I should probably warn you before we get too far in: it takes me a long time to finish a record.

In 1995, I put together a demo tape called Soon. It featured snippets of three albums in progress. The last of those wasn’t finished until 2012.

I expect this to go a bit more quickly… but you never know.

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Sometimes something cool just comes to you in a flash—a feeling, an idea, an urge, a catharsis, a revelation, a phrase, a shape, an image. That moment of inspiration is when the ART part of art happens; it’s also the phase of the creative process over which you have no control. You feel compelled to share, but the material might be too raw for anyone but you to understand.

The rest is craft. How to best communicate an experience? For me, this part is fairly cerebral, fully intentional, and it takes as long as it takes, with as much (or as little) polishing and editing as is required to serve the original inspiration.

Catharses get worked into songs; songs that complement one another, sonically or thematically, knit organically into albums. That’s my process. And while it seems reasonable, few artists actually work this way.

Most albums are just collections of the last ten to twelve songs the artist wrote. I understand why this is so; there are deadlines and sales cycles and marketing plans and just the basic need to GET YOUR SHIT OUT THERE ALREADY. But that doesn’t work for me. I made those kinds of albums when I was just starting out and discovered that they put people off my stuff. They felt more like compilations: no two tracks sounded like they belonged together, making for a sucky listening experience that undermined the individual songs.

So I build albums deliberately. And that takes time. Still, each component song is crafted around something that happened in a moment.

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I occasionally get invited to produce a record for another artist. God help these people. Like David Schulman: we started his album in 2011 and wrapped it last week. Or Earl Patrick, or Amy Willey. Saintly folks. All I can say is that I do up their records EXACTLY as I would my own (and I have trouble accepting money for musical work, so I usually take the case only if I believe in the project strongly enough to do my part for free). Understandably, though, not everyone is so patient.

I met Kole Hansen at a Collider gig in 2003. We were in Washington, DC, on a bill with Kole and her friend Rosi Golan. Kole was super smart, a lot of fun and ferociously positive. She looked like a model but had a home-schooled awkwardness that made her simultaneously statuesque and doll-like in a Nickelodeon star kind of way. I figured she must’ve had a creepy little Danny DeVito twin sister running around out there with all the SHITTY genes.

Kole lived in Brooklyn, so we kept in touch. She gave me her demo, which consisted of weird mëtally co-writes that didn’t seem particularly appropriate for her style or outlook. The songs showcased her excellent singing voice, but perspective-wise, they really didn’t have much Kole in them. I thought she could do better.

In 2010, we finally got together to make a record. Kole came to Albany with a batch of new material that felt to me much more honest and representative. We spent a few days tracking vocals over scratch piano, then took the whole mess down to Woodstock so Jerry Marotta could do his awesome one-man-percussion-army thing.

In preparation for the session, I wrote one song—“The Good Parts”. It was inspired by a situation in Kole’s life that I could relate to personally: the termination of a relationship with someone you still care about and don’t want to hurt. I approached the song from that common ground, leaving the second verse blank so Kole could fill it in from her perspective.
What she came up with took the song in a direction completely foreign to me: It was affirming, even HOPEFUL.

Take care and the tears will dry
Take care, never sacrifice
Take care, knowing I’m aware
Nothing can compare to the pain you went through
Understand that you will pull through
Just do what you’ve gotta do

I rarely write with other people but this was so worth it! Kole’s addition pierced the bleakness of my verse and chorus (which were basically like JUST GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE AND FORCE YOURSELF TO FORGET ALL ABOUT HOW HORRIBLE THIS FEELS). I followed her lead into a lyric for the bridge.

Remember how it feels to love somebody
Remember how it feels to know somebody
Remember how it feels to find someone
Believe that you can do it again

We ran out of time with Jerry before he could add drums to “The Good Parts”, so all that exists is the scratch piano take. As for the rest of the album, it came out—in a version I had nothing to do with. Kole (again, understandably) got tired of waiting around and eventually recorded the other songs elsewhere. She did perform “The Good Parts” live a few times, which I appreciate.

Meanwhile, the song continues to resonate with me. Since it was written, I’ve relived its story from both sides. I obviously lack Kole’s vocal gifts, but I do plan to finally give “The Good Parts” a proper recording for Like A Radio Loves A Song. I’ll try not to take so long this time.