My Persona

 It's hard to believe that I released the song "One Line Epitaph" fifteen years ago and people continue to listen to it all over the world.  Every month I can see on Apple Music that hundreds of people are listening. That's just one platform. I'm on every digital music platform that I know of, so I imagine that there's many more out that. For some reason I am unable to track that particular song on Spotify or Pandora, but I imagine the song does well. That's not bad for an artist who hasn't toured in over a decade.  I haven't been able to do any promotions, but people are listening.  I don't know who they are, but they're listening. 

A couple years ago I discovered that an album that I had left for dead, Love and War Vol. 1, had managed to get over ten thousand spins. I had done zero promotion for that album, except to mention that it was out. That motivated me to release three albums since that discovery, and the most recent one Belief, a reissue from my band Satori, has shot up to the number two position after "One Line Epitaph." Again zero promotion. 

The idea that I could get so many people to listen to my music by doing nothing but putting music out there goes against the most basic laws of the music business.  It has certainly motivated me to put more product out there. I have had dozens of albums in various states of completion for years, but now I'm starting to finish them and put them out.  It's challenging, because while many people are streaming my music, streaming doesn't generate revenue.  

One might assume that I should do some more promotions, but I'm not so sure.  Not only can I track the number of listens, I know geographically where my songs are being listened to. I live in Louisville, Kentucky, and I was born here. I'm 48 years old.  That's a lot of friends, and a lot of reach, but Louisville is not my number 1 city. That would be Halifax.  At least on Spotify it is. Louisville cones in at number 10. On Apple music it's 19th after San Diego. I've never been to San Diego or Halifax.

This brings me (in a very meandering way) to the idea of a persona. We all have a persona or public self, which is distinct from our more private self.  For some, their persona and their private selves are not very distant.  For others, they are miles apart.  Personas are not necessarily crafted.  Young children have personas that they may not even be aware of, but their parent's have discovered this when their child's teacher describes behavior (good or bad) that the parent's have never witnessed.  Are we talking about the same child?

When I was much younger, I could easily be described as hypersensitive. I always felt most at east either by myself, or with a very close friend. I was a serial monogamist of best friends. Unfortunately many of them moved away.  I cried hard and often at feelings of rejection, inadequacy and embarrassment, but I discovered that I was less likely to feel this way if I wasn't entirely myself. Or more accurately, a different self. 

Our personas are not falsehoods.  They are our public face.  As I grew up I had the public face of a person with a lot of confidence.  I didn't need anyone's approval, so they couldn't hurt me. I didn't need to be accepted, because my acceptance was all that necessary.  This was true to a point. I was pleased with myself creatively, though in truth I didn't understand how I did what I did, and so taking credit for it seemed a bit like showboating. 

I was in high school when I started writing songs, and the key was always to get away from everyone and everything. This was fairly easy since I was usually the only one at home.  I had the run of the place, and I would find a way each day to get to a place where I could by myself and let my creativity run wild. If anyone intruded on my space, I'd have to stop what I was doing immediately. My magic didn't work, if someone could see me. 

On days when I wasn't at home writing music, I was doing theatre. Unfortunately, I was not a very good actor.  The only decent performance I gave was when I wrote the script.  I was pretty good at comedy, because it didn't require that I bare my soul publicly.  As a result, my public persona became more of a comedian.  Thus my public persona did not align well with the songs that I wrote. I occasionally wrote a funny song, but mostly I tried to write "soul" music. Music that was reflective of my deepest self. 

If you listen to one my early songs "With the Wind" you'll hear a song that is anything but funny. I was in the right space when I wrote that song. I had no fear of judgment, and no fear of anyone shattering my private space. As a result something came out of me that I could never have planned. It was more like the release of something. 

I was never able to craft a persona that matched my music, and I had no idea that I had a persona, so I never tried, but as I look at the numbers I find that there are people who know a deeper part of me, and they've stayed with me a long time, but for the most part, the people who know me don't listen to my music that much. You should never try to build a career out of playing for your friends, and I don't like all the music that they listen to all the time either. 

When my band The Navigators would be on tour, we would often stop in Louisville on a Monday, as a night off, so that I could hang with friends, but also because we'd be unlikely to fill a venue of any size.  We'd do better in Lexington or Asheville.  Though in truth, we never did all that well.  I could perform the music, but I couldn't play the audience. On some nights I would sing the songs in a way that surprised even me. There was a gig in Detroit that I just killed, and I remember that the lights were blaring, and I couldn't see the audience. Only now am I realizing that my sense of safety allowed me to reach into myself and to deliver on a whole new level. Sometimes when the audience is far away, and you're standing on a huge stage, you can feel very alone.  For me that was a good thing. 

