Run Wild

June 20, 2019

John Errol is an LA-based musician. He is also my old roommate, periodical creative collaborator, guru and best friend (this is only but an abbreviated introduction). We decided to take one of our many backyard conversations to a public space and discuss his newly released single “Run Wild” and the EP/project at large. Over the past few years, we have worked endless days in various adjacent rooms glued to computers, making sure we were breathing now and then, always sure to take a “break” where we’d talk obsessively about our obsessions.

I’ve always been astounded and sometimes concerned by Errol’s ability to shut the world out in his process and in the type of research and inspiration that brings him there. From his literature degree to classical piano training, to his growing knowledge of the maths and physics of self-taught musical production, every part of his work is made with unresting conviction, and I have been lucky enough to witness the metamorphosis of this expansive project. If you asked me what kind of music he’s making, I wouldn’t have a clear answer.

Intro + Creative Dircection by Adinah Dancyger
Creative Direction Nic Viollet

"Run Wild" is one of the many songs on this album that does more than blend genres. His musical realm invites melodic ease with disruption, sweet-sounding anxiety that constantly subverts expectations and demands attention. Needless to say, I’m a fan. Below we discuss the delicate balance and imbalances between the process of making work, artistic integrity and self-preservation in the mix of it all.

Adinah Dancyger I'm going to cut to the chase—we need to discuss "Run Wild." Congratulations. I've heard so many different songs in so many different iterations and you chose to put this one out. How do you feel about it finally going public?

John Errol Well, it actually came out accidentally 2 weeks ago without me knowing, so I've already dealt with any worst-case-scenario anxiety around releasing music at this point.

AD Can you elaborate on "accidentally"? And why does releasing music give you so much anxiety?

JE Somehow our distributor let the song go live. It was funny, though, because the song is kind of about fear--you know, the fear that comes with putting yourself and the work that you make out into the ether. Fear of its reception, how it translates, etc. So it was one of those weird art-imitates-life-imitates-art moments. Were you ever afraid of getting shots from the doctor as a kid?

AD Absolutely.

JE It felt kind of like getting a shot or a vaccine. You have this really dramatic build up and anxiety leading up to the needle. The nurse has cleaned your arm with alcohol and you're mentally preparing yourself for this epic, catastrophic moment. And the doctor begins the countdown -- "3, 2" -- but injects you on the 2, the moment you were least expecting it. That's what the release of "Run Wild" felt like.

AD What I’m hearing is that this particular release was very important to you. What is it about "Run Wild" in particular -- what was more at stake?

JE Well, I did exactly what one should not do in the position I was in last year. In some twisted universe, "Dead Man Walking" put me in a position where I could advance myself if I had my shit together. And I did the exact opposite of capitalizing on any momentum by just going completely silent. I let professional relationships sputter and die. I kind of burned my life down to the ground -- lost a lot of friends, was a bit depressed, as you know—very unsure of how to proceed going forward. Because music has always been, you know, just like a fact. There was never really a motive or explanation as to why I was making it. There was no "story" or plan, no endgame I could envision. And all of a sudden those questions were the only questions I was hearing.

AD You can definitely hear that anxiety in the song. Even though they’re effortless in a lot of ways, you can hear an anxiety in all of the songs I've heard.

JE Totally, they’re nervous. There’s actually a metronome clicking throughout "Run Wild" which specifically tributes that kind of anxiety. I've always have bad timing rhythmically -- and I guess bad timing in life too! But the metronome was always the most traumatic point of piano as a kid, just clicking away while I'd run scales. I think bad timing is a product of anxiety—knowing there’s a clock there, going "oh fuck how do I lock into this rhythmic grid?" which leads to a spiral of overthinking.

AD Yeah, the song feels very nervous in a great way that feels raw and honest. I like that your productions aren’t perfectly manicured, which I know is a creative and technical choice you’ve made both in the production and mixing of your material. There's--I don’t know what the right word is--but there's a lot of texture to it.

JE Totally, texture is a great word. I like to think about distortion as a practice and psychological experience. What distortion is or how it began was just an audio signal being driven too loud and it fucking up the integrity of the audio. I really like that motif in how it applies to a person's experience of life. A distorted reality, a distorted view of yourself.

AD I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics in "Run Wild". Unlike "Dead Man Walking", these feel almost uncomfortably personal, which I think can be written off as being mysterious or strange to someone who doesn’t know you. Which I think can be a good thing too.

