I've Tried Sleeping was born into a classical music home. Piano at 5, then violin in the youth symphony until he was 17. All that was well and good, but his passion beginning when he was about 10 was big sound rock. This music moved him much differently than it did the people around him. I've Tried Sleeping would get the chills spinning those great vinyl records in his bedroom after school. It was a magical time. He dropped the violin and taught himself how to play guitar when he was 17.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Hey I've Tried Sleeping, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Thanks so much for making this interview happen! Hmmm, let's see.
I grew up in a musical house in Southern California. My parents were pretty straight and played classical music on the side. No jamming or improvising, lots of sheet music. Friends would come over frequently to play chamber music. Classical music was spinning on vinyl every night. When my folks let their hair down, they played the folk music that came out of Boston and New York in the mid-1960's -- as well as the body of work that preceded that movement. So, I was very familiar with the music of Pete Seeger and the Weavers, The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Joan Baez, and the young Bob Dylan.
I am so thankful and fortunate that my parents created this rich musical environment for me as a young person as music has been such a gift to me in my life.
I studied classical piano at five years old, then violin in youth symphony until I was 16, then a musicmaking-less year in which I cranked Pink Floyd almost exclusively for a year. When I was seventeen, I bought my first acoustic guitar and it was love at first sight.
I still remember when I was nine years old and first heard E.L.O.'s 'Don't Bring Me Down' on my new clock radio. The classical music was all well and good, Sinatra, Beach Boys, John Denver - but all of that music was kicked to the curb by the size, intensity and low end of Van Halen's 'Running with the Devil'. I'm a rocker and I knew it really, really early.
Before long, I had all of the Stones, Who, and Beatles records - which naturally led to Aerosmith, Floyd, Zep, Rush. I went to see 'Kansas' at The Forum in Los Angeles when I was thirteen and witnessed them blow the roof off of that building. I knew then that big-sound rock music was going to be a central part of my life somehow.
In high school I learned to play acoustic guitar around the campfire - all of those 'American Pie' standards. I loved the Grateful Dead and learned to play all of their songs and am as big a Dylan fan as there is and at one point had all of his records and could play all of those songs from memory.
My first bands were super R.E.M.-ish - strummy and mumbly. When they went electric on their third record, I followed and ditched the acoustic for a Strat and a Marshall. I busked all the time and learned a ton from that. I even played on the street in Athens, Greece for a summer. Next, I got into lots of alternative and indie - bands like the Pixies, Minutemen, Replacements, Violent Femmes, Janes Addiction -- the ladies too, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, Aimee Mann. Over those next years, I made a lot of uneven, lo-fi, fun and eclectic records. I'd take bands right to the brink of a record deal and then they would blow up and I would start again. I moved around the country a lot in those years trying to make it happen. Scratch that, 'making it happen'.
How do you balance your time in the studio with other commitments such as a part-time job, family, admin?
I went to get a colonoscopy and came out of the stupor with a bunch people standing over me and crying. Stage three colo-rectal cancer, two years, five surgeries, skeletal, chemo, radiation - the full-on cancer journey. Then, cancer-free, more or less as if it never happened. Cancer is such an indiscriminate shark of a killer. I met so many courageous and positive people in the cancer community fighting the fight who are not with us anymore. I wrote this record from the cancer bed with the resolve that if I ever was given the chance to record it, I would make it count.
I was bumbling my way through life when I unexpectedly met the most beautiful woman in the world and for some reason, she decided to stay with me. She knew that making this record was very important to me in all sorts of ways and was very supportive of it. So, I really appreciate the sacrifices she made to allow me the time to scream unfinished lyrics in the closet and stomp, stomp, stomp my way through the songs in the basement. And for agreeing that shelling out our hard-earned cash was a great idea - yes, big sound rock records are expensive to make.
