Following the release of his brilliantly creative and aptly diverse album Eclecticism, we were blessed with a deeply thoughtful interview with creative songwriter and producer Erik Louis James.
We talk everything from the instrumental building blocks of the project, to the concepts within, the mystical aspect of creativity, vulnerability, live shows, and plenty more. Here’s the conversation in full.
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Hi Erik – great to connect, congrats for the new album! For those new to your journey, who or what first ignited your passion for making music?
It was really the movie, Midnight In Paris, that sent my passion into full thrust. Being the youngest sibling, all the diverse music tastes of my family were imprinted onto me so music has always been a huge part of my life.
Around age five I started playing piano but It really wasn’t until I saw that movie that I got this burning desire to make and play music. Something about it just made me feel more inspired than I’d ever been. I really ramped up my piano practice and eventually decided to start guitar as well. I really connected with guitar and shifted to that as my main instrument. Eventually I got really into music theory on both instruments and it allowed me to understand everything I was doing so much more, which led me to writing way more.
My uncle, who’s a great keyboard player, showed me how to use Cubase to record my stuff and I started to enjoy recording my songs just as much as writing. Now about 2 years after beginning my recording journey here I am.
What are your musical go-to instruments, and did you produce the project yourself?
Definitely Guitar and Piano, every song on the album was born from ideas I had on either of those instruments. It’ll typically be a cool chord progression or riff I find that I’ll then build off of and add more layers to with synths and effects. For this album though I tried to get each song to sound like an interweaving of many different sounds each with equal importance, rather than just a riff driven by one or two instruments. And yes I recorded, mixed, and mastered the entire project, with my friend, Julian Sorger, laying down most of the acoustic drum parts.
Why the title Eclecticism, and how does it connect the subject matter of each song?
Eclecticism, in my understanding, is the practice of combining different branches of thought and ideas and not being tied down to one method or singular dogma. I feel like this perfectly describes the music I make and the sounds I hear in my head. The kinds of music I listen to tend to shift very drastically from day to day, meaning when I write I draw from a lot of very different influences. All the different sounds I’ve been listening to combine into a sort of soup in my head, and it’s a rather eclectic soup. The eclectic soup in my head becomes my music, thus the title Eclecticism.
Given the dramatically varying lengths of these tracks, what’s the creative process like – do you plan the length, do you just start jamming or playing; what defines how long something will roll on for?
My process can be very tedious. It took me well over a year between the start and finish of some of these songs (though that’s likely also due to my initial inexperience). I’ll often start with a chord progression or riff that I’ve been working on and then record that, and slowly add more and more layers on top of it and flush out the structure over time. Oftentimes I’ll spend hours experimenting with adding different sounds or instruments or whole new sections, and maybe I’ll take a break for a few days and then come back and completely undo everything.
I definitely struggle with finding good places to walk away from a song, and really the whole album was made simultaneously, with me bouncing between songs to avoid having to finish the other ones. Even If I’ve already written the whole song on one instrument, when I begin recording the song feels like it’s buried under a thick fog, and overtime I slowly clear away the fog until the song is completely clear.
What does the song Can’t Go On represent for you as an artist?
I came up with the main lyrics during a time where I felt a bit downtrodden and my life felt somewhat monotonous. I think that feeling fits the song well given it’s essentially the same two chords for 7 minutes straight. That feeling of personal monotony was really only temporary though and by the time I was out of it the lyrics still had a ways to go, so really the song is only partly inspired by my actual feelings.
When writing the rest of the lyrics I envisioned a traveller, slowly going mad traversing an endless snow-covered grey land, and I used that perspective to put myself back in that languishing feeling. That’s also probably why towards the second verse the lyrics become more absurd and abstract as my imagination took over. So really the song represents the struggle of monotony and dullness and expresses the darkest thoughts of the struggler.
Why do you describe yourself as mystical, and how does that play out in your songs?
The “Most mystical man in the land” is really just a funny phrase my brother said once, but when I heard it I thought it fit my musical personality quite well. When I get into a really creative mindset I sort of feel like a different person, or like a caricature of my most absurd qualities. Erik Louis James is an exaggeration of a person who is himself an eclectic soup of ideas, so I thought the description of “The most mystical man in the land,” fit well and describes the kind of person I am when I make music.
For me, the distant vocal mix seems to present a kind of vulnerability in being so expressive elsewhere. Was this purely a genre choice, or more to do with personal shyness, or even the themes within?
I definitely feel like vocals are an area where I don’t feel as confident as I do with other instruments. I think I’m just beginning to find my voice and am not fully comfortable with it yet. To compensate for this, on the album almost all the vocals are double, triple, or quadruple stacked to fill out more space and make it sound less like me. I also didn’t really want the vocals to be the main focus of the songs, rather I saw them more as just another instrument that contributes to the overall landscape of the song.
Why did you choose to close things out with Control, and what does this track represent?
I actually had Storm Song as the closer originally, but I felt like it didn’t really represent the style I want to move toward in the future. I chose Control because I think it represents the direction I’m planning to take the next album. I really like how it’s a combination of electronic elements like synths and programmed drums along with a classic guitar riff, while simultaneously featuring a full digital orchestra. To me ‘Control’ feels like one of the more modern songs on the album. It’s an intersection between modern digital production and old school instrumentation which I’m very interested to explore more and improve upon in the future.
Do you plan to perform live much this year, and if so, what will that be like?
I love to perform. I’ve done a lot of gigs just as a guitarist in jazz and rock bands but nothing with my solo work yet. I have a lot of cool ideas for solo shows but there is still lots to be figured out funding and organization wise. I would definitely want to use a real band in combination with digital effects and programming, and ideally some sort of light show or hypnotic visuals.
I’m a huge electronic music fan and would love to combine the visuals and vibe of raves with the classic experience of seeing live instruments. It’ll probably be a while before any of this can come to fruition but I’ll be sure to post about any possible shows on my Instagram.
Is there anything else we should know?
Nothing specific comes to mind.
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Find Erik Louis James on Instagram.
