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Hi Rene, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Hello to you, too! I’ve been very well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today.
Can you talk to us more about your latest single “Never Gone?” Did any event in particular inspire you to write this song?
There wasn’t any particular event, but the sentiment is about the loss of people close to us. It’s about the people that we’ll never see again because they aren’t with us anymore, but it’s also about the important people in our lives that we don’t get to see as much as we’d like to. People move to follow a dream, go away to school or whatever, and too often valued relationships become sterile text message interactions.
The new album is titled Silent Street, which comes from another one of the songs on the release. Can you tell about that title and how it came about?
A close-knit group of friends and I have met for dinner once a month for going on about a decade now. One of the members in our band-of-misfits is a talented photographer who took the album photo. The photo just struck me as an artsy depiction of inevitable decay and conjured up for me a mental picture of silent, empty streets with no rolling wheels. “Silent Street” came out of that.
How was the writing and recording process for this album?
Found Friend, Q&A, Mended Fences and Firefly were fully formed years ago, but I had to relearn them and re-record them using the studio setup that I used for the record. The other tracks were fragments of things I’d been playing around with, and I fleshed them out for the album. The whole process took a little over a year from start to streaming. I recorded into ProTools using DI out of the guitars, two condenser mics with capsules at 90 degrees pointed at fretboard and body, and two large diaphragm condenser mics, one around two feet away and the other about five feet away for room verb. And then one of the best mix engineers around made sense of all that, and a talented mastering engineer provided the polish.
What role does the Midwest play in your music?
I grew up in the Twin Cities. I think its reputation as a vibrant music community is well earned by the hard work of many outstanding musicians. Getting to watch all these great Twin Cities bands as they are just starting out and then seeing them come to national prominence has been a treat. There is always some talented act to see in the venues here, and for me, some talented guitar player that I can look to for inspiration.
You have toured quite and bit and done extensive session work. How does working on your own music compare with session work for other projects?
When I’m working on a song of my own, I get to pick apart every note and endlessly pore over the arrangement until I get it to a place where the whole piece resonates emotionally for me. Agonizing over every detail fits my nature and is, for me anyway, a lot of fun. Session work is an entirely different animal; it’s fast paced and you’re there because you’re expected to make a worthwhile contribution. You’re offering up ideas that feel right and you’re trying your best to help the producer realize their vision. And you have to play well, hopefully. It can be very rewarding creatively.
Do you approach writing for film and television differently than when you’re working on your own material?
Composing music to visuals is rewarding when you’re able to make a real contribution to the emotional impact of whatever it is you’re being asked to support. But I’ve been seeing the music and the visuals from both sides recently. I’ve been helping some artists create videos, and crafting a story to bring an existing song to life visually has its own rewards, so that’s been gratifying.
Growing up, who were some of your musical influences? Where do you find inspiration today?
My early influences were players like Jeff Beck, Allan Holdsworth, Alex Lifeson, and Adrian Belew. These days I discover music on the soundtracks of the shows I find myself watching on the video streaming services and by exploring Spotify. There really is so much great music around and it’s always fun to come across something that’s surprising and unexpected.
What else is happening next in Rene Erickson’s world and where can people go to find out more about your music?
I’ve been working as a music producer and as a video producer the last few years and it’s been rewarding to help artists get an album or video out into the world. I enjoy that in a completely different way than writing and recording for myself, so I hope to do more of that. And I’m spending time in the studio. I can’t say what direction I might go with any new material, but exploration is really the point of it all. Any breaking news will be at rene.net, so maybe check there occasionally. You can also find me on social media if you’re so inclined.
It’s been great talking with you. Thanks so much!
Video Link:
https://youtu.be/vMZCcDbCt8M
Website Link
http://rene.net/
Spotify Link
https://open.spotify.com/album/6BsdG5s27bV5PFcC7ImDqj?si=jY96tZnaRHa9ilZs0HjPZA
