So today, we're going to be talking about your identity, your vision,
and your intention as an artist,
and I'm joined by Stephen Webber,
who is a former professor of mine at Berklee.
He's produced over 150 records,
and he actually put me in touch with my producer, Johnny Duke.
So, Stephen, thank you for being with us today.
It's my pleasure to be here.
So you kind of developed this idea of
artists needing to develop what you call their IV or their IVI,
their identity, their vision, and their intentions.
So I'd like to kind of break it out a little
bit and kind of go through these things one by one.
Great.
So what do you mean by identity?
What is an artist identity? What makes that up?
Exactly, well, it's basically just who are you?
Who the heck are you as an artist?
Where did you come from? What is your point of view?
And this can have a lot of different aspects to it.
First is your personal identity,
and do you want to share that?
Some people think that what we're talking about when we talk about
identity is putting on some sort of a disguise.
While that probably has been done sometimes, I think,
generally, it doesn't work that well to do that.
It has to come from inside you.
It has to be something that you really do vibe with yourself.
It's hard to name a very successful pop star
or country star or even jazz star for that matter,
who doesn't have a really,
really strong identity that you don't know what they're about.
They have usually a very strong visual identity.
They have a personal identity.
A lot of times, they'll have an interesting backstory,
and that can be really interesting as well,
who you are, having a sense of yourself.
If you're listening to this and you say,
"I have no idea who I am",
maybe it's a good idea to actually start writing some stuff down.
And one of the exercises that I have my students do as artists,
is to think of an artist that they're kind of similar to.
Some people bristle at that a little bit,
but if you really get down to it,
there's often somebody who influenced you,
whether it was The Beatles,
or The Stones, or Lady Gaga, or whoever.
But then think of another artist that, in some way,
you have some element that is similar to,
and the second artist should be as far away from the first artist as possible.
So, for me, the first artist might be Earl Scruggs because I play the banjo.
The second artist might be Grandmaster Flash because I also play the turntables,
and that's just weird right.
But that makes it kind of fascinating.
Who else does that?
And then think about what I call your unique differentiator,
and what that is is what is it about you that is very
unusual for journey of what you are undertaking.
What is it about you that not many people know?
And this can be this can be something that you haven't thought of,
that you think maybe has nothing to do with your art.
And, at the same time, it could be kind of the coolest thing.
So then the algorithm is to say,
this person is example A
meets example B with a healthy dose of this unique differentiator.
And if you start thinking about putting that together, it can, I think,
really help to focus what it is you're doing and who you are as an artist.
The most boring answer to the question,
"What kind of music do you play?"
is just to say, "Oh, I don't know.
It's really hard, I can't put my music into any specific genre."
The thing is that people think they're being unique when they say that,
but, actually, that's what everybody says.
So they're actually conforming to everybody else when they say that.
Yes. This is an idea that you shared with me a couple of years ago,
and before I went into the studio I was thinking about that a lot.
I'm really influenced by Loretta Lynn.
I love Loretta Lynn so much.
But I also grew up listening to a lot of
classic rock because my dad listened to a lot of classic rock,
and so I love Led Zeppelin.
And so when I went to my producer,
I was like, "I want Loretta Lynn meets Led Zeppelin."
And he was like, "Okay. Let's do it."
Fantastic. And that's the thing.
You take that to a producer, and they know what to do with that.
Exactly.
It's like, "okay," but if you come in going, "I don't know.
I don't really fit in any niche," they're just going to go,
"Okay, one of these again."
And then we're just going to be throwing darts
into the abyss trying to figure out who this person is.
Well then I think you end up with a product that sounds a little bit more
generic and just not really unique.
So let's talk a bit about vision,
because if you look at The Beatles,
for example, it's hard to know
whether or not they had a clear vision for where they were going to end up.
But it certainly seems like
each individual recording project that they had had a very clear purpose and vision.
So can you talk a little bit about what
steps an artist should take to kind of figure out what their vision is?
Right, sure. You're absolutely right that if you look at The Beatles as an example,
each record had a very clear vision to it.
And the vision of Abbey Road was entirely different than Meet the Beatles!
and Let It Be and Sgt.
Pepper's. They're all very, very different,
but they had a very specific vision,
what they were trying to accomplish,
what they were trying to say.
A recording artist is actually rewarded more for
the specificity of their vision than their versatility.
Because if you come out with an album that's just all over the place,
and there's a hip hop track and there's a country track and
there's a big band track and there's classical,
nobody's going to know what to do with it.
And nobody is going to be in the mood to sit there and listen to it.
When I put on an album,
when I call something up on Spotify,
I'm looking for a vibe,
then I want to kind of take me through a little ways.
I don't want to be just jerked around and all over the place.
So having a vision of what you're trying to accomplish,
I think, is key.
And one way to do that,
that I found extremely effective,
is to actually try planning out three albums at once.
So instead of just saying,
"Okay, this is going to be our album.
We're going to do this and this and this and this," because then you usually try to
cram a hundred pounds of sausage into a 50-pound case.
But if you're thinking,
"I'm going to do three albums."
Then everything that kind of fits into the one vibe you can put in one album,
and the things that don't fit in it,
you can be looking at other albums.
Works of art hold together if there is unity,
if they have some sort of unity that really ties the thing together.
That is not to say that there can't be surprises here and there in the record.
You want there to be surprises.
I'm not saying you have to be just absolutely.
All slow songs or all fast songs. Yes, exactly.
Not at all.
And, in fact, tempo,
the example of Kind of Blue is very specific in
that Miles even went the step of not doing anything fast on the record.
