The Soldier Story, an interview with musician Colin Meyer

Please welcome with me Colin Meyer of The Soldier Story, a musician from my home town of New Haven, CT.

Colin Meyer of The Soldier Story

Thanks for stopping by, Colin!

Me: Tell us about you. Where do you live and perform most of your music?

Colin: I live in New Haven, CT.  Most of our recent performances have been in the northeast.

Me: Tell us about The Soldier Story and how the band formed.

Colin: We originally formed as a six piece back in 1999. The first 10 years we spent mostly writing and rehearsing. One by one the rest of the members left during that time, so it’s now a solo project.

Me: When did you start to write your own music?
Colin: I started writing music when I was 9 after starting a band with some of my friends.  We made 5 or 6 albums.



Me: Who were your musical influences growing up? How have those changed over the years?
Colin: My parents are both musicians so I was always exposed to a wide variety of music growing up, but on my own I listened almost exclusively to U2 and R.E.M. I’ve had a variety of influences since, but probably none that have made such a mark as those two. Since then, I think I’ve been most influenced by the musicians I’ve been privileged to work with.



Me: Which usually comes first, the lyrics or the music?
Colin: I’ve experimented with this, but it’s about 50/50. Sometimes a song will begin with a drum part, or a lyric, or a melody, really anything.  I used to always write guitar parts first, and then build on that, but I found it started to limit my creativity.



Me: Describe the feeling when the lyrics and music begin to flow together.
Colin: It’s sort of like a baby in the womb; you conceive, and then suddenly there’s a growing being. You try your best to take care of it, but mostly it develops on its own, and it’s all truly miraculous.



Me: Tell us about your most recent album.
Colin: The new album is titled Rooms of the Indoors, and will be out Oct 1st. I started writing this in early 2009, the week after the first record came out.  This time, I decided to do everything myself; all of the instruments, the engineering, producing, artwork, mixing and mastering, videos, etc. I didn’t do this because I’m the best at all of these, but because it was the only way I could afford to make it.  I’m really passionate about each of these parts of the process anyway, so it was great to be able to do them all in one project.  The downside of this of course is a loss of multiple perspectives.  So, I invited a team of 5 people to give me advice on the sounds, the songs, the mixes, on everything throughout the process.  I can’t imagine making an album without that kind of help again.

The songs are really honest and intimate, and it’s a lot more direct lyrically than the first record so I wanted to build the album around the vocals. I’m really excited with the way it’s turned out.  It was also a great exercise in letting things go as a songwriter, to see if I could find something better as a producer. It sounds kind of silly, but these shifts in thinking really saved the record for me.



Me: I love the album cover! Where can we buy your music?
Colin: iTunes, bandcamp, cdbaby.



Me: Do you have a website where we can learn about tour dates, updates, etc.

Colin: thesoldierstorymusic.com

Thanks for sharing with us, Colin, and I wish you all the best with this next album! Now I’m going to jump over to iTunes…

Precarious here! I encourage all of you to check out The Soldier Story. I’ve been a fan of this band for a long time, even before I met Colin.