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Hi Peter, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
I have been relatively well in what I’m now sick of calling “this unprecedented time”
Can you talk to us more about your latest single “I Don’t Want To Wait”?
That song was the first song Caleb and I recorded for this album last October. It’s the first single off the album, and It reflects that sense of true uncertainty of that time. I drove to Nashville from New York in the midst of the New York City lockdown and recorded it quickly in a day. At the time we didn’t know we were making a whole record, we just went in and did it.
Did any event in particular inspire you to write this song?
It obviously has some feelings from current circumstances, but I didn’t want to just write about the Pandemic. It had to work on its own, even in “normal” times, and have a broader meaning. The opening line is, “It’s a good time to cut expenses”, which sets the mood. In the end, the idea the song is trying to communicate is the aggravation and stress, waiting can cause. That feeling you get when you just feel like bolting and getting out of whatever situation.
The single comes off your new album Clean Up The Living Room – what’s the story behind the title?
The title ‘Clean Up The Living Room,’ is also actually the title to a short little tune that precedes the last song on the album. It also is a specific reference and a generally broad statement. It was meant to be as trite or as deep with meaning as the listener wants. The simple meaning is many living rooms in this world needed of a clean up after working and living at home for so long. But, in general I felt it worked as declarative statement about all the “work” ahead to dig this world out of what I see as a cataclysmic period of time.
What was the recording and writing process?
The process had to be much different on this record due to lockdown etc. I made a point of trying to complete a demo recording on my phone of as much of each song as possible. I only used a piano to write, while singing a vocal with semi complete lyrics along with the chords. I worked hard to get good performances, but it was recorded on a phone. I’d then send it to Caleb who would dump it into his computer and start straightening out the tempo, cutting the performance into a grid, with my vocal and piano still unseparated. Then he would begin building a master with some drums and bass adding a rhythm section and send it back. Then I would go into a studio alone in NYC, that actually was open with covid protocols in place, and re-record my piano and vocals properly with good microphones and separated tracks. Finally, we got together in Nashville, after we were both vaccinated and finished overdubs and mixing.
How did the pandemic influence the album?
Based on the description above, it changed the recording process entirely. The benefit for me was the songs had to be almost complete ideas and developed before we jumped into the studio and started playing around with “tracks”. The writing came before the making of the record of the song. That gave us time and perspective to really think about how to make a record of Piano songs, and make it sound properly arranged and produced.
What role does NYC play in your music?
For better or worse I’m a 4th generation New Yorker. This is my home and where I’ve lived for most of my life. Caleb moved to Nashville 10 years ago, but we were born and raised in New York, so its role is ingrained.
Tell us about the themes of the new album.
A pandemic is a horrible and tragic event. For a songwriter, it could be turned into a possible bonanza. Once it was clear that we were all home and would be for a good long while, ideas for songs would just come. It was just a question of turning that overall feeling of languishing into a flow of ideas, and then chords and melodies. In the end, communicating that fogged out anxiety ridden feeling of apprehension took channeling that energy to a constructive place. It was during the summer, so much sickness, racial reckoning, political insanity. I think everybody was feeling it.
Where else did you find the inspiration for the songs and lyrics?
I started with ideas for songs. I knew I wanted to write about the human obsession with self-affirmation and social media, that’s how I came up with “say something nice”. The songs’ tittle is a bit of a trick because the lyric is “say something nice, about me”. The idea for the song was how sad it was that sometimes social media is the only form of self-fulfillment and a great source for schadenfreude and hate. Often the songs come from out of the blue. I remember reading an article about a mannequin factory closed during covid, and it just gave me the images I needed for “spiral down fashion doll.”
“step inside the right side of love” came from observing families and couples I knew during this time and how they seemed to form “couple bubbles”, often creating co-dependency or repeating each other’s mistakes and bad ideas.
What else is happening next in Porter Block’s world?
Hopefully playing this music live in the future. I’m looking forward to eating indoors and quite frankly sitting down at my favorite bar and having a beer.
