrical ideas or musical ideas and go from there. Cool. What are some of your musical inspirations these days? That's a great question. I have a strange relationship with music in terms of my consumption of recorded music and listening to music. I don't listen to a ton of music at different times in my life.

Sometimes I listen to it a lot. Sometimes I hardly do at all. I would say my biggest influences probably still remain some of the classic rock and classic singer songwriters icons of the 60s and 70s. Some of the stuff that I was exposed to through my parents, you know, when I was a young kid and a teenager. And I think, honestly, a lot of the modern music that inspires me is really, modern versions of some of that classic, kind of quintessential 60s and 70s American music.

Well, not just because obviously there were, you know, a lot of great iconic artists from different countries. so I noticed your tracks just are really well produced. and we're here in your home studio. Tell me a little bit about so you write your songs and then you sit down to record them. What's the production process like for you?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think when I was early. Well, let me let me back up. I've always been interested in recording as just a process. It's always fascinated me. I think music is is an art form, yet it's it's not really something you can hold in your hands or, or touch or like when you're the one performing, it's that you can't really stand back and like, sort of, you know, like a sculptor looking at a finished piece.

You can't really stand back and admire it. And so recording it became to me this medium by which you could, you could actually have this tangible piece of art that you made and you could stand back and, you know, proverbial proverbial proverbially look at it by listening to it, you know. Yeah. And so and always just really been drawn towards that idea.

So I think I got a laptop and some kind of really basic recording equipment when I was 19 or something, and just have dabbled with it ever since and early in my career when I was beginning to, you know, try to make music as a living. I, I always felt very stuck when I had a lot of new songs, and I wanted to put some kind of recording out there.

I, I felt like I was at the mercy of other studios, other producers and an enormous amount of financial resources to to pay for those things. And so, you know, a couple of times I did, you know, I, I worked with other producers, other studios, paid, you know, studio time and all that. And it sort of dawned on me that if I could redirect some of those financial resources into my own studio, it might take me a while to, to build it up, but it would be an investment I'd have for the, you know, the long term and it would give me control.

And when I want to make music, when I want to record, when I want to put things out. And so, yeah, over the years, I've just built the studio, built my skills through a lot, through trial and error and also a lot through, you know, information from generous friends that know more about production than I do. And I've been able to just kind of learn as I go.

And so for me now, I do pretty much all of my production right in this room, from recording to mixing and mastering. I have two daughters, and they both have bedrooms right up there, so that can be a little challenging with, when I can record, when I can't record. sometimes I hear them. Sometimes they're playing upstairs.

Disrupts my recording. Sometimes my recording disrupts their sleep. So it's a delicate balance, but we make it work. My last album I put out, in 2021, I was recording that, you know, late 2020, early 2021, and my younger daughter was like an infant at the time. And so she was quite content down here with me. I put her in that like those child carriers.

And so I'd have her in a child carrier, and I would sit at an exercise ball at my desk and I could mix and edit tracks, you know? And as she got a little older, I could put her in, like, different, you know, baby contraptions. While I recorded. So she was very much a part of that album. And, my older daughter will come down here and help me.

You know, she'll sing background vocals or help me with percussion or things like that. So here, my wife's a singer. Sometimes I'll be like, hey, jazz, can you come sing a harmony? So it inevitably becomes a family experience being in the house, which is neat. Yeah. Do you think your daughters are showing an interest in music themselves? Absolutely.

My older daughter's nine and she's taking piano lessons and just loves to sing and has love to sing. Since she could open her mouth, basically. And my younger one, my younger one loves anything her older sister loves. So we'll we'll see as she finds her own more of her own interests and identity, if that sticks. But no, she loves to sit down and smash the piano and loves to sing all the time.

So how old is she? She's three. Oh, okay. Yeah. So she's got a minute to figure out what she likes. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. That must be really fun to have. Like a big family. Almost like a big family band. Yeah. It's wonderful. Music is just such such a gift that we can experience as humans. And it's. It's fun to share it with family, for sure.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about, how you grew up and how you got into music. Are you from Montana or. Yeah, yeah, I was born and raised here in Kalispell. Cool. My parents moved here from Michigan in the 70s, and my. I have an older sister who's four years older, and my parents got her in piano lessons when some are probably around 8 or 9 years old.

And when I reached that age, they got me into piano lessons. And as I said before, I really did not like it at all. I was sort of your typical, you know, boy that loved sports and love to play outside and be outside and do active things. And so sitting down at piano for 30 minutes a day felt like torture.

And so I avoided at all costs. And then I would get to my lesson totally unprepared. And that felt like torture. So it was a vicious cycle. And there's sort of a funny story in my family that we all still laugh about, where my parents are making a home video for my grandparents to sort of show them how the kids were doing with piano and whatnot.