It's weird. We're taught that to succeed you have to work very hard, and I did, but I have had more success in the past few years by doing nothing but letting the music speak for itself. If you think you know me, you should give my music another listen. To quite my most successful song:

So you say you know just who I am. 

But I'm afraid that you don't understand. 

To Be Free: I am the Storm

I Am the Storm

Here the song here. My last week at Undulata, I was in charge of the day-campers, which meant that I didn't have to sleep with any campers.  So I was all alone at night.  I'm pretty sure I wrote this one night while listening to a thunderstorm.  I can't say that I'm the best judge of my own music, but it kills me that at fifteen (and as early as fourteen), I was writing songs that are as good as any I've written since. I remember playing "With the Wind" with Dan for the Showcase auditions, and some cool senior sat next to me and asked if I had any other songs.  I played her this, and she was impressed.  In no other way would I ever be considered "cool,"  but I could make songs that were cool.

There's a weird darkness to the song, and you wouldn't be crazy for thinking that I had a real dark side, but I don't.  Only when I'm being creative do I create things that are really dark.  Still, the song is true if only on a fantasy level.  The song is inhabited with all sorts of villains: torturers, killers, but as bad as they are, I am the worst.  I am pure evil.  At least in the song I am.  I think a part of me felt like I was more likely to be attacked by villains.  I often felt defenseless, and I would often take meaningless slights very seriously.  Not that anyone else would know it.  By the time I reached high-school my tactic had been to create the facade of someone who can't be fazed by the actions of others.  I pretended to be impervious to harm, but really I just buried the pain deep below.  Of course, it would always come back up in zombie form, and music was a great way to turn anger in hurt into something that wouldn't hurt other people.

Downpour later played this song.  I mean, between this song and "Four in the Morning", you'd think we were a theme band, but actually the name has nothing to do with these songs. At any rate, it was one of our go-to songs from the beginning.  I'm pretty sure we played it at every show, so if you saw us play live, you heard it.  It was one of the songs that I brought to the band already finished that everyone liked.  Most of my other songs got rejected.  They were a tough audience.  I first tried recording it my junior year in high school, with a synth-string background, and a lead acoustic on top with a storm in the background (obviously had to wait for a storm).  I know, the synth strings sound very 80s, but to me they sounded like Dire Straits- the coolest 80s band at that time.

I kept the song briefly in my next band, Blue Fuse, and then the song went into hiding for a while. I resurrected it years later in a log cabin in St. Matthews.  It was just me and a four-track.  And then the song disappeared again until now. While there is a distorted electric guitar, the song wouldn't have fit on this album if I had recorded it the way Downpour would have played it.  We definitely wouldn't have had backing vocals, which is crazy because Bill Greene is a phenomenal singer.

Some are creepers,

Some are leapers,

Some are people sleeping in their mind,

Some are changers,

Most are strangers,

Chained in pain- I've met all kinds,

But me, I'm not like all the rest,

I won't say that I'm the best,

But one like me, I know you’ll never find

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

Watch out here I come,

I am the storm,

Ready to swarm,

There'll be nothing left when I'm done.

He's a swinger,

She's a stinger,

See the fling a thing of such misuse,

Now the dawn,

Has come and gone,

I hear the song of wrong and much abuse,

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

Things won't be the same,

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

The bringer of the blue eternal flame

He's the scorcher she's the torture,

They'll try to thwart you if there's anyway,

He's the gamer, 

She's the tamer,

They kill and main with no thought of yesterday,

I am the storm,

I am the hurricane,

I know when you've been bad,

I am the storm,

I am the torment,

I'm all the nightmares that you've ever had,

I am the storm,

I am the storm ,

I am the firelight,

I am the storm,

I am the storm,

It's time to say goodnight.

To Be Free: Four in the Morning

Four in the Morning

Dan Patterson and I began writing a lot of songs together.  We began one summer at Camp Undulata. We usually had time in the morning to create, while the campers were with the counselors who taught them how to ride.  This was one of the first songs.  I don't really remember.  I know that I was inspired by having written a letter to a girl that I had a crush on before the summer.  She finally wrote back, and it wasn't reciprocal.  Still, instead of being crushed, I was strangely happy. I had been so nervous, and scared, and the worst had happened, and the world hadn't ended.

At any rate, Dan and I sat in a Cabin and we began to turn the chords into a song.  I think the rain idea was influenced by the fact that in the cabin protected only from the elements by screens, you could literally feel the rain.  So if you were sad, and it was raining, you felt the rain and the sadness as one.

This song really has a rich history, because Dan and I played it with John Weiss when at showcase for my junior year.  By that point we were in a band (Downpour, see above).  I think this is what the song might have sounded like if we'd practiced more than once a week for an hour and a half.  In addition to not practicing, we didn't always agree on the direction of the band.  This was the song that kind of started our band.  See, Dan and I recorded us playing this song, and played it for John, and he really liked it, which was a bit peculiar, because John was into hardcore.

