Andy Davis is, in a word, unassuming. When we first discussed the possibility of a session, Andy casually mentioned that he had a new record coming out and that he was heading out on a quick tour with some great "studio musicians" to beta test the new music in front of people. "Sure, let's do a session." He sent along rough mixes on the new music, saying that he'd love to track some of these new songs. Even in the raw form he sent, you can tell this record is going to be something special.

Leading up to the session, he had casually mentioned that he'd bring along a some friends to play with him. Well, day of the session, he comes rolling in with a couple of guys and my engineer tapped me on my shoulder, "do you know who these guys are???" Turns out that in addition to Andy, an incredible player in his own right, David LaBruyere and Matt Sherrod rolled in to play bass and drums, respectively. With three heavy hitters in the room, we knew that without a doubt, we were about to capture something special.

The three of them smoked through four new songs off of Andy's yet-to-be-released LP, Heartbreak Yellow.

Ryan Booth then sat down with Andy to discuss his new record, playing with a proper band, and a desire for more full bodied pop music.



RB: Talk about how you ended up on this path of playing music professionally…

AD: I grew up playing music. Typical thing: had a band in high school and wrote songs for that, though I didn't take it too seriously. I didn't really know what I was doing. When I got to Belmont University in Nashville, there were a lot of people who were aspiring musicians who wanted to be famous as quickly as possible. For some reason, I just didn't want to be one of those people. So I laid low and worked on songwriting in secret for a while.

RB: What was that like for you being in college with so many people who were there because they wanted to try music out as a career? Did you enjoy that experience of did that leave a bad taste in your mouth?

AD: I actually enjoyed it. I mean there were a lot of people who were hungry to be famous or "discovered" or whatever. Some people had this mindset t that if they could get discovered, get a major record deal, or get catapulted to the top by doing a quick audition then they'd be up for giving it a go. But if it didn't work out quickly, then they probably wouldn't work in music. There's a big difference between a person like that and a person who's willing to persevere. I've been doing this now for seven or eight years and it's not like I've had this massive breakthrough into the public eye or anything. But I'm content to just keep chugging away because I enjoy making music enough to do this with my life as opposed to just taking a quick risk and go be a banker or something if it didn't immediately work out.

RB: You mean music wasn't your get-rich-quick scheme? (laughter)

AD: Yeah, it's not playing the lottery or anything like that. For me, this is the craft that I really want to pour my time and my life into becoming an expert at. It's more about being good than it is about being known. I would rather know that I'm actually accomplished at something than to just get some notoriety. I measure my success more by how well I make records as opposed to how famous I get.

RB: What was the first time that you really experienced people responding to your music? I mean, when people buy your cd, they're obviously responding well. What was it like during your first few shows?

AD: While at Belmont, I became friends with these artists, Matt Wertz and Dave Barnes, and a couple others guys. Pretty soon, those guys started asking me to come open for them on the road. I realized that I needed to have something to sell after shows, so I took these rough recordings of a few songs that I'd been putting together. I burned 60 copies on my laptop and hand wrote all the titles on the back to create this handmade packaging. I ended up selling all 60 of them at the first show I played opening for Dave. I said "wow, alright, I'm going to keep doing this." I guess that was my professional debut (laughter)

You know, growing up singing in church, people were very encouraging, but its not always enough proof that you should be doing music as your profession. I mean, your mom's always going to love your music and tell you you're awesome, but that doesn't really mean that you should devote your lifetime to making music. There's a big difference between people being encouraging because they like you as a person, grew up with you, and want you to succeed, than when strangers hear you play and then buy your music. It's validating.



RB: Would you say that the goal would be that you're able to make something really good and be known for it at the same time? Or does the notoriety part just literally not factor into the equation for you?

AD: It would definitely be amazing to make tons of money playing music. And I would love to sit at an imaginary table with Paul McCartney and Randy Newman and Paul Simon and hear them say "Hey kid, you're good. You know what you're doing." But I still think its still mostly about being respected and making music that would stand up next to my heros, to be very ambitious. If your lofty goal is to be a contemporary of the Billy Joels and Elton Johns, then obviously you have to embrace making music for the masses. I think that the natural inclination of my style of song writing is to write songs that are pretty accessible but perhaps a bit more sophisticated than your typical pop song. I think there's a way to make pop music that is healthier than what is being fed to the masses right now.

