Interview With Derek Humphrey

Derek Humphrey is a musican who is currently located in the state of Washington (although he most frequently hails from California, my home state).  He makes music solo and with his band, Charles!  No Charles.  He has officially released a few compilation albums (one solo compilation, Land Shark, and one band compilation, Lieblingsmusik, both filled with rarities from throughout his career), and one complete album with Charles!, entitled Get Out of My Head.

He is currently working on his first official solo album, Mental Breakdown, that he aims to have out by the end of the year. (You can hear four songs from it at his website).

I interviewed Derek via facebook message (a sign of the times we are living in for sure).  His responses were lengthly and detailed, so be sure to read it. (Click on “Read More” below to do so).

Nick Reviews: Describe your brief musical history: how you started playing, how you formed your band, etc.

Derek Humphrey: Well, when I was a kid our apartment was littered with guitars, pianos, dulcimers, mandolins, etc. I’ve pretty much always been surrounded by string instruments. I had taken piano lessons and violin lessons throughout middle school, but I never truly got into either instrument.

Seeing as we always had guitars lying around, it would make sense to assume that I had fiddled around with them most of my life, but I actually didn’t really ever try playing one until I was about 14. I taught myself the basics of the instrument over Summer, which is also when I decided to form a band with my friend Jon Garcia, who plays drums. We originally had quite a few friends of ours in the band playing all kinds of random instruments, but we eventually consolidated the members to myself, Jon, and our friend Mike Hearn, who plays bass. After trying out a certain lead guitarist for a while, it became apparent that I preferred playing lead guitar to constantly strumming chords, so we had to find a second guitarist, who ended up being Aaron Kosaka. He was in our band up until the beginning of our senior year of high school, when we decided to get a keyboardist instead. So, we brought in Donovan Saldivar, and our band line-up has remained the same since.

As far as my own development goes, I started writing my own songs around the time I started teaching myself guitar. I’ve gone through a few “phases” musically, although the basic song-writing style remained the same. It was the tone of the songs I was writing during each stage, along with the overall complexity that usually changed. For example, probably my most complex song, “The Golden Age”, was one of the first songs I ever composed, while one of my most simplistic songs, “The City of Fallen Angels” started another phase in which I wrote songs with repetitive chord structures and focused more on verses and rhyme schemes. I’d say I’m probably in my fifth phase right now.

NR: You’re releasing an album soon, called Mental Breakdown. What sort of feeling are you trying to create on this album? What are your primary influences on the making of it?

DH: I originally set out to just compile everything I had written in the last two years, but I quickly scrapped that idea for a theme. I planned on each song in the album encompassing this universal melancholy, which most of the songs still do, but I decided to throw in a few jollier tunes in order to prevent people from killing themselves upon listening to the whole thing.

As far as influences go, it’s a little hard to say. I’ve incorporated some Philip Glass-like riffs and patterns into a few songs, and I’ve started trying to put a little bit of a Mediterranean feel in a couple of tracks, such as “Amber Skies”. Of course, all of the influences I’ve had have been drowned out by my own already developed style, and I say that in the humblest sense, so it’s really hard to tell what is other artists or styles and what is just mine.

I’m a technical guy when it comes to the production of this, so I’m trying to avoid the errors I made in editing and arranging my band’s first album, “Get Out of My Head.” So, I guess that’s kind of an influence on my approach to this one.

NR: Once everyone is back in California from school, are there any plans to record or perform with your band Charles! No Charles?

DH: Well, over the next Summer break the band is planning on recording an album, consisting mostly of the better tracks from “Get Out of My Head” and a few of the songs I originally planned on recording for “Mental Breakdown”. It’ll be a way for us to showcase our keyboardist, who wasn’t able to appear on our first album, and for me to make use of the production techniques I’ve learned since recording that album. I’m actually really looking forward to it.

NR: Do you prefer making music/recording/peforming solo or with your band?

