Thad Cockrell is one of those songwriters whose work truly speaks for itself. He's the kind of guy who leaves other songwriters shaking their heads bemused and bewildered, wondering how in the world he comes up with these songs. But he's also the kind of guy who leaves his audience wondering how he knew, rather specifically, what they were thinking…

Quite simply, Thad is a writer.

Recently, when Thad came in town for a couple of acoustic shows, we invited him to stop by the studio to track a few songs off his 2008 LP, To Be Loved. Now, in our interview together the following day, Thad mentioned being inspired by artists who weren't too precious with their music. Suffice to say, this session was, in many ways, Thad elaborating on that statement. You see, the two guys who played with Thad on this session only met him a few hours prior to tracking. The three of them had never played together, had no time to rehearse, and yet managed to record a keeper in the very first and only take of each of the songs. It was a beautiful musical moment made possible by some incredible musicians and by Thad being willing to let his songs lead where they may.

We hope you enjoy what is surely the only version of these songs in existence...

The following day, Ryan Booth met up with Thad and chatted a bit more about writing and the danger of subtext, about getting credit for showing up, being honest, and about songs that simmer for decades...

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R: It seems that a lot of musicians appear to have a recording life and a touring life. Do you find that those two worlds overlap? Or does it feel like two personalities...your "performance" version and your "recording" version of the music?

T: Whenever I'm in the process of creating, I try not to let one have too much influence on how the other is going to take place. I try not to ask the question how am I going to play this live? Hopefully when people come to hear me play live, it's a completely different experience. I think you should always try and beat the album when playing live. Cause there is an energy that comes when playing and the people are there and they're building something with you that you can't build on your own.

R: Do you feel a sense of ownership over the songs that you've written? Once you've created that thing and it's out in the world, does it feel like "yours"?

T: Yeah, I definitely feel a sense of ownership, but also, in a weird way, I don't really feel like I wrote them.

R: How so?

T: Well, clearly I wrote them, but when I set out to create something, it means I'm attempting something beyond myself, something I don't know how to do. So when that happens, it's hard for me to take a whole lot of credit beyond being available and just showing up. I know I wrote those songs, but in a really cool way (and I think, healthy way) I feel like they are a gift as much as anything. I think that's one thing that helps keep me from having any repeat performance anxiety. If I thought it all came from me somehow, I'd get really weirded out. The weight of that would probably bog me down.

R: So how do you begin that process of creating? When you write, is it more of a discipline thing or more an inspiration thing? Do you have to physically make the songs come out?

T: No, it just comes out. I think when I first started writing songs, I was freaked out by the process. I relied on discipline. Like, I've got to do this and I need to show up and do this everyday because it's all on me. The more I got into it, the more I realized that more times than not, songs happened when I wasn't planning to write. I'd be going down the street or walking out of a building, and these songs seemed to just happen. And they worked better than the ones that in all my discipline, I sat down and wrote.

R: When you write, do you feel like there is something you're trying to say, or it a dangerous thing to try and make a point?

T: I think it's ok as long as it's something...well, look, there is no right or wrong way. I guess for me, there might be things that I'm trying to say in a song and I just don't really have any idea how to say them. You know what I mean? And it's not like I try and figure it out either. I just find that it's a common theme that my walking through life, at some point, has distilled itself into a song. I don't really know when songs begin to be written. I mean there are some songs that started out fifteen years ago and a common experience I have today might match up with that something from fifteen years ago and suddenly a song comes out.

R: So it's a combination of both external and internal circumstance?

T: That, and well, it's really the idea of being available and being really honest.

R: Ah, interesting...do you sense when you're not...

T: Being honest? Well, yeah, sometimes it's hard to know, right? I mean, no I can't say that I always know. But I can at least ask the question: is this as honest as I can possibly be? In other words, can I lift this rock up and go a little deeper? If you can, you might want to try.



R: What is it about your favorite music, your favorite songs, that you connect with so deeply? Why is your favorite music your favorite music?

T: Why is my favorite music my favorite music? Well, if you were to ask the writers of those songs if they wrote them, I think they'd say no. You can always tell. Even in pop songs. There are some killer pop songs out there that I'll hear and think, you didn't write that. Nobody is that clever, no way it just came to them. Sure, they might take credit for it and then try the rest of their lives to be that clever again. But they get pissed off and bitter because they tried and nobody likes it because it isn't that pure thing from outside themselves. My favorite music has that thread...that sense that they didn't write it.

R: Well then, if they didn't write it, who did?

T: I would say the Spirit wrote it.

R: What do you mean by that?

T: I think God gives us gifts and songs are gifts. So either we take credit for those gifts or we realize that they came from outside ourselves. Even Dylan said that he couldn't go back to writing that stuff at the beginning. My favorite songwriter is Tom Teehull and he said that he got in the "zone." He might call it the zone, I might call it the Spirit. But whatever you call it, I say it's God being really heavy-handed with his giving, you know? A lot of people would probably disagree with me. (laughter)

R: Well, honestly though, that seems to be a common theme. I mean the Greek notion of "Genius" is referring to that thing that hovers over your shoulder and gives you the ideas. We've been talking about this as humans forever. Where does art come from, where do these ideas come from? Because when we interact with them, it seems like we instinctively ask, "how did you come up with that? how did you make that?"

