P.S.:
Now I know you probably get asked
a lot of questions about your age and how it relates to what
you're doing. But, as somebody who knows a lot of really
talented musicians who have been working hard and struggling for
years and have yet to get anywhere, what is your perception of the
situation you've experienced? I mean, you did get a record
contract at seventeen. For people who might say, that's unfair or
he had it handed to him, what is your perception of that?
SONDRE:
I certainly realize that I'm very fortunate because I've met the
right people in the right order. That was out of my control. If I
hadn't, I might have taken off on the wrong course. When I was
fourteen, I met my producer who was the first one to really take
my music seriously. I hadn't even done it properly yet. I'd been
trying to write songs for six years. Still, I hadn't really nailed
it or managed to write songs I felt really strongly about.
Somehow, he believed in me and I kept writing. We played records
and just listened to music and he really opened my eyes to a lot
of things. He showed me a lot of shortcuts in songwriting and two
years later, I wrote songs for my first record. It was a huge
personal breakthrough for me because I wrote the songs and felt
that these were the songs. It sounds kind of weird but it was just
the feeling of everything coming together. These were songs I felt
very proud to play in front of an audience. You feel good about
that. So, we just recorded the record and then went to a label. By
that time, I had my musicians that I had met just on a low scale
in my hometown that I surrounded myself with. I had a great
environment of genuine, idealistic music people who appreciated
the talent that I was looking for or hoping to find. Then, we went
to the label. If you go the other way around and don't have that
security around you of people who really want the best for you and
who will never stop trying to understand you, instead of assuming
what you want to sound like. Because when you're really young, you
can be shaped into what's convenient at the time. That's going to
happen if you go to a label right away. A lot of times I think
they have a habit where they suggest or force things on artists.
There and then, that talent that they might have had could be lost
forever. It usually goes down the drain. So I've been very
fortunate in that way. Now I have a great label who promote my
music respectfully. I couldn't be happier.
P.S.:
How did you come to the decision to refrain from songwriting on
this tour? Can it be controlled so easily or is writing more of a
divine inspiration that picks and chooses you as opposed to the
other way around?
SONDRE:
Basically, I was just sick of sitting down with only five or ten
minutes thinking that it would be cool if I could right a song now
so that I would feel better or feel like I was on the way to
something. You want that feeling but then you sit down and you
expect everything to happen in five minutes. Your other songs that
you like and that you play every night, you've written over the
course of years. That's when you realize that it's just not going
to happen. That's when I just decided that I don't want to try
to do it. I don't have time for it. I'm just so exhausted after
playing every show that I don't even want to touch the guitar
outside of the stage. So basically, that's what I'm doing. I have
a notebook and I'll take notes if I need to but I'm not going to
sit down and try. After Christmas, when I have some time off,
that's when I'll start working. I'll actually have time to sit
around and do nothing and everything.
P.S.:
Do you think songwriting's based on craft or inspiration?
SONDRE.:
I
think it's very unpredictable and it's very frustrating if you get
caught up in it. The more you try, the less you achieve. It's a
really tough balance between the unconscious and the craft in a
way. You want both things. The craft in itself can get really
boring and the unconscious, separated, is a mess. You want to
balance that.
P.S.:
Didn't you print the lyrics to Two Way Monologues whereas
for the first record, Faces Down, you didn't feel
comfortable enough to do that.
SONDRE:
When I made this record, I really wanted to write lyrics that I
felt good about printing and that I would feel alright about being
separated from the music because that's what happens when you
print the lyrics. You can't control the way they're perceived as
much as you can when you listen to them, which was the case with
the first record. They were just accompanying the music. I didn't
intend for them to be read, isolated from the music. So I wanted
to try my luck with that this time and I'm very pleased with how
it turned out. I'm not saying that it could be put out in a poetry
book because it still works in connection with music.
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