Somewhere down in the depths of nowhere town, Indiana a man is hard at work building his own masterpiece. Things may have changed for Brandon Caulfield in the past couple of months but his manifesto remains the same, don’t change a thing!Where: Viewpoint Studios, Elizabethtown, Indiana
Album Title: Into The Wild Part I & II
Song Titles: Strawberry Nights, Fireflies In The Garden, Bounty Hunter Beauty, Fighting For A System Built To Fail
Due: March 2011
To say it was tough to find this town would be an huge understatement, Even the locals from the nearest town did seem to have any knowledge of it’s existence, it seems like an unlikely place to record an album. “It’s my comfortable place. My parents brought me to Bloomington, Indiana every summer and I used to love it but when I was 16 I decided to head over to Bloomington with my best friend Isabel and we just decided to start walking and found this empty town called Elizabethtown and I just fell in love with it. It’s a town that seems to be built for me, there’s maybe 400 people who live in the town and it’s peacefulness of it that I fell in love with. There’s no better place for me and when I was asked where I’d like to record my album, this was the only place I wanted.”
As he takes me on a short tour of a rather small record studio which he has vacated as his home for the next 3-4 weeks, “I’ve buried myself in this place. It’s a really classic record studio, it’s like the kind of studio which you just don’t get anymore, it has this feel that I just can’t describe. It’s something special, well in my mind anyway.”
I’m visiting the studio today to find out more about this record, I’m here to get an insight into the songs meanings and descriptions and it’s something that’s gonna be difficult, “The songs will continue to change almost daily at least until I’ve completed recording. The current base will stay the same but I’ll be adding and replacing lyrics up until I’ve finished recording it.”
Brandon is known for his quietness and shy demeanour but is starting to find himself feeling more comfortable around his contemporary’s, “I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of that side of who I am. I can’t help it but I think once I familiarise myself with all the little nuances of being involved in the music industry then I’ll start to feel comfortable in my surroundings.”
The album has already gained high levels of support from the likes of Hannah Beth, Glamazon and JR Rhythm, “It’s nice of them to support the record. Glamazon has been so very supporting about this record and she seems to be quite excited about it, I still find that confusing but it’s great to have that level of support from someone like her. JR has been someone I’ve admired for a number of years now and he’s producing the record, his enthusiasm in the studio has helped a lot especially when productivity has slowed down, And Hannah is like the angel on my shoulder, she came along for the first four days and provided some beautiful backing vocals on one of the tracks, her support has been incredible and she’s great.”
Stories circulating that they’re an item have been circulating for a little while now, any chance of an exclusive on this story was quickly brushed aside, “I’m sorry but the segment your writing for is called In The Studio with Brandon Caulfield. You’re here to write about the album not about my personal life. I think it’s known that I’ve got a good relationship with Hannah but that’s all I’m gonna say on that issue. She’s a great person.”
So after a brief break from the interview we return to the pressing issue of the album and what Brandon is hoping to create with it, “I still believe in music the way I did when I first fell in love with it, I still believe in the power and the possibility of music, I do still believe that a record can change your life, you may not be able to find it as much in modern music because of the importance put on singles but you will still find a gem of an album every now and again. I wanna make something that can drive you to tears one minute and fill you with hope and inspiration the next minute. I want something genre bending and something that never gets old.”
He’s fine being spoken of in the same light as artists such as Glamazon, Infinite and Mind but just don’t mention the likes of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, “Who?” the weird thing is, he doesn’t seem to be showing any sign of sarcasm in that previous comment, he genuinely doesn’t seem to have heard of either of them, “It’s a scary world when some new “stars” of music are inspired by the likes of Britney Spears, Mariah Carey and Glee. Where’s the modern day Dylan’s or the modern day John Lennon’s, I find that a pretty worrying thing, only a handful of artists seem like they have something to say and half of those people are unwilling to say it.”