JE It’s funny, sometimes the most personal lyrics and statements, even in literature and stuff, are the most alienating. To me, it feels really disorienting when an author makes themselves, their bodies or real lives known in a fictional universe because it—

AD Takes you out of the imagined space?

JE Because it takes you out of the imagined space! As a reader or listener or whatever, it zaps you out of any ownership you might feel. "Run Wild" there are very specific lines that glance at this voiced history...but are never really explained beyond that point. There's no context provided. So as a result, these extremely personal moments become kind of self-contained and preserved.

AD I want to talk about that line where you mention Granddad specifically, a person I know that is so special and close to you. It really sticks out to me.

JE Totally, that’s what all of my friends say—that the Granddad line is kind of jarring.

AD It’s a jarring word to say in a song, but it's also jarring to hear a line like "It started out so simple with a piano my Granddad gave / he always wanted me to play a song when I was little, but now he says my tune has changed" from an artist who refuses to show his face! It feels like a big gesture.

JE I can tell you lyrically it’s a very literal transcription of what happened last summer. I was thinking about how I started playing music, which began on the piano. My Granddad used to love hearing my lessons, especially when Rachmaninav’s Piano Concertos were involved. But last year, I was at my mom's house fiddling around on the piano I grew up playing. And within minutes Granddad burst into the room yelling at me to stop—"Stop playing, this is horrible, this isn’t music!" I think is almost verbatim what he said. It was pretty funny.

AD Oh my god.

JE But it was at that point that I wondered who I've ever been making music for, you know? Whether it was piano, doing it because my mother wanted me to, or playing guitar in the jazz ensemble in high school, or in college playing keys in that band [Starred]. My authority and authorship have always kind of been in flux throughout this whole music-making process. And that’s what "Run Wild" is about—it’s about trying to regain authority.

AD And maybe control?

JE Yeah. Maybe finding control in accepting that I can’t control anything [laughs]. I feel like navigating a music career is like a really extended and horrible game of telephone. You know, the game where you whisper something to another person and the original message gets so lost in transmission by the end of it. Last summer it felt like that -- like I didn’t even know what the original message was to begin with.

AD The original message of the song?

JE The original message of the song, but general to any of the music I had been making at that point. Because I felt like I wasn’t doing it for me.

AD I've personally seen how the music, visuals and concept at large have transformed, and can attest to the fact that the project felt very influenced by other people in its beginning stages. But now it just feels like it really doesn’t give a fuck in a really nice way -- there’s no way to really pin-point what kind of genre or aesthetic it is. It's like you’re trying to create your own undefined orbit, which is hard to do when you set your own rules and have no point of reference.

JE I mean, I definitely do have very specific musical references...NIN, Britney Spears, occasionally Scott Walker & The Blue Nile. But in terms of a career to reference, I don't think there's a specific one to model mine after. At this point, I'm trying my best not to anticipate the end before I start the beginning...which I think can apply to making any kind of art. I feel like you definitely can attest to this too—that going into [making art] with the intention of its release or reception always contaminates the process.

AD Yes, of course. And it’s really hard to filter out the bullshit when you’re trying to successfully launch a career. I think that "Run Wild" reflects this tension nicely, between what you want and what is expected. Your music toys with the idea of something pretty, but always finds a way of destroying it.

JE I think it's like the artwork, taking a really beautiful image and fucking it up.

AD What motivates you to do that? Anger?

JE I think it’s like—it is like an anger, yeah. But an anger that’s directed inward, if that makes any sense.

AD Speaking of artwork, let's talk a little bit about the cover for "Run Wild" because people are asking. How did it happen?

JE Nic Viollet has been an amazing art director and is this quiet monstrosity of talent—thankfully I think people are starting to pay attention after doing the Moses [Sumney] EP cover. Anyways, I played Nic the EP and he said it sounded like this massive pop record that was discovered in a vault decades later. And when you played it back, the audio kind of glitched and was full of all these holes or noises. We wanted to have the artwork mimic this -- to have these beautiful, stylized images a bit mangled and burned.

AD The fire is a big motif for you.

JE Burning your life to the ground, the usual! But in terms of the logistical making of the "Run Wild"cover, I’m very spontaneous and have poor planning skills. Lili Peper usually shoots the artwork, but wasn't in town. So you and I just grabbed a disposable camera and shot what felt right. Then Nic took the images and did his magic. A John Errol production is usually trial by fire with no proper equipment, budget or planning. But I think some of the most spontaneous and technically limited work ends up being the best.