This record was more or less two and half years in the making - a long time. But it is the fucking bomb. I absolutely love every word and note on it and wouldn't change a thing. That is an amazing thing for a musician to say. I certainly have never said it before. So, now that I am on the press tour and am spending my energy promoting the record, I don't really mind this work. In the past, I really didn't care for it and wanted to spend all of my time and energy in the studio writing and recording - but because I am so pleased with how this record came out, I would love it if the world would listen. It is full of energy.
Your latest song is 'Some Kind Of Mother'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
I made a solemn vow as a young person - I think I was twenty-one - to only play my own material. To live or die trying as a musician with my own tunes rather than play Beatles covers and throw in one of mine after 'Hey Jude'. So, not surprisingly it's been a hustle.
One sunny day when I was twenty-seven, I slept six hours instead of eight. The next night, four hours. Then, two. Then two or three days of zero. My mind was racing and burning, churning with grandiose thoughts. Yep, a full-blown manic episode. Sounds fun but it really isn't, it hurts. They say that I was genetically pre-dispositioned for this event and that the years of hustling as a broke-ass rock musician had nothing to do with it. Ok. A number of strong men eventually showed up at the door, put me in a straightjacket and handcuffs, and took me by ambulance to the funny farm. I was there for six or eight weeks shot up with rhino tranquilizer. There was a moment where my sanity was on trial - me against the state of California. I elected to defend myself and lost. Hands please, how many of you can say that?
When I was released, I was not instructed to take any medication so a few weeks later, I was back at the farm. One night, I scaled the fence in my pajamas, old women peeing on me, lots of stories.
I was then mis-and overly-medicated into a drooling idiot for a few years. During this time, I was unable to read, write, sing, think, taste, see colors - awful. I went to vocational school to learn how to repair computers because that was the best I was going to be able to do.
Then Dr. Awesome appeared, recognized my unconscionable treatment, dialed in my meds and over a two-day period, all of my faculties and senses returned. Total rebirth. Unbelievable.
Just then, I was t-boned with horrific and at times, bedridden anxiety. I think this anxiety resulted from the trauma I'd suffered from the mania - what was to prevent it from happening again?
After six years of talk therapy and all of that accompanying hard work inside my head - I was back to 'normal'.
Today, I am an advocate for all things mental health. I regularly council people in this area and am very comfortable sharing my experiences here with others. It's a shame that mental health issues still have so much shame and stigma attached to them.
The track, 'Some Kind of Mother', is a bit of a Frankenstein of a number of my good friends out there on the front lines in their daily battle with depression.
What is one message you would give to your fans?
What a great question! Hmmm. I mean what if I asked you that? I'd have to start with all of the rated G, cliches - but I have to.
1. Keep your feet moving
2. Don't give a shit about what other people think about you
3. Listen to and welcome all feedback
4. Head towards the light
5. Life is precious, don't waste it
6. Live for yourself, not to please someone else
7. Be true
8. Give it everything you've got
9. Don't be an asshole, a puss, or a douche
10. Don't accept the shitty music being served to you, send it back and listen to the good shit
11. Do the work
What would you be doing right now, if it wasn’t for your music career?
Music is and has always been the best part of my life. I mean no offense or disrespect to the other components - my beautiful family, friends, etc. But if I were a rose bush, my music would definitely be the flowers and blossoms. It has been a part of me from the beginning and will be with me until the end.
I've never been content just noodling around with song ideas or guitar parts in the basement. Music has always been a large-scale mission impossible for me. It's like that 'Kansas' concert I mentioned earlier. I don't want to play the coffee shop, I want to play the arena - with lasers, thank you. I don't really care if you have some psycho-description cued up for my condition, I want to rock and I always have.
To answer your question, without the music component of my life - gosh, that would be dreary - another day in the cubicle.
How do you know when a work is finished?
Songs come to me most often as an emotion that is just beyond the tip of my tongue - just beyond words. A strong feeling that I've never felt before, charged with energy, with a beauty of some sort at its core. They are such a gift and by now I recognize this and when they come, I try to drop everything and get my arms around that emotion and capture it before it dissipates.