T: Listen, I know myself and trust me, that wasn't me writing. I'd be afraid to take credit for it! Some people would say that is cowardly, they would say it's ridiculous to not take credit for what you make. But I don't care to take credit. Besides, I think that's why a lot of artists' early stuff is so powerful. People will say, I love his early records. Usually what people are saying is that they like what he did before he knew what he was doing. You know what I mean? Then all of a sudden they realize they have to beat what they've already made and that's when they're screwed. Because you can't beat it unless you know where the source comes from. Then you don't have to worry.

R: Would you say that is the real battle? Not getting lost in the identity of what it is that you make?

T: Yeah, definitely. Also, you need to be open to whatever the song wants to sound like. That's why Neil Young is so interesting to me. He's made lots of different kinds of music. All my favorite artists did. They weren't so heavy-handed, so precious with their "thing." Yet, it all still sounded like them. I bet it drove everyone around them crazy who were trying to sell what they did, you know? (laughter)



R: Do you feel like you have some clear goal or thing you're trying to accomplish? Is that something that you even think about?

T: Yeah sure, but I don't really know what "accomplishment" looks like. At the end of the day art is a really weird thing to try and put a price on to sell. Just because people at one point don't find something monetarily valuable, doesn't mean that at another point they won't So, if that is the thing that you're chasing, then it's very hard. I try not to list things in the buying/selling category as things that I want to accomplish. The thing that I do want to do is to make music that reaches people, that communicates. I want to be a part of music that lifts people up out of where they are and carries them off. I want to make music that connects people. I want to make music for "us," not just for me. So when people hear the music, they can feel it's for them and not just for me. These days I think to make music with the pleasure of the audience in mind is really frowned upon. You know, this I only worry about me bullshit. The person that only worries about themselves is lonely. I don't care if they're married or not, that's a lonely place. I want to make music on a large scale and if that happened then it would probably be a lot of record sales. But I'd like it to be an outgrowth of connecting, rather than just trying to sell a bunch of records.

R: And how does that affect your decision making?

T: I never want to insult people's intelligence. The people that listen to your records, in general, are a lot smarter than the people selling to the American public think they are. So they really dumb things down. I don't want to dumb things down. I think we're pretty smart and I think we can grasp some pretty cool, heavy thoughts. You just have to do it in a way that's compelling. If it's the other way around, if you're just trying to sell a bunch of records, you'll always dumb down what you do. In a weird way, the music then comes across as really condescending. You start to notice a subtext. Strangely, I seem to notice a lot of that in indie-rock.

R: What do you mean by that?

T: Well, anytime you write music and you're purposely writing in the exclusion of certain people...(laughter)...writing this sense of they won't get this, well, that's a really asshole thing to do. You end up being guilty of the same exact things that they would say big corporate America does. It's just that they have their smaller, tiny thing. And you end up writing music for your little pond. You end up writing because you think you know what they can or can't take or will or won't be into. You know what I mean? You don't think it's there, but you realize, oh man, they're definitely writing to a demographic that they think they know...

R: In other words, they've turned into their parents and they just didn't notice…

T: Man, there is this really beautiful lyric in an Arcade Fire song. Win's writing about preachers judging from million dollar mansions, right? And he says that he used to think he wasn't one of them and now he is less prone to think that he's not. I thought that was a really beautiful piece of candid truth...

SerialBox Presents: THAD COCKRELL from The Serial Box on Vimeo.

R: So what's next for you?

T: Well, I'm starting to make music with a band called LEAGUES. We're in the middle of making a record. It's really fun. The drummer is Jeremy Lutitio, guitar is Tyler Burkum, and the bass player is Mike Simons. We've recorded ten songs and are in the process of finishing them. Hopefully we'll get out and start playing soon. When we make music together, it feels like I couldn't make it with anybody else. Creating music with the three of them is really special and I can't wait to share that with people.

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CREDITS:

Music by:
Thad Cockrell

Music performed by:
Thad Cockrell
Chase Jenkins
Taylor Johnson

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Directed by:
Ryan Booth

VISUALS:

Cameras:
Cody Bess
Micah Bickham
Ryan Booth
Daniel Karr
Neil Sandoz

Edited by: Ryan Booth
Graded by: Ryan Booth & Cody Bess
Titles by: Neil Sandoz
Photos by: Ryan Booth

AUDIO:
Engineered by: Jay Snider
Assisted by: Ty Robins
Mixed by: Jay Snider
Mastered by: Daniel Karr

Production Assistant:
Steven Hicks

Illustration by: Zach McNair

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AUDIO ONLY VERSIONS**




**works on iOs devices