Sing and attract girls?

Do all three at the same time, sing and play the guitar and attract girls. I wrote my first song the summer before I left for college. It was a song to, hopefully, hold the attention of the high school sweetheart, and to give her something to remember me by. The songwriting process, I wouldn’t say came easily. I would say it’s something that definitely I struggled with. Even to this day you’re always trying to get better and what not. You have your times when it doesn’t come as easy as other times. I wouldn’t say the songwriting process felt natural, I would say it just felt good to perform something that was from me and that’s what I love. There’s a quote that says “I hate writing but I love having written”, I can say I definitely relate to that.

Do you write all the music as well?

Yeah. I do, I write basically the skeleton of the song, the rough chord progressions and the lyrics. I do co-write on some of the lyrics and melodies. There are four songs on the new album that are co-written. Two with a woman named Janice Fitzgerald and two with John Lardiere, my producer. John actually wrote the song “Blanket” himself, so track five is John’s. It was kind of like, doin’ John a favour, he was producing the album for me. He had this song that hadn’t been recorded, that I loved.

John Lardiere is sort of your mentor, isn’t he?

When he was with his band Twin A I was going to see him perform before we even knew each other. I was going to his shows, buying his records without even ever saying hello to him face to face.

So working with him is like working with an idol for you?

Yeah, definitely. It turned out that he had someone on his street team that I eventually came to know and through that connection… I was opening for Twin A for their farewell show, and that was just such a tremendous opportunity to open for this band that I loved and that I had in heavy rotation playing in my car. Then I met John at that show and from then on we stayed in touch and then eventually had the idea to work together on this album. John’s just a great, talented and amazing producer and I’m fortunate that I got that opportunity.

Tell me about the track “Heard From You”.

That’s a big favourite. That’s the free download that is available on the MySpace right now. I love “Heard From You”. It’s just such a emotional song, a song that captures what I interpret my best friend Mike would say to his father right now, who walked out on him at age 10. It got into the finals (in the top 12) in the New York Songwriters Circle Songwriting contest. It enabled me to perform at the finals in front of a panel of industry judges – which was really cool – with the 11 other finalists that all were amazing. It was such a great opportunity to be a part of that.