RB: What moves a pop song from some sugary thing to something that can be appreciated by someone with a more sophisticated palate?

AD: I think mostly it is the content or subject matter of the song. Or maybe it's just the way that the subject matter is dealt with. A Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift may be expected to write a love song from a really innocent place to play up the super romantic notion of love and "finding the one" and all that stuff. I think a lot of pop songs naturally come from that mind set about romantic love. But I think that as you grow up a bit and actually go through a break up in a significant relationship, it's hard to write those same kinds of songs. Besides, there is something much more fascinating about bashing your way through your twenties and watching the drama unfold as people make their way into early adulthood. I really do want people to identify with the human experience. I mean, it's not like my story is so important that everybody needs to hear it, but I feel like, as a songwriter, talking about my story in an honest way will hopefully resonate with people on a deeper level if they're just willing to explore the layers. It's the small stuff that resonates.

RB: Well they say that one of the big paradoxes of storytelling is that to tell a story that reaches a majority of people, you have to tell it very specifically about one very specific thing that happens to one very specific person. Basically you can't tell a broad story to reach a broad audience. To reach that broad audience, you have to be incredibly specific.

AD: Yeah, I agree with that, I don't think people want to hear big themes in the form of life lessons. They would rather see the details of what gets you to those life lessons. I don't think that's my role as a song writer anyways. I don't have a desire to write a bunch of big themes and big life lessons and I'm not trying to teach people through my music. I think of my songs as snapshots of different moments, difference decisions, nuances of life, and feelings that happen under a microscope.



RB: Let's talk about the new record. As a guy who likes to write and record, how do you know when it's time to start a new project?

AD: There is this thing about being an independent touring musician that I learned from the paths of guys before me. They were making records and then touring a year or two on that same record because there is just so much ground to cover. Head to this little spot and then it's five hours over here to that spot, then five hours to this spot...you can basically spend a lifetime pushing one record trying to get everyone to hear it. For me, writing and recording is the essence of what I love about music, so I've decided to be a person who writes and records a lot more than touring. I don't want to only spend three weeks every two years recording. I'd rather really take the time to make the record that I really want to make…not the one that just gets me back on the road.

Sometimes it's tough, but you have to just listen to your gut. You've been on the road for a while and you're feeling a little bit disconnected from the music you're playing and you've gone through some season of life and you've been thinking about it a lot. Then you have this tugging, this build up of desire in you, and suddenly you get to this place where you just write six songs really quickly in a row. It just all comes out in a clear moment. Those are really powerful times and when that right moment comes, you have to create a little bit of space for yourself and catch the songs as they go by. It's less about forcing yourself to be creative as an exercise and it's more about capturing what's been waiting to come out for awhile.

RB: You had a very successful Kickstarter campaign, forty-one thousand dollars raised, is that correct?

AD: Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

RB: Is it validating to have your fan base rally and essentially say that they really want you to make this record. Or does that just create additional pressure to perform that wouldn't be there otherwise?

AD: I like the pressure. I like having deadlines and expectations to meet and exceed. At first, I felt a little bit of that pressure more acutely, but then people emailed in and contributed more and more money to the point that I realized people just wanted to see me be creative and be free to go for it. The kickstarter campaign made me feel that my fanbase was saying, "you've got our approval, now just go make something fun." Of course, you have to undersand why people are supporting you and what about you they are fans of. You want to make sure that what you make makes them feel like they were a part of it.

RB: What do you mean by that?

AD: Well for instance, when people buy stock in Apple products, it's because they know what they stand for as a company and even if they don't know what exactly they are going to come up with next, they trust that they are going to come up with something good.

RB: Cause they've already bought into the brand…

AD: I think my "brand," if you will, is about making music that is creative and challenges the status quo of what pop music is right now.





RB: Now, you put out music as Andy Davis, not necessarily as a band, so for this record, were you looking to capture these songs in a different way than just a guy and a piano or guy and a guitar type of thing? Were you trying to record less of a singer-songwriter album?

AD: Well, honestly, I think I've always written with a band in mind. It's always just been dependent on whether I've actually had the budget to record it as I hear it in my head. I think that there are band versions to a lot of my songs from that first record, Think of Her, that just didn't end up making the cut because we were cutting way too many corners and it wasn't professional enough to release. I've just had to be creative on how to get around that. Honestly, that's one reason why I've played most of the instruments on my album. It's not to prove that I can play a lot of instruments, its more because while I'm writing my songs, I sort of produce them in my head as well…thinking about the beat and the musical hooks. I'm thinking of all the parts of the song just as much as the lyrics and melody.