You can have fast songs and slow songs.
They can be tied together by some other kind of unity.
There can be a theme.
There can be an overriding style.
There can be an overarching vocal quality to it.
But actually having a vision,
where people can listen to your music and really get a sense of what your vision was,
I mean, that can be very powerful.
We talked about vision for individual projects.
What about a vision for an overall career trajectory?
Can you talk a little bit about how artists can develop that?
You know, I think that it's probably going to change. I think it can be fun.
And some people I think are maybe better at this than others,
and they actually think about having a trajectory for their career.
And I think a lot of time some managers,
and they and our folks,
maybe put some thought into that.
Although, I will say that if you are successful early in your career,
usually what happens is people want you to do
more of exactly the same thing that you just did.
And so, it can actually take some moxie to say,
you know what, I want to grow,
I'm going to do this thing and it's going to be different.
Right. When Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band came out, everybody hated it.
I mean when it first came out, everybody was like,
what the world happened to these guys.
I like these guys and now. When Dylan went electric, everybody hated it.
Yes. It was like, he's doing,
he's got this cheesy rock band he used to be this folk balladeer.
So, having the courage of your convictions,
it comes into play.
If your first record doesn't really move the needle that much,
the nice thing is you got the freedom to do whatever you
want. Because no one really cares.
Right. But once you start becoming successful,
it's probably more important to have an idea of
a trajectory for your career when you go into it.
Because if not, it's going to be the easy thing to do,
is going to be just to put out another record that sounded like a first record,
and just another, and do that two or three times,
trying to chase after that initial success that you had.
And a lot of people get caught up in that.
And that can be kind of tough.
Let's talk a little bit about intention.
So, can you kind of describe what you mean when you say an artist's intention?
Yes, I certainly can.
When an artist doesn't have a very crystal clear intention,
it's often kind of excruciating.
And I've often listened to
projects where it seemed like the intention was just I'm going to play the song.
I'm going to sing into this microphone right now.
Most of the time, intention has to do with doing
things like really deciding what emotion you're trying to convey.
What am I going for here?
Am I angry?
Am I sensual?
Am I happy?
What is the intention?
And if you play with great players,
that's one of the things that blows me away,
about playing with great session players,
is that they really are into it.
I mean, the intention is there.
Absolutely.
They are trying to communicate through music.
If you think about what we're doing here,
we are trying to vibrate air molecules in such a way that
when the air molecules hit another carbon-based human life form, they feel something.
And you can't do that just by trying to play the right notes.
Right. You got to do that by really imbuing whatever it is,
with an intention to move other people,
to actually convey to other people what it is that you're trying to convey.
So, that's true in the writing of the songs that's true,
and the singing of the songs that's true, in the performance.
All the players that we look up to,
whether they're fantastic jazz players like Pat Metheny,
or whether they're amazing singers,
or pop stars like,
Lady Gaga, is that the emotional intention is there.
They're really trying to go for it in terms of communicating with other people.
And with that way, when you hear their music,
it just leaps out of the speakers at you.
it's almost like it,
we call catchy phrases, hooks, but really,
all the music that is trying to I think communicate with other people,
it almost like Velcro.
It just jumps out over your headphones and your speakers,
and just grabs you and says,
hey listen to me, check this out.
So, that's the intention for like a recording when you're going into the studio.
But what about an intention from a career standpoint?
And I've heard you say that your intention is really closely linked to your vision.
It's essentially how you're going to bring your vision about.
Yeah.
So, if someone has a vision of Bob Dylan,
kind of be a troubadour,
and discuss things that are happening in the current state of politics or whatever.
Though he would say, he's not very political, but what I've heard.
Right. I'm just a musician.
But see, that's part of his vision and intention, too.
Right.
Is just always to be never be tied down by reporters.
Right. And his Identity. Yes, and his identity. Yes.
So, I guess what we're working with this is that this IVI,
all three of these things are very related.
They're all related. I find that it's interesting,
it can be helpful to think about them one by one.
But then, it's also they're all really ingrained together.
Your identity definitely informs your vision.
Who you are is basically where you came from.
Who you are. What you're thinking about.
Your vision is, what are you going to do with that?
What art are you going to make out of that?
And it could be totally surprising, what you do.
And then your intention is really to try and bring that to the floor.
That's your execution, really.
The vision is kind of the high level.
This is where we're aiming at.
Then the intention is whenever you're working on it,
you've got to be keeping that vision in mind.
Before I went to the studio,
and when I was kind of starting to form this band and I thought a lot about my IVI.
And I have to say it's been invaluable to me.
And especially, as someone who is doing most of the work on my own,
all the managing, the booking.
Yes. The business kind of sides at things,
having that IVI there has been a really important anchor for me
to not lose sight of why I'm doing all of this at the first place.
Yes. That's the thing. Why are you doing it in the first place?
And life is set up like that.
We go out in life all idealistic and stuff,
and people get jobs, and then it just becomes about getting to work in the morning.
And you forget about why you're doing it.
Art, you need to keep in mind why you're doing this if you're creating art,
if you want to create interesting art,
for people to vibe with it.
And actually, hopefully, you're going to be
a reprieve for that ride to work or
those people who are just trying to get through the day.
You're going to be that part of the day that reminds them about
that more noble part of their identity that has to do with love,
and with idealism, and all the things that we have to hold on to as human beings,
not to get beat down into the drudgery.
My goodness, yes. Well Steven,
thank you so much for joining us today.
Sure thing. And you've been such a huge influence on my music,
and my thinking as an artist.
And so, just thank you so much.
It's a pleasure being there. Thank you so much.