Pony League’s handmade rock delivers jangled piano triads and urgent gang vocals. The band is a house party where all your friends are sharing their favorite song off Greetings From Asbury Park. And “Bad Habit” is no exception. This is a song that revs to the limits; lead singer Gus Fernandez’s meticulously crafted narrative is delivered as rough couplets stuffed with vivid imagery about small town loss. All this backed is up by a band that sounds as big as the V8 thrumming inside the engine of a 1970s Cadillac Eldorado. And hang on while Charlie Miles leads you the song’s gutpunching bridge. We think you’ll agree it’s a homerun.
Donate to Pony League’s PledgeMusic campaign here. SC: What I love about this song is how you construct your lines. There’s a wonderful juxtaposition between short lines and long lines that create a confessional effect in your songs. For example: “And you just wouldn’t have it / you could never leave your room without picking a fight. / You called it a bad habit. / You were out of control.” Where does this attention to line construction come from in your songs? GF: That's an interesting point! I think the rhythm/beat of the song dictated the pacing of the short lines vs long lines in the verses. It's important to me for the vocals and lyrics to fit into the space created for them by the song, but I often find myself with more to say than I have room for in the measures. I do enjoy over-stuffing lines with syllables when it works rhythmically and still sounds like something you'd hear in regular conversation. I think this is something I took from listening to Bob Seger songs. He always squeezes in long lines even if it's too long for the measure. I like the implication that the point being made is more important than for the lyrics to be edited to fit the song. With "Bad Habit," I intended the narrator in the song to seem to be recalling a string of events and processing his emotional reaction to those events in real time. SC: What was your writing process like for "Bad Habit?" GF: I had the opening line first: "It's the kind of guy I wanna be..." I wanted to write a song that addressed the difference between the person you wish to be and the person you are perceived to be. We took the bridge, "I'd like to believe that my dreams have been real" from another song idea that never came to fruition. This is one of those songs that was pieced together around the opening line, but once we got working on it, it only took us a few hours to get it to the version you hear on the recording! SC: How often do you write? Do you keep a songwriting schedule or do you wait to be inspired? GF: I try to sit down at the piano and play every day, but that doesn't always mean writing. I learn whatever songs I'm interested in at the time, play old songs of mine, or just mess around in a key that I'm comfortable in. Sometimes from that, I'll get a new song. Most often, though, songs are built around very short ideas that come at random. All it takes is a compelling line or an interesting melody for us to start the painstaking song-building process. Sometimes they're finished within minutes and sometimes it can take us up to a year. It's unpredictable! SC: How does your community of songwriters influence your writing? GF: Oh so much. I'm constantly amazed by what bands and songwriters from Atlanta are doing and the sheer amount of songwriters out there that I've still never even heard of. It's overwhelming how much good quality content is coming out of Atlanta, it's enough to make you feel pretty insignificant sometimes, but I think the perspective is healthy and encourages us to work hard to keep up.
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Photo credit: Bree Burchfie She Returns From War writes music that is a cavalcade of hard-hitting lyrics with wide open arrangements that brim with wanderlust. “Connector” off their debut album Oh, What A Love (10 Foot Woody) features a lively acoustic guitar hotfooting across a four-on-the-floor band. What’s not to love here: well-wrought lyrics, a solid hook, great harmony lines, and even handclaps. Lead songwriter of She Returns From War, Hunter Park, joined me for a brief chat about her song writing community, Charleston SC, and daily routines. Snag yourself a copy of Oh, What A Love here. SC: "Connector" finds the balance of place and friendship against a frenetic interior landscape with the narrator singing: “these harbor lights that calm my mind / with all the chaos in the storyline”. How do you see the relationship between the landscape and inner struggle? HP: Certain landmarks will always carry the power to solidify certain memories for people, evoke feelings of magic, or even danger in our minds. SC: What was the writing process like for "Connector"? HP: The song came from realizing changes in the people and place that I have always called home, in the sense that people move on, grow up, and nothing stays the same but keeping what you learned with you helps you survive the longing for the way things were and help you make the best of the differences.
write daily. There's not a science to it even at times I wish there were. I suffer from writer's block quite often but I look at writing as a parallel to my learning about the world. I'm constantly growing, things are constantly changing, but as long as I'm learning I'll keep writing.