Raising the full kickstarter campaign budget allowed me to really capture a band moment on this new record. I got this drummer, Matt Chamberlain, one of my all time favorite drummers, as well as this bass player David Labruyere, who's become a good friend of mine. Both of these guys are incredible and have played on tons of amazing records. The three of us got together in LA with this producer Mitchell Froom and we just threw down. We didn't use a click on any of the songs. It was my voice, whatever instrument I was playing, the drums, and bass basically going down to tape as a single fluid performance.

That is an old school way of making records, but I feel like it just captures an energy, a spirit, and the way that the songs want to breathe. That energy can sometimes gets lost when you throw it all onto the computer in ProTools one part at a time. It can lose that essence and human charm when you just depend on the computer to fix it and line it all up.




RB: For me, as a director, I always enjoy getting to work on projects that allow me to bring in my incredibly talented friends. I know that we're on to something when the guys that I convince to come on board are basically better than me (laughter). Talk about the community of players that you surround yourself with when you make a record or go on tour. Are you looking for guys who are "better than you" so to speak?

AD: Yeah definitely, I'm always in sponge mode when I'm around people who I respect and who have done really great things. I think you just have to be in sponge mode all the time, ready to soak in any type of knowledge that someone might have to offer. The great part about working specifically with these guys on this record, is that they are a little older than I am and they've played on tons of records and have such a sense of music history. I do a lot of listening and ask a ton of questions. Even little things, like every time they mention a record that I haven't heard, I type it down in my phone and then go listen to it later. I guess that I sort of try to acquire their knowledge. Well, steal as much as possible… (laughter)

RB: Sure

AD: Basically, I think you have to be in love with learning about the little things. It"s not just like you are trying to hire the best guys to get the job done quickly so that you can have a record that you can sell and just get on with your career. I really want to learn the essence and the back story and the little nuanced things about the craft. There were moments when I was recording with Mitchell Froom and Matt Chamberlain and Dave. We were all sitting around the table and they were trading all these old stories, like "…did you hear about how Sly Stone did this" or "there is a famous story about so and so doing this…" These are stories that I've never heard and I'm just salivating. Even secretly recording it with my iphone under the table, because I'm so excited to hear them.

I think that you really just have to lean into what you love and be willing to just be hungry to learn from everyone around you who seem to be doing the things that you want to be doing Be looking for those around you that are better. I mean, I'll hire guys who have insane licks so that I can try and learn them and reinterpret them into my style. Its kind of like vocabulary that I can use in a song. I think you have to realize that there is always tons to learn, otherwise you'll plateau and get really bored with life and with your career.

RB: Well its probably an essential component to having a long term picture of your career. You can't just exist in this moment. If you want to continue to do it further down the road, you'll need more tools, more input, and a lot of times you can only learn that from other people.

AD: Yeah, I think it comes down to doing what you love and committing to it. I remember being in high school and applying for college. Counselors would tell you that it's good on your college resume if you go volunteer at this one place and if you are involved in the chess club and junk like that. But really, you don't love chess or you really don't like volunteering at that place. But then you just do it because it looks good on your resume. I think that a lot of people carry that into life and into their professional careers. They might do things just because it helps them get another job or just helps pay their bills and not go broke. But it's a never ending cycle if you don't stop and ask yourself, "what do I really love? What am I just a nerd about?" We've got to lean into it and embrace the nerdiness of whatever we love. We've got to learn everything about it, and then hopefully we can actually start making a career out of the things we love being a nerd about.



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CREDITS:

Music by:
Andy Davis

Music performed by:
Andy Davis
David LaBruyere
Matt Sherrod

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Directed by:
Ryan Booth

VISUALS:

Cameras:
Cody Bess
Micah Bickham
Ryan Booth
Andrew Hudson
Daniel Karr

Edited by: Ryan Booth
Graded by: Ryan Booth & Cody Bess
Titles by: Tyler Swanner
Photos by: Cody Bess
Polaroids by: Ryan Booth

AUDIO:
Engineered by: Jay Snider
Mixed by: Jay Snider
Mastered by: Daniel Karr

Illustration and Design by: Tyler Swanner


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AUDIO ONLY VERSIONS**


**works on iOS devices