AD I agree. I think that especially when you're starting, limitations work to your advantage and make you more creative.

JE I always think back to your first short Chopping Onions. You had a very specific budget, framework, and time to work within, so you had to make something of the footage you shot. That's how I used to make music. I had very limited gear and technical knowledge, but had to make the most of it. But the more you learn, the more people get involved, and the more resources you can access give you more choices to make—the more choices you can make. I feel like choice is anathema to the creative process in a weird way.

AD And when you do get presented with whatever it is, like budget or gear or even ideas, you might get too ambitious, which can actually be detrimental. But I do think it’s different in your world because you don’t need that much stuff to make something epic.

JE Yeah, you can make epic music at a coffee shop with headphones. Though I don't think the same can be said of a James Cameron movie or something. You kind of have to consider the logistical production going into writing the script, right? You have to be realistic about budget, timing, location, a cast, crew, krafty, etc. How do you navigate that?

AD It certainly kills the romanticism of the idea, which at first feels like this beautiful little baby who's innocent and hasn’t experienced the world. Then it has to go through 3 different lives to finally be realized. And once it has been realized you’re just exhausted by it. And you have a very weird perception of it that’s an accumulation of so much time, effort, disappointment and occasional excitement. It sucks, sometimes to the point where you wonder "Why do it?" There’s a sincere amount of masochism that goes into both of these processes where you know you’re dying a little bit, but you need that energy to make it feel like it’s worth your time. Like you will go to the end of the earth even if it’s for a very minor part of your process. And who knows if that’s sustainable—I don’t think it is.

JE Hell no.

AD And I’m certainly trying to find ways to not be so attached.

JE Have you found any successful methods so far?

AD I think you treat making art more as a practice than a result. I think this the current issue with our generation of artists. You know I talk about this with Kaya a lot—can we just be making things without always having some expectation for what we make, or that it has to be recognized or validated publicly each time. Obviously the best thing to do is not think about any of that while you’re actually making work. Because there’s a time and place for that stress.

JE But even down to the artwork, the way it rolls out, the location of its release... you and I are both so invested in a totalized experience of the work. So how do you divorce yourself from that if every part of its experience is vital?

AD I think the place we’re in is that we both experience the pros and cons to freedom and full creative control. Nobody is telling us how to make things. It’s a really cool place to be in, but it also requires a lot more work to be done. The reason why we do all of these things on our own is because we don't have support. But the reason why we get to make the kind of uninhibited work we make is also because we don’t have support. There’s a creative liberation to take advantage of. But things change, and I hear your stress when you’re releasing things the more people get involved. The logistics can make everything feel like it’s not about the work itself; and the reality of it is that it’s not just about the work itself.

JE Yeah, it’s kind of like the age old proverb I was thinking of before I released "Run Wild". If a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? My answer is no at this point. I have firmly arrived at that answer: no, it does not make a sound.

Check out "Run Wild" below.

Music

Sinead O'Connor: Nothing Compares... A True Punk

July 28, 2023

Shuhada' Sadaqat, also known as Sinead O'Connor, passed away at age 56 on July 26, 2023. Her voice contained so much depth and vulnerability, it’s hard to wrap your head around it. Many know her from her most famous, tear-jerking song, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” originally written by Prince. The song and accompanying video garnered her Video of the Year at the VMA’s in 1990, making her the first female recipient. However, there is so much more to the Irish protest singer.

She stood out among her peers and later in the eyes of the world, as she moved through it unapologetically, shaved head and all. The industry considered her a provocateur, but Sinead never thought of herself that way at all. She simply had a deep-seated need to speak her mind and to speak for those whose voices had been silenced.

Text Willa Rudolph
Photo credits throughout; main image Shutterstock

Today, we have ten studio albums from the legendary vocalist and songwriter, her first being The Lion and the Cobra, released in 1987, of which she sold millions of copies worldwide. In the Irish artist’s memoir, Rememberings, the overwhelming sentiment was that she would never be happy with herself unless she stood proudly for her beliefs. It wasn’t money or fame that attracted her to the music industry. In fact, she didn’t like the “industry” part of it, at all. She only wanted to sing. One day, Sinead told a priest that she liked to sing. He told her, “He who sings, prays twice.” Sinead writes this is why she started to sing. She wanted to repent.