DH:
That’s a tricky one. I prefer recording on my own, mostly because it’s much less frustrating to correct everything yourself than to have to rely on the performance of somebody else. Plus, it gives me complete control of everything I’m doing, which is definitely keeping me alive longer, because I am a complete control freak. Now, as far as performing goes, I HATE HATE HATE performing solo. It is such an annoyance for me to have to try to put up with the complete apathy of an audience during an acoustic show. Besides, I can’t really put in the feeling into an acoustic performance that I would like to. There’s really nothing as exhilarating as busting out an electric guitar and ripping through a few really loud and “energetic” songs while your drummer beats the shit out of things behind you and your bassist runs in circles. It’s how music is supposed to be.

NR: What are your musical goals? Where do you hope music takes you?

DH: I’m honestly not so sure anymore. I would love to “make it”, but I’m not entirely sure what that even means anymore. I’m lucky enough to be in Washington, which has quite the music scene, but I haven’t exactly set about promoting myself. Even in California I rarely played any shows, and most of the things I did play were associated with school in one way or another. Of course, there is nothing more enjoyable to me than playing a show, so I’d love to be in a position where I can play shows every week or at least every two weeks.
I’m hoping that music takes me to Europe, but I guess I’d be fine being confined to America. As long as I can rely on music for my income and live comfortably, then I’m happy. I don’t need to be a celebrity or anything like that by any means. I’m in music for the music itself, not for the fame or the success associated with it, so all I need is an opportunity to keep doing what I love.

NR: What is your music making process like?

DH: Oh God, I have to reveal my secrets?

Well, usually songs come to me in one of two ways: either I’m trying to sleep and a set of lyrics pops in my head, always accompanied by background music, or I fiddle around on some instrument and come up with something that I feel would be promising if I worked on it further. I actually can give some examples of both methods.

Regarding the first, I was attempting to sleep after drinking far too much soda and a string melody popped in my head, along with some Andy Williams-style vocals singing this haunting 40′s Disney-like ballad. Seeing as I am neither Andy Williams nor a composer for a Disney movie, I had to use what little I could to try and transcribe this so that I could perform it. I ended up fiddling around with NotePad (my composition tool of choice) and my Stratocaster. A few hours later, I had written “Starlight, Moonlight.”

Concerning the second method, just take a look at any of the songs I have released so far from “Mental Breakdown.” Almost all of those started out as me fooling around one the guitar and liking what I heard. I tend to get inspiration from lyrics from real life, which isn’t really that difficult to explain. The strange thing is that on occasion I will just write lyrics inexplicable. I’m talking about lyrics that have no relation to anything in my life in the slightest. Look at “Voyage of the Argo.” I have no idea where the hell that song came from. That’s how most of my songs were up until “Starlight, Moonlight”, actually.

NR: You’ve played a few live shows: What are some favorite moments or favorite songs you like to play live?

DH: Well, my all time favorite song to play is “The Golden Age”. Maybe it’s the nostalgic feeling I had when I played it live for the first time, seeing as it was one of the first songs I had ever written, but there was something so fantastically pleasing about playing it for an audience 4 years after the fact. It just sits really well with me.

Other than that, it’s mostly the whole experience of playing live that I love so much. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing music for my own enjoyment, but playing for a group of people is just so rewarding. It’s a great way to make you feel like all your hard work actually means something.

NR: What have your favorite records been lately?

DH: I’ve been listening to a ton of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass lately, namely “The Very Best of Herb Alpert”. I’m not entirely sure if the influence is apparent, but it really has been changing my song-writing style. Other than that, I’m not the most explorative musician in the world. I just got into Pavement and the Pixies earlier this year, and I’ve really been digging “We All Belong” by Dr. Dog.

NR: Aside from the album, what are your plans for the next few months? Do you plan on playing any shows or recording any more music?

DH: Well, I’m definitely planning on booking a few shows in the coming months, but I’d hate to play acoustic shows, so I’m considering attempting to form a band of sorts up here so that I have somebody to play with live. I’m definitely going to continue to put out songs after this album is complete. Most likely I’ll start working on EP’s, although I could always just write another full album (probably a larger one than this.) I’m mostly going to focus on reworking old Charles! No Charles stuff though. Hell, I might rerecord a few of those songs on my own. That’s pretty much where I’m at right now.