SC: How does your community of songwriters influence your writing? HP: Being a part of such an incredibly vibrant group of songwriters has been a huge blessing. We've got so much talent in Charleston I could go on for days. When I first started writing songs, I was (and still am) surrounded with ladies like Lily Slay, Rachel Kate, and Jordan Igoe, all of these women bring such beautifully unique ways of writing to the scene. We share a love of country music, the certain bows in and out of independence, heartbreak, and the romance of the smokey bar, these women have never failed to bring the power. The soulful crooners like Grace Joyner blend dazzling key and bass solos with beautiful harmonies, singing with her has inspired me to add different elements to the way I build songs. Seeing bands slay the stage with technical grace like Secret Guest, and ET Anderson to the legendary performances put on by Susto, Brave Baby, Beach Tiger, and The High Divers, at the end of the day we are all writers building these songs from simple melodies into transformative art that has the power to take people out of their heads and into their hearts. There's a lot of inspiration here. Photo credit: Terrance Atchison Barnwell is a band of consummate pop-smiths who melt strong hooks with deep philosophical treatises about faith and love. “Talk Me Down,”—off their debut album Motel Art--is a frantic pop song where lead singer Tyler Gordon croons “call my name, / oh won’t you talk me down?” between Ross Swinson’s snaggletooth Telecaster lines. Tyler joined me for a brief chat about writing, inspiration, and the Columbia, SC music scene.
Pick up a copy of Motel Art here and do yourself the good favor of seeing them at New Brookland Tavern on April 26th. SC: The character in this song is engaging because the chorus is a strong plea towards a lover “Stop—I swear I want to be around / call my name won’t you talk me down?”—whereas the verses present a much more ambivalent character sketch. The speaker describes the other character in the song “aren’t you just so bright / and are you just like fire”? And earlier “You were a quiet son / and I see right through you”. How do you see these two tensions working in “Talk Me Down”? Are they from the perspective of one character? Or do they change between verse and chorus? TG: The song switches perspectives from section to section. It's definitely between two people who have a strained situation; but not necessarily a lover, or romantic situation. Although, it absolutely could be, if that's what anyone wants to read into it. SC: What was your writing process like for "Talk Me Down"? TG: The chorus of Talk Me Down came first, specifically the "Stop," part, and the rest of the song built around that. Our guitar player Ross wrote all the lead guitar lines. It was a few months actually, before every part of the song was done. SC: How often do you write? Do you keep a songwriting schedule or do you wait to be inspired? I don't keep a super strict writing schedule, but I sit down to intentionally try and write a few times a week. The rest of the time is filling my phone with notes and voice memos of lyrics or vocal melodies as they come to mind- usually at the least convenient time to try and write something. SC: How does your community of songwriters influence your writing? TG: Within the band I generally write out the basic structure of the song and then we all work it out together. It changes a lot once everyone brings what they do best to the table. As far as the local community: We're in South Carolina (Columbia specifically) which has always had a whole lot of incredible bands and songwriters. Right now especially, it feels like there's so much incredible music being made here that you have to keep writing stronger songs to be noticed. I guess it's more that we just all encourage each other to keep growing as artists, more so than musical styles rubbing off on each other or anything. Don Merckle’s The Ballad of Lincoln Wray is an exploration into his grandparents’ life and their legacy. Far from the barnstorming melees of Merckle’s previous work with The Blacksmiths, The Ballad of Lincoln Wray offers focused reflections on family, love, and personal history. The album’s first cut, “The Ballad of Lincoln Wray”, is a stripped down narrative gilded by the gentle walk of a piano and the christening of a horn section. Merckle’s latest is a mid-summer family reunion—the whiskey is cold and the conversation is so good that no one wants to bicker.