Generally around this period of album preparation artists will have huge amounts of promotion to do and it’s a big part of making an album these days, how does Brandon feel about this, “It’s not gonna happen, I told the label that I’d only be willing to do one in depth promotional thing for the album and this is it. I think the label wasn’t 100% happy with this but it doesn’t bother me. Most of the promotion for the album will come from the website only, There will be one or two online interviews for the website and there’ll be a track description thing posted online but there’s not gonna be an awful lot of TV, Radio and Magazine coverage of me but I just want to record the album and tour in support of it, I don’t wanna be on the late night chat shows explaining how “I woke up in the middle of the night with this lyric and I spent 3 hours creating the right melody for it.” It’s completely egotistical.”
We take another brief break from the interview and head down into the basement where the mixing will be completed, Brandon heads over to the mixing desk and we both take a seat, “So I’ve only got 4 songs for you to listen to because that’s all that’s been completed so far, This first track is the title track, Into The Wild”
He plays me the intro to the title track (descriptions below) which is in my opinion a good opener for the album, he then plays me the other 3 songs, Until Your Nothing, Fireflies In The Garden and Busking On The Gaza Strip it’s evident that this isn’t an album that your gonna be able to just listen to once and forget about it, if you’re a pop fan then you may want to find something else to listen to although this does have some pop hooks and melody’s to it, “I don’t have that one sided opinion on pop music, pop music can have depth to it and it’s not necessarily a bad thing but I try to stay away from it as much as I can.”
And when asked if he feels that a band or album might actually still matter in 2011 he answered without hesitating, “Yeah, of course, one million percent yes. Just because we grow old and see music changing in such a way doesn’t mean it’s incapable of the heady heights that it once had. It may be hard to find that feeling again, but we gotta find a common ground. Pop music is big, R&B is big and they’re both mainstream but if you go to a grotty little music club anywhere in America you’ll see that there’s people who need that sense of “we’re all on the same wavelength” we’re all looking for something special, something to turn a dreary day blue, you’ve just gotta look in all the right places and you’ll find it, it may be harder to find now than ever before, but it is findable and if you remove that element of hope that your gonna find that perfect record that makes your life make sense again well that’s a slippery slope that you just can’t come back from, if you lose hope in music then your gonna be a lonely 25, 35, 45 year old sitting in an armchair reminiscing about lost youth. Without hope you may as well just die, if we haven’t got hope then we’ve got nothing to live for. It‘s what gives us reason to get up in the morning. And that‘s not just relatable to music, it‘s relatable to life.”
And with that final note it’s time for me to leave, He offers out his hand and says in a hushed tone, “Thanks for showing up, This was good.” he then offers me a studio souvenir, a coaster which says, We’re Fighting For A System Built To Fail, the title of a track from his part 2 album.
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Into The Wild
It’s a rallying song about escapism. It poses the highly interesting question of, What would happen if you left your home with just the clothes on your back and headed into the wild? It’s a song that builds slowly throughout and it’s haunting piano follows with the lyrics throughout to give it a much darker edge than it maybe needed.
Until Your Nothing
It’s about loneliness and frustration, when Brandon writes a song he likes for them to pose questions for the listeners, this one in particular asks, How come the older you get the more detached from the naivety you had when you were growing up, How do you keep that spark?
Fireflies In The Garden
It’s a song about finding joy in the smallest things, in places you never thought possible. A lyric from the song, “Open Your Eyes/And Watch Your Heart Slowly Harden/Smile At The Fireflies In The Garden” it’s the most pop sounding track from this four, it’s cheery melody’s instantly put a smile on your face and it creates this very colourful image in your mind. Matched by his dreamy, almost whispered vocals.
Busking On The Gaza Strip
With this final song, it’s hard to explain, some may see it as an anti war song. In my opinion he seems to be content on putting a smile on your face, in my point of view it seems to tell a story about a guy content on ending conflict, as the title suggests he decides to start busking in a Warzone location and for a brief moment of time everybody stops fighting and they just stop to enjoy the music. It’s a song with beautiful ideas but in reality it just isn’t possible.
Edited by user 11 December 2011 23:21:15(UTC)
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