Even your peanut butter sandwich gets served with EDM sauce [in Europe].
The way I explain it is this: It’s dance music, so you get people to dance. It’s made for nightclubs. Then they ask, “What instruments do you play? How does the music come about?” And I tell them, I’m conducting an orchestra when I write a song, where I’m writing all of the musical pieces for each individual instrument, and then I also get to make the sounds of each instrument. So, I’m like an orchestra conductor when I write the songs, and then I get to play them out live.
So that’s the best way to explain to people, if they don’t understand synthesizers, computers, how all that works. But you can say, think of an orchestra and think of all the different instruments and how each section has a different part, a different melody to play. [So], instead of having violins and clarinets, I make a sound that’s appropriate for what i’m looking for in that melody. I’ve used that to explain what I do to my 80-year-old grandma, and she’s kind of picked up on it. So I think, well, if I can explain it to her, I can explain it to anybody.
Music is so deeply, deeply personal, and such a huge outlet for people who feel disenfranchised and isolated. There’s a reason that kids really, really get into music when they’re 12 or 13. That’s the time when you feel most confused about so many things in your life. You’re angsty, you’re dealing with all the bullshit associated with high school and how horrible that is. You become so intensely loyal to certain types of music. That goes right to the heart of why people love bands like The Replacements, or Velvet Underground, or bands much more obscure than that. People love them because they could be their thing. And if you don’t like that, then you don’t really get it.
When we got up on that stage and played there [in Germany with The Gaslight Anthem], it just felt way, way, way too big. I don’t like the idea of not being able to see the people at the back. I can’t see them, so how can they see me? And if they can barely see these two guys on stage, then how can that show … have the same kind of power as a show where there is a certain level of intimacy? There’s a power that comes from that.
Hippy? Or Just Plain Awesome?
I want to know where my stuff is coming from. I want to know that I’m not supporting a business that I don’t agree with their practices. I also don’t want to be wasteful. I want my carbon footprint to be small and the impact to be big. I don’t want to be inadvertently injecting harsh chemicals and cancer causing toxins into my body. Based on all of those things, why in the world I feel the need to make fun of myself for them when I explain it to other people, really blows my mind. What has society done to make us feel ashamed about being informed and shopping responsibly?
how great it is to have reflective, interesting friends that CARE. love this piece by Lauren about living a more intentional life.