The Ballad of Lincoln Wray will be available on May 5th via Jangly Records. SC: This record is based off of your grandfather serving in WWII. Did the biographical inspiration influence your choice of instrumentation on the record? DM: My grandfather was in WWII but the record is more about his time in the Korean War. Ultimately I just wanted to do something different. I wanted to work with some of these great Jazz musicians in Columbia that I had met and become friends with. I wanted horns, keys and an altogether different vibe than what I was used to and what people were used to hearing me do. It was a unique and really interesting experience and I learned a lot. It was fun. SC: This record is bookended by two versions of “Lincoln Wray”--as well as alternative version of “Cold, Cold War”--can you tell me a little about why you chose that approach? DM: I wrote "The Ballad of Lincoln Wray" a few years ago, anticipating doing this album. I've been performing it solo on acoustic for a while and people who are familiar with the tune will recognize it in that form. I think there was some concern that the full-band treatment wouldn't carry the same weight as the original stripped down version. I like them both but I think there is some truth to that and I wanted to have both on record. "Cold, Cold War" is the same. There is definitely a heaviness to the stripped down version that is palpable. Again, I like both versions but I wanted to preserve the original tone. SC: Writing directly about your family can be hard work. How did you approach it? DM: I did a lot of research. Unfortunately my grandfather died before I could really appreciate his contribution to the world so I was working off of memory at first. I contacted family, Aunts, Uncles and the like to get stories and information. I read history books and memoirs concerning the Korean War. My Grandmother was an equally amazing and courageous woman and I wanted her presence to be felt as well. It was challenging, though. I'm not used to writing this way. So specific and, at times, straight forward. I don't usually come out and just say things. I dance around them. Hell I don't always know what I'm writing about. This was different but, again, I learned a lot. SC: What was your songwriting process like for “Lincoln Wray”? DM: Well, Like I said before, it started with research. I wrote down ideas and played around with rhythms. It took a long time to find the right way to convey the emotion. I wanted to say the right things in the right way. I wanted my family to be proud of it, if they listened. I wanted to be proud of it. I spent a lot of time meticulously putting phrases together and then figuring out if I liked them or not. Like I said before, it was different and I was concerned about getting it just right. SC: How often do you write? Do you keep a regular schedule? Or do you wait for inspiration? DM: I don't keep a regular schedule. I have notebooks full of ideas and fragments of verse. The "notepad" on my phone is filled with ideas and parts of songs. I also have a Music Memo app that I use constantly to record ideas when I can. If I lose my phone, I'm screwed. Isolation works best for me. That's kind of hard to find these days though. I have to seek it out. Put it on the schedule...which is kind of fucked up when you think about it. Sometimes I wish I lived in the woods or maybe a cave. I'd make a pretty good caveman... SC: How does your songwriting community influence your writing? DM: It doesn't. I write for myself, I always have. That's not to disparage anybody, I just don't know any other way to do it. Songwriting is about honesty. Even if you're making up a story, it has to come from an honest place or people won't believe you mean it. Because if you don't believe it the audience sure hell isn't. I've often thought about collaborating. It sure would make things easier but I just haven't been able to work that out. it's hard to do and I envy those that can do it. It's a bit of a lonely process The Hadleys combine strong songwriting with compositions that are backlit by lush interludes. Their song “Nevermind” features the lockstep trill of electronic rim shot paired with the sifting chords of a synthesizer as The Hadleys harmonies ache with the weight of catharsis. As “Nevermind” lilts to its end, you’ll be reminded of how there is tenderness in the midst of calamity. Gabrielle Hadley joined me for a brief chat about songwriting, perspective, and community.
You can pick up a copy of Heart Peaks here. SC: This is really beautiful composition. I love how it’s structured where the verses are repeated and choruses build on the narrative. Can you tell me about the inspiration behind that choice? GH: Thank you so much! We took more of a story-telling approach to the writing for this song. It's structure happened very naturally. We love that your perspective on the song varies slightly from our own. We look at what you're calling the verses as the chorus and what you're calling the chorus the verses. I think that's awesome though. I think as artists our goal is to always create something that can have as many interpretations as it does listeners. SC: How do you view repetition working in the song? GH: Repetition can be very emotionally powerful if it's executed well. We are still learning and growing as songwriters but we definitely believe in repetition having a lot of potential when it comes to emoting in a song. SC: What was your writing process like for "Nevermind"? GH: Nevermind started as a basic piano ballad and after a lot of time collaborating in the studio it started to morph into a synth string, spacey drum, kind of ethereal song. Which allowed for it to carry a lot more passion in the composition and instrumentation and not solely in the lyrics. We like to always give our songs a lot of space to become their best when we go into the studio and that really worked out well for us on this track. SC: What is your writing process like? Do you keep a schedule, or wait to be inspired? GH: We all write. So, often we will individually begin creating the "bones" of a song and then we always collaborate to really complete the picture. Sometimes we begin and end writing together. We try not to limit how we might go about writing. For the second part of the question: Both. Having busy life forces us to sometimes have to schedule songwriting time. I think learning how to enter an open-mode on demand is a very tricky thing to get the hang of. We are definitely still growing in that area. Otherwise, when we have the freedom and lack of schedule songs can come very quickly and very naturally. So, "both" is an honest answer for us. SC: How does your community of songwriters influence your work? GH: So much. We didn't have to go to college for music or songwriting or take any sort of normal education to do what we do. Instead we got to learn from all these incredible musicians and songwriters and performers that were and are part of our everyday life. We learned early-on that networking and surrounding ourselves with people of such high caliber in the music industry would give us a whole lot more inspiration and application that maybe a class room could. You can hear a little bit of everyone we've learned from in our music. We hope to do them justice every time we stand behind an instrument or microphone. |
The Sound Connector is an online magazine for songwriters. We feature songwriting challenges, monthly interviews, and the opportunity to discover new songwriters. We are interested in all things related to the craft of songwriting. Do you want to be featured on The Sound Connector? Send us your songs!
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