The Love Language's Stuart McLamb on Phoenix, The Fall, and living in Raleigh, North Carolina
Before performing at Metro Gallery tonight, singer and songwriter Stuart McLamb of the five-seven piece North Carolina band the Love Language spoke with contributor Benjamin Opipari.
Stuart McLamb called me from the back of a truck somewhere near his home in Raleigh, North Carolina. In one hand he had his cell phone, and with the other he was propping up a giant, used Lowrey organ he had just bought for $100.
He's used to multi-tasking. He made his first album entirely on his own - playing all the instruments, and acting as his own producer and engineer. Here he spoke about Phoenix, living in Raleigh, recording on vinyl, and writer's block.
Midnight Sun: You live in Raleigh, not exactly the center of indie music culture. What's living there like for a working musician? We’ve done so much touring, that for a while I was crashing on friend’s couches and in our rehearsal space. That enabled me to pursue music without having to worry about paying rent on a place I never see. I am still floating around, really. Living in a bigger city has its perks, since you have so many influences and people. The city has a workhorse mentality. But for me, the cost of living is a big concern and I can afford not to work every day and just focus on the band. There’s also a good group of artists in this area that keep me inspired.
MS: The Love Language tours incessantly. Are you able to get a lot of writing done on the road? Not really. Just bits and pieces. We bring a lot of ukuleles in the van and have some acoustic guitars. Sometimes we have jams that turn into songs, but that’s rare. To really sit down to write, I need some alone time and space to flesh something out. There’s a lot of riffs and chord progression ideas that happen on tour, but for the most part I need to be alone.
MS: Does touring inspire any songs? Yeah, when you are in a band and touring, you see a lot of shows. When I am home and have down time, I don’t do it as much because I am trying to write. But when you are playing, music all the time, the last thing you want to do when you are home is see another band. So watching other bands play is always inspiring.
MS: How have you matured as a songwriter? Probably in the scope of my palate. With my first record, I was just starting to find my own voice. I had a bunch of instruments, and that was about it. Now, I listen to music more keenly and I’ve broadened my sense of how instruments work. Lyrically, I’m still pushing myself. But I listen to music a lot differently than I used to.
MS: How has your creative process changed? It’s hard to talk about now, because the sponge is soaking. I’m not wrenching it out yet. I go through phases of writing. I don’t write constantly. I go through fruitful periods where a lot comes out in a two-month span, then I dry up. So I’m not writing a whole lot now.
MS: It seems like that would prevent writer’s block. Yeah. A lot of times you might think you need to work on a song, then you start strumming and nothing happens. I try to wait to write until I really feel the need to create, when I have an idea that I have to get on tape. I can’t predict when it’s going to come, but for the past couple of months I haven’t written much. Rather than beat myself up, I’m patient. I’ve been through this my whole life, so I know it will come back.
MS: Do lyrics come easy to you? It depends. Like I told you before, I like to first get the melody down and get inside the song. I do a scratch vocal tape where I just mouth the words and syllables that fit the melody, then I go back and make sense of that. It makes for more creative writing than if I tried to make it more logical and just convey thoughts. My method can make it more poetic. My process may not work if you are a storyteller like Springsteen, but if you are trying to craft musical ideas, the way the lyrics fit with the music should not be separate. They should go together. It has to relate to the sound or the melody.
MS: Give me another example of someone now who does that well. The Phoenix record "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix." The first two tracks on that album are such amazing pop songs. The singer is French, so his native language is not English. His lyrics are cryptic, but they fit the music perfectly. We opened for them a couple of times last year. There were 5000 people out there, and everyone was chanting. It was less about what he was singing, and more about the joyful feeling that was conveyed through lyrics that don’t make much sense on paper but that fit the song perfectly.
MS: Before your recent release, "Libraries," you recorded your first album entirely by yourself. What’s the advantage of that approach? If you have the means to do multi-track recording on your own, you can get inside the songs. You aren’t going to be conscious of anyone else in the room. The Bon Iver record is like that; you can hear him lost inside his songs. It’s the most honest and intimate way possible. Of course, the downside is that I’m not really an engineer and don’t know a lot about mic placement.
MS: You’ve just finished mastering your first record on vinyl. What advantages will that give to your sound? I am a big proponent of the vinyl experience: sitting down with a record player, where listening to a record is an activity in itself, not something you do in addition to something else while lazily browsing blogs and listening online.
MS: Who is the most surprising influence on your music? I am a huge Mark E. Smith and The Fall fan, and there are probably no traces of that in my music. I love the minimalist approach of their riffs. They are always in search of the perfect riff. When punk rockers get melodic, it’s always more enjoyable than when popsters get melodic.
Ben Opipari interviews writers and songwriters on his blog, Songwriters on Process. He has written for the Washington Post and academic journals. He last interviewed the Bacon Brothers for this blog. Erik Maza edited this post.
For a previous Opipari Q&A with Stuart McCamb, go here.
Photo: The Love Language (official MySpace space/Joanna Palmisano)
Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "
