Response to a letter.

Dear Brad Claire Tollman,
Thank you for the letter.
You neglected to include either an email address or a complete mailing address to return it to, so I am posting my reply on my tumblr so that maybe you’ll see it someday if you ever google your name.  Here is my reply:

I want to be polite and approachable and civil.  I want to diffuse the inherent tension in our already awkward fan/artist hierarchy.  I don’t want to be looked up to like that.  I want to relate to everyone in a lateral way.  I don’t like feeling the ways that adulation can pollute real understanding.  I don’t know how best to cut through all that and answer your questions while staying true to my real thoughts and feelings and also without seeming abrupt and impatient.  I will try to express myself as directly as possible.

It’s not lost on me, the big deal of you saying that I’m the reason you started making music.  To inspire someone is a big deal.  I appreciate it very much.  It’s almost too much to really internalize so I think when I hear a thing like that I keep it at arm’s length, don’t really take it in, because I don’t know how to make sense of it.  I mean, I do, I know what it’s like to be inspired and I know the musicians that have inspired me, but still, it remains surreal to picture myself on that end of the equation.

Your questions are mostly about gear and technique.  I have to answer, in general, that I feel that most young men trying to get deeper into music-making are unfortunately fatally distracted by focusing too much on gear and technique.  The truth is that it doesn’t matter.  The tools are secondary to the ideas.  It’s possible to make true and excellent work using whatever instruments, recording on whatever medium.  

You also ask me about “nature” and what draws me to it.  Honestly, this question has become such a big problem for me that I have made conscious efforts to sing about things like airports and traffic.  I feel one dimensional.  I can’t answer any more questions about nature.  It is a deeply complicated subject and not the focus of my life’s work.  I am interested in humankind’s nuanced and disjointed relationship with the un-built world, but I have accidentally created a body of work that seems to say to people something more like “nature is pretty”.  This is disheartening to me and, at 37, I still feel like “back to the drawing board” every time I write a song.

To answer your questions specifically:
1.- I usually begin writing a song on guitar, with a general idea of the point and maybe a phrase of words.  I don’t use alternate tunings.  Compositions get weirder in the recording studio.
2.- In 2001 when I recorded the Glow pt. 2 nobody was using genre descriptions like “stoner” or “doom”, at least not in my world.  I was just trying to make an explosive rock part.  Most of my inspiration from that time comes from the band Eric’s Trip.  I didn’t hear any black metal until like 2007, and even then I wasn’t that into it.  I still am not.  It’s OK.  Generally, genre barriers are problematic and pointless.  The sound of distortion on that song (and most other of my recordings from the time) was made by running the guitar through the mic input on a thrift store cassette deck, then out the headphone jack into the amp.  Simple overdrive.  
3.- I did use some field recordings recently of military jets and cars driving by, not exactly naturey.  I don’t usually use them though.
4.- I’ve never gotten into Brian Eno.  Someday maybe.  

Good luck with everything.
Thanks very much for listening to my music and I’m glad you like it.
Phil