My sister sits down, plays and sings a beautiful song, and then I sit down and, you know, mash something out. It's below average. Later my mom's talking to her dad, my grandpa, and he's sort of asking me how was like them playing again. Oh, three years. And I think he said to her, let the boy quit. And so anyway, I, my parents were reluctant to let me quit because they always felt like music was an important part of being a well-rounded, having a well-rounded education.

So my piano teacher also taught drums and I said, well, how about drums. And reluctantly they said, okay we'll let you do one drum lesson a month, three piano lessons. And that didn't last long because I loved the drums, took to the drums very quickly and I think they were happy to support that passion. So before you knew it, I had a drum set in my house and then I was forming bands.

I think this was in like sixth grade. I invited my friends over and we, you know, that's kind of where everything just went, you know, fast motion. From there, I started borrowing their guitars. I started writing songs. And then before you knew it, I just couldn't get enough music in my life. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. By the time you, graduated high school or finished up high school, did you know you wanted to do music as, like, a career?

Yeah, I did, I didn't think it would be possible. in fact, I still sometimes pinch myself and say, is this actually working? Am I okay? I guess it is. Yeah, I, I knew deep down that's what I wanted to do. It was kind of the only thing I wanted to do. My parents were always extremely supportive, but there's not I mean, there can be some very clear cut traditional paths to professional music employment, you know, whether it be music education or classical performance or things like this.

And there are some great, you know, secondary education opportunities for music. But I kind of did the, you know, find your way in the dirt approach. And I did a lot of church music as a teenager and a young adult, and eventually kind of found my way into, like playing in bars and breweries and restaurants and then weddings and then some bigger things, and writing songs and recording and hearing and.

Yes. Yeah. so what you started out with piano? Didn't like it. Yeah. What's bringing you back? Well, my wife is great piano player and, you know, took lessons all the way through high school. So she actually knows what she's doing on the piano, you know, and she missed having one in the home. And so when our daughter, Audrey, your older daughter, was in room 6 or 7, and we started thinking about, oh, gosh, we'd love to get her in piano, kind of like the same as my parents, even if it's not something that sticks.

It's a great foundation. And so we thought well we need a piano in the house. And so my thanks to a tip from my neighbor who's also a musician. we found this really neat 1954 Wurlitzer spinet piano that had belonged to the same person since she received it as a high school graduation present. So it was in mint condition.

Gorgeous piano. And so we got that, got in the living room, and I started sitting down and playing again. And I started just really loving it, because as a songwriter, it's so easy to get stuck in ruts, and I, I'm almost always writing on the guitar, and I often feel like, oh, I'm just doing the same thing over and over again.

So the piano was like, this whole new world, you know? And having had grown so much as a musician and having a greater understanding of music theory at this point in my life, it was a lot easier to sit down at the piano and start to rebuild, you know, some level of skills around how to form chords and melodies and, and, songs begin to flow.

And it was a very creatively, fresh experience. Yeah. I think piano is I mean, guitar can be very peaceful. Yeah. And calming and also atmospheric, but piano, I think, lends itself to being just really atmospheric. Yeah. and kind of providing that like, background home. I agree. Yeah. You know, it a very special instrument. I've given that a lot of thought.

You know, it's like you can hit a note on a piano and it causes this giant wooden structure to resonate, and the sustain can just go on for quite some time. And as you pluck a single note on an acoustic guitar, it's kind of like. But a single note on a piano can be in and of itself, beautiful.

So yeah, I agree, a piano just in and of itself is a very compelling, evocative instrument. Yeah, well, we're excited to hear what you come up with. Thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited to release it. I'm actually working with a couple of really fantastic strings players, a cello, a cellist, and a VR violist and violinist. And, we're adding some orchestration to the piano songs, and it's it's really beautiful and exciting.

So I can't wait to put it out. Yeah. Could you share a little bit about, like, what some of the like songs touch on like the subject matter? Yeah. For some reason, this album is very, I would say introspective in terms of almost a spiritual, emotional, deep look at the self in connection to, I don't know, the bigger picture of existence and life and meaning.

and I think also trying to think about all the songs in there, there's, there is one song that's sort of about my relationship with my daughters, not in a very specific way, but more about this relationship with a child and the passage of time, and both the joy and the agony of that. there's a song, really on a song about dealing with grief.

So it's it's, it's a very human based recording, you know, like my last record, The Devil's Rope, had a lot of nature themes, a lot of kind of Western landscape type themes, and it sort of is kind of very much like, I would say the landscape of the human heart, perhaps, would be a good way to describe it.

Oh that's lovely. No, thanks. Thanks for joining me, Mike. Of course. we're super excited to have you for press play on March 1st. I'm really looking forward to it as well.