While there's nothing particularly brilliant about this song, there's something about it that resonates decades later.  I don't think it's nostalgia, but that may play a part.  The first time I rediscovered the song was when I was living with my band Satori.  It had been a challenging year.  I was living in a log cabin addition with no heat.  I remember sleeping with a wool cap on my head.  My relationship with my girlfriend at the time was tumultuous, and I had discovered that the other guys in the band were going back to school, and no one had bothered to tell me.

Well, I had a four track, and I began recording a bunch of songs, and this ended up being one of them.  Something about the rediscovery brought me back to that point when I was 15.  The song always finds me in moments, where I need to move from a sad place to a happy place.  It found me again this Summer as I rediscovered it.  Something about the last chorus lifts me out of the rain.  I hope it brings as much joy to you as it has to me.

Four In the Morning (C) by Dewey Kincade and Dan Patterson

It's four o'clock in the morning,

As the rain falls down,

I can see it gently falling,

As I look across the town,

The rain is gently tapping,

Against my window pain,

I can here her quietly calling,

Calling out my name

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me,

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me.

My mind begins to meander,

On days gone by,

Laying upon my bed,

No strength to even try,

I wonder why I failed,

To make the right choice,

It pains me to think,

Of the sound of her voice

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me,

Rain on me,

Let the rain fall on me.

The rain is waning and the clouds begin to lift,

My thoughts of yesterday,

Begin to drift,

As I look outside my window,

The clouds are gone,

The sun beckons me,

To search on

Shine on me,

Let the sun shine on me,

Shine on me,

Let the sun shine on me.

To Be Free: Questions of the Heart

The key (for me) to writing a good song is that it must be true.  It doesn't have to be literally true.  For me, it was often the feelings that were true.  I mention this, because this song has pop song content- love, right?  But it is in a folk song structure- AAAA.  There's no chorus here.  That usually tells me that I wrote this, because I had to.

Is it rain falling or tears?
Is it thunder or your fears?
Is that smile a hiding place
To hide your soul from your face?
Got your back against a wall?
I'll be there through anything at all.

Tell me where does the time go?
Oh, will we ever know?
And it seems like I've been here before,
And I know that I'll be here some more,
I know my wish won't ever come true
But that's all I'm left to do.

I've been lost so many years
The answer's never been quite clear
I've been lost without a sign
Someday I'm gonna make you mine.

It it rain falling or tears?
Is it thunder or your fears?
It's been so long that I can't tell
Oh, I guess it's just as well.

This song is interesting to me, because I tried to cultivate the persona of someone who knew some things.  I used to like to think that I was pretty smart.  But it was a persona.  I wrote this, because of my crush that I couldn't do anything about.  I was too scared.  Nothing made me more nervous than feeling something for someone else.  I was a late bloomer, so I didn't have any experience with how to talk to girls.  In my mind, I had this idea that they would somehow find me. And yet, I knew that would never happen.  So I simply carried this weight around with me, and the song ends on a note of resignation.

When I produced this song, I wanted to capture that feeling of a crush.  The song soars to a climax in the third stanza.  That's the moment where you imagine the possibilities.  There's a person, and they're so close. You see them every day, and yet with one touch you enter a whole new world.  But the song doesn't ever get there.  It's just a promise, and the promise falls short.

On a side note, there is a through-line in these songs.  A side plot of sorts.  There's something about the rain that captivated me.  In fact, when I think back to when I was writing these songs, I wanted to call my first album Something About the Rain. I still think it's a great title. I just didn't have any pictures that fit.

To Be Free: Smile on Me

A few years ago I discovered that I was an HSP.  That stands for a Highly Sensitive Person.  It's a thing, honest.  About 15% of the population are on the spectrum.  A sensitive is someone for whom normal sensory input is amplified.  On the plus side, they can be particularly responsive to art, and music.  On the other hand, they can be overwhelmed easily.  A crowded room, a particularly shrill person, even bad lighting can disturb a sensitive.  I used to get head-aches all the time, but I never new why.  In hind-sight I see that it was because I had maxed out on sensory input for the day.

I couldn't tell you exactly why I wrote "Smile on Me."  I imagine it has something to do with HSP. Sensitives aren't just sensitive to their own emotions.  They can feel other people's emotions. I was easily influenced by other people's emotions.  High school was a departure from a sadness that haunted me in middle school.  I felt a kind of liberation.  I was finally someone that mattered.  I don't know why I felt that then, and not before, but I did.  But it seemed like some people were just so depressed about everything.  It bothered me.  Some days more than others.\

Smile on Me

How come nobody ever smiles any more

Smile to light up your face

How come no one even tries any more

Tries to make sense of this place,

It's this life-long journey that seems surreal

Nobody seems to know the rules

That ones who stand and the ones who feel

Are the people we label as fools

You can't be trapped by what’s on top,

There are better things buried inside,

You have to swim below the surface,

And pull it open wide.