The songstress began making music in a home for girls with behavioral issues, where she’d sneak out at night to record, much to the nuns’ disapproval. It was there that one special nun gave O’Connor a guitar, with which she busked on the streets of Dublin. Sinead was so gifted, that a teacher even helped her sneak out once to record music. The head nun despised this fact, so Sinead would smoke cigarettes directly outside her office, just to piss her off. She was a true punk from the get-go.

Dublin, May 2011. Photo by Kevin Lamarque.

After she turned 16, she fearlessly ran away from school and got a studio apartment, much to her father’s dread. He agreed to pay her rent if she got a job and could pay any bills herself– and if she took out her nose ring. So, that’s what she did. As she describes memories of her youth, she recalls Elvis Presley’s and thinks to herself, “I need a new father because Elvis is gone, my father isn’t dead; I just ain’t seen him for a very long time... I don’t go looking for any father because I have God.” Whenever she hears music piercing her soul, she’d say, “That’s my dad.” She describes the first time she heard Bob Dylan: “I like this Dylan man... Since discovering him, I’ve stopped knocking on doors... asking [people] if I can be their child.” Despite her mother’s physical and emotional abuse, O’Connor focused on the many tender moments in which people were looking out for her.

In 1985 she signed with Ensign Records and left Ireland for London. The deal she’d signed got her only 7% of sales, she had to pay for the whole recording and production process herself. It was a terrible deal, to say the least. But Sinead was happy to get out of Ireland. She writes, “I’m lonely, but I’m writing songs for my first album, and songs are a lonely person’s occupation. Songs are ghosts. When my album comes out, I’ll become a traveling ghost delivery woman. There will be a lifetime of goodbyes. I can’t have a problem with that.”

The men at Sinead’s label had an issue with Sinead’s demeanor and the way she presented herself. They told her to be more feminine and appealing. They wanted her pretty. Sinead came back with a shaved head the next day. In London, she loved speaking with Rastafarians about God. They called her daughter. They were the first people to tell her the pope is evil. They said, “Nobody can own God.”

The Lion and the Cobra had been recorded. During the making-of, Sinead had come to find out she was pregnant with her first child. She told her record label, and they sent her to their doctor, who told her to abort the baby. She immediately left the label and found herself 100 grand in debt. She writes, “If this record doesn’t make the money back and more… then I will never be financially independent of people with penises.” Sinead gave birth to her first child just three weeks before the album was released.

Unsurprisingly, it was a huge hit. But her label earned millions off of her without batting an eye. She hated the music industry. But she loved 90s rap. She related to it because the industry looked down on her the same way they looked down on rap (until, of course, they co-opted it and made tons of money off of it). “I’m a punk, not a pop star,” Sinead proclaims. The world so badly wanted Sinead O’Connor to fit into whatever box they wanted her in. But Sinead never wavered in who she was or who she dreamt of being, and essentially demanded that people look at her the way she wanted to be looked at.

I'm a punk, not a pop star.

Cut to New York. On Avenue A, she befriended the Rastafarians at a juice bar. They took her in and watched out for her. “I thought they didn’t like me, was why they were silent, but it ain’t anything other than: They are watchers. They’re watching out for God everywhere. They’re like God’s security detail.” Sinead lovingly recalls. One man there in particular, Terry, was an older fella Sinead had grown to love a great deal. One day, he confesses to her they’ve been using children to run guns and drugs out of the juice bar. He tells her he’s going to be killed soon. Sinead is horrified. She’s been taking spiritual guidance from people she now knows have been using kids as drug mules. It was the ultimate betrayal.

It was that very weekend that Sinead was slated to go on SNL. She brought a photo with her, of Pope John Paul II that her mother kept from when he kissed the ground and said he loved the people of Ireland. “Nobody loved us, not even God.” To Sinead, this photo represented everything she stood against: lies and abuse. “Destroy it I would, when the right moment came,” because “nobody ever gave a shit about the children of Ireland.” As her second song on the live NBC program, SNL, Sinead sang War by Bob Marley. She’d been reading horrible stories for weeks where it was only briefly mentioned that children were being abused by priests. After Sinead finished singing, she stared right into the camera, ripped JP2’s photo into pieces and yelled, “Fight the real enemy. I’m talking to those who are going to kill Terry.” She blew out the candle next to her. The entire building was engulfed in a deafening silence. “Everyone wants a popstar, see, I’m a protest singer.”