Next is a lot of sausage-making as the emotion is translated into a song. There is no excuse for this hard work. Play it, record it, listen to it. Can it be better? Were you convinced? Did the song move you?
I was unable to make it through playing each of the ten songs on this record at some point because I was so overcome emotionally by that song's power that I had to stop. This become the bar for what songs made the cut and which songs I threw back.
I know that a song is finished when I can sing and play it in a complete trance - with the world tuned out - and be completely present and sincere in every word I am singing. And then listen back to this recording and clearly feel that distilled emotion from the song's origin.
Can you write what was your best performance in your career? How do you remember it?
This is a fun question to answer as it's triggering lots of memories of so many different performances over the years - all those people and places - along with the drama of making it there on time, sound checking, and the setup and teardown. Every show is like a birth story. It's amazing they come off at all.
I have a little bit of that James Brown thing where every performance is perfect in its own way. It's art. It happened, move on. I also always believe that my best performance is yet to come.
Just to say it, there never was that show in the stadium with Peter Gabriel where the Queen showed up, but I have played some great ones. Packed rooms and empty ones. Shows where there was a real and magical connection with the audience. Ones that were really stiff and didn't come off. Every sort of technical problem and playing through when sick or injured or dealing with something heavy. It's fun to be the opening act and upstage the headline.
Every show is the realization of a dream because at some point prior, there were two people in a room with some attitude - without a band, tunes, rehearsal space - all of it. There's just so much hard work that gets put in before stepping on any stage.
I guess I'm really not answering your question. The show that keeps popping into my mind was in Ann Arbor, Michigan when I was twenty-four. I had a rocking three-piece long-haired band and we were playing a small packed club upstairs with like a hundred and fifty people squeezed into this brick-walled rectangular room. We went on at midnight after two or three bands had whipped the crowd up. I remember there was this big drunk, shirtless, mosh-pit guy who was right in front of the stage screaming at me to play something with "gristle". So, I adjusted the set list and tried to rock it harder for this guy. After each song, the guy was back in my face yelling, "more gristle!", "more gristle!!" All night, I kept trying but I wasn't able to give this guy what he was looking for.
Do you have a mentor or coach?
I have collected a handful of wonderful muses over the years. These are the people whose feedback and opinion I really listen to when I send them my new material.
One of them is Rick Chapman who was my housemate at school and is now a world-renowned photographer (please look him up, his work will blow you away -- www.rickchapman.com). He was involved in this record from its infancy and after listening to it for months, sent over his gorgeous and suggestive cover art. When Rick tells me that a song is not reaching him or when I have one on the chopping block that he makes a case for me to keep, I listen closely.
Another is my childhood best friend, Rex Cook. Rex is an amazing artist in many disciplines and is also a rocking bass player and gifted songwriter. I've played in a few bands and had so many incredible adventures with Rex over the years. He was instrumental in turning me on to so many of my favorite musical acts - particularly Peter Gabriel, STP, and Jane's Addiction, (please check out his work - www.avatarlabs.com). Rex has a keen awareness of what rocks and what is soulful, from what is not. I love when I send rough tunes over to Rex and he tells me he likes them. With that endorsement, I know I'm on the right track.
Who is your favourite musician?
I'm a Bob Dylan-head to the core. No one else comes close. I have been since 1982. And I promise I'm not picking Bob because its the safest choice imaginable. He is a once in a millennium talent. He hasn't written a stray word in fifty years. His music rips my heart out with its beauty and power. What an inspiration he has been to me. We are so lucky to have him.
What are your plans for the future?
I want to do a big-ass arena tour like Roger Waters with lasers and multimedia. And bring this act to your city and burn it down properly with you. I don't know if that will happen with this record. I hope so. It would be really fun to open up these tunes and jam them out. They all are very visual and could easily be assembled into a story.
I will make the next record. It will rock. Then the next one, which will also rock. At some point, with all of these rocking records, the big-ass arena tour will happen.