Smile on me,

Smile on me,

Smile on me,

Can't you see?

That's what I really need.

How close can I get?

Before you turn away,

I can't stand a mouthful of regret,

So I guess I'll make my mistakes today,

I remember when I didn't look,

I always knew myself for sure,

But then I felt that desperate stare,

I never could endure.

I've been running- is it to or from?

I know I've been running so far,

You have to run to the ends of the earth,

To find your shining star

How come you don't smile anymore?

Was it that hard?

How come you don't try anymore?

It just tears me apart,

Cut off just to see your face,

Surrounded by these walls,

In a lost and lonely place,

In long and empty halls

I want to be the one that finds you,

And I hope that you find me,

I'm looking for that distant shore,

To set our spirits free

Smile on me,

Smile on me,

Smile on me,

Can't you see?

We need to set each other free.

To Be Free: What We Both Know

So I decided to write a little something about the songs on my new album: Volume 1: To Be Free.  I decided to go in chronological order- which is not the order of the actual album.  This post is about the song "What We Both Know."  You can listen to the song here. 

This was one of the songs that I wrote in the fall of my freshman year at Ballard.  They say write what you know, but I knew nothing about bars and failed relationships.  And yet, there's a lot of truth to the song. This may be the first song where I created a persona to say what I wanted to say, without the song being about me.  While I was a very loud 14 year old boy at the time, I was very shy about who I really was.  I didn't want anyone to know.  When I wrote songs, I always felt like I was a wide-open book.  So I unconsciously created a persona to express something that I needed to express- not fitting in, and being unable to connect.

In this case, the disconnection was with someone that I love, or loved.  Now, I had never kissed a girl at this point in my life, which seems ironic, because I'd had a crush on someone for as long as I can remember.  I can go all the way to pre-school, and find someone that I was interested in.  It usually meant that there was someone that I would watch.  I don't think that I could even get close to the person that I had a crush on.  Not until middle school.  By then I could be in the same room, and even talk to them, but I would pretty much act like a goofball.

I pined away for these different crushes, and I would feel the butterflies in my stomach even when I was home alone.  I would have dreams in which the two of use would be together, and I would wake up and I would feel just how far away I was from that reality.  Like a dream in which I could fly, I would wake up and be so very disappointed with myself. It's interesting looking back at this moment in my life, because so much of my creative expression was fueled by this sense of disconnection.

Writing songs was still hard for me, and whenever played music, I couldn't help but feel how far away I was from what I wanted to be creatively.  I LOVED music, but I wasn't making the music I loved.  The music I was making was therapy.  It helped me cope with distances in my life, just as it had when I was 7 and singing to myself over my friend Ryan who had moved away.  I played this song a lot, but I never played it for anybody.

The song never felt finished.  For a while it was just the last verse.  I couldn't tell you when I settled on the last two lines.  But this song has a dynamic early on that made me have to record it in order to complete it.  "What We Both Know" has a descending guitar part that is introduced in the second verse.  That was part of the arrangement for as long as I remember.  I had a microphone and I remember that I could overdub by playing something I had recorded and playing it back, and recording along with myself.  I could only do two tracks this way, but one of the first things I recorded was this song so I could add the descending guitar part.

Years later when I was sixteen, I rented a four track recorder that would record on cassettes.  This was the first song that I recorded.  I finally was able to record the two guitars, and then I came up with a third guitar part (which comes in before the third verse).  Then I recorded a bunch of voices singing along (which you can hear on the third verse).  I think it was the very next day that I played what I had recorded for my friend Amy Richardson.  I have added to the arrangement since then, but I have never changed those fundamental parts.

Every song has its own soul.  It knows what it wants to be, even if you don't.  Some songs are like giant slabs of rock, and thy are already fully-formed.  You simply have to chip away at the right places until they reveal themselves.  Even now as I write this, I think, "Maybe I should have faded that song out, because it still feels unfinished."

What we Both Know

I won't say I don't see you there,

I won't lie and say that I don't care,

Tonight is movin' kind of slow,

I won't say what we both know.

Sometimes its hard to understand,

We're both right from where we stand,

And we've got nothin' left to say,

Our eyes collide then drift away.

Sometimes I wonder where I fit in,

It seems like a game that I can't win.

I reach out to shadows I once knew,

I wake in the night and I think of you.

I see you there across the bar,

You're so close and you're so far,

I'd like to say I'm feelin' low,

But I won't say what we both know.