Sinead O’Connor explains, “I had no desire for fame... Success was making a failure of my life, because everyone was already calling me crazy for not acting like a pop star, for not worshipping fame… My own dream was to only keep the contract I made with God before I ever made one with the Music Business, and that’s a better fight than murder.” NBC banned her from their studios for life. “This hurt me a lot less than rapes hurt those children, and a lot less than Terry dying, which happens the following Monday, anyway.”

Many people believe that it was this moment of the tearing of the pope’s photo that ended up derailing Sinead O’Connor’s career. She clarifies, “Having a #1 record derailed my career, and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track. I had to make my living performing live again, and that’s what I was born for. I wasn’t born to be a pop star. You have to be a good girl for that.” From then on Sinead did what she loved, making music, and playing live. She was a mother to four children, paid all the bills herself, and got to make her art. “What’s more successful than that?” she asks. Later, she writes, “I’m feeling flattered that the establishment considers me enough of a threat that it needs to try and discredit me along with all the other bands and artists who’ve been under attack in the censorship of music that is America since Straight Outta Compton.”

It’s not that Sinead liked being hated. It’s that she had an undeniable and unbreakable selfhood that could not be shaken by the “man”. She was and always will be a true punk. She’s been called Rock Music’s Joan of Arc because she was fearless, but it was almost like she had no choice but to be so. It was just who she was.

Read the full article by Willa Rudolph here.

Canada, February 2020. Photo by Andrew Chin.

Music

Father Takes on Fatherhood

I caught up with Father while he was in Brooklyn during his U.S. mini-tour to perform at the popular venue Elsewhere. While his mini tour with Babysp1der covered only four cities, Father says he’s happy with the feedback Hu$band 2 has received since its release in June.

“I’m always skeptical when I’m about to drop something new, especially if it doesn’t fall exactly within a certain version of me,” Father says. “But the feedback has been good. I haven’t heard anyone so far say ‘I fucking hate this.’”

Father is very deliberate when it comes to creating music. He says spacing out his music-making and not overthinking helps him create the best tracks. Whether he takes a month or an hour to write a song, he tends to organize his projects in order of creation.

Although they aren’t completely correlated, Father’s music experimentation and maturity began with his 2019 EP Hu$band. The titles came to life with the idea of himself, and most of society deeming the term ‘husband’ as more achieved than just a ‘father.’ “If I were to do another (Hu$band EP), it would be in the same vein,” he says.

Note-taking and freestyling his loose thoughts are usually the best methods of songwriting, according to Father.

“People have always seen how Lil Wayne and a lot of artists do things,” he says. “They just kind of rummage through their brain and fire off shit until it works. It’s just notes that come together. And then when I get to the verses, verses are always on the fly…it’s just stuff going on. I’ll be watching something and it’ll relate to a thought or a way of my own thinking.”

Now that Father is a father, he wants to shift from less sexual lyrics to more conscious lyrics. He says his fans call his recent music ‘Christmasy’ and ‘jollier’ than his earlier music that they called ‘horny raps.’

“I’m just not that guy anymore,” Father says. “I’m still a man at the end of the day. I’m going to have my thoughts, but it’s just not the image or person I want to portray anymore. And that might have something to do with fatherhood and maturing and shit like that. My kids don’t need to grow up and be like, ‘There goes horny ass dad talking about freak tunes.’ Not that I would give a fuck, but I’ve just naturally gone in that direction away from making music like that.”

Don’t let this fool you; he still wants to maintain some of his dark, macabre sounds to match Hu$band 2’s creepy cover. Father also wants to maintain his authentic relationships and collaborations. He cares more about making good music with artists rather than collaborating with the hottest artists at the moment. He often works with his friends like Zack Fox and Tony Shhnow, but also wants to work with more alternative artists like James Blake.

In addition to music, Father is exploring what he can do outside of the music sector to become a more multifaceted person overall.

“I would love to just own a restaurant or bar,” he says. “I want some structure now. It (music) became so saturated. It starts to feel like what you’re doing, even though it may be special, it gets exhausting for a while.”

Despite slowing down and taking the time to be a father, he hopes to release another project this fall. In the meantime, you can listen to Hu$band 2 and his earlier music on streaming platforms.