Indie Rocker Paleo's Song Diary
On Tour with Paleo, Indie and Folk Singer, after his Song Diary
Interview with Paleo after coming off his song-a-day Song Diary project. Now that it's over with, a prolific singer/songwriter has to find his muse again.
When most people think of prolific indie rockers, they think of Ryan Adams or Sufjan Stevens and their carnivalesque output of records upon records. But while Adams writes from the Burt Bacharach school of redundancy, and Sufjan’s adorably doomed 50 States/50 Albums project awaits its third state/album, indie-folk vagabond Paleo has done them both many better by recording 365 songs in 365 days, from Easter 2006 to Tax Day 2007. What’s more: all the songs from the “Song Diary” project (and yes, there was one song per day, every single day) are available for free online.
After the Song Diary: "Like Being out of Jail"
After Paleo's (David Strackany) giant prolific project is over, though, where does he go next, and how does he stave off artistic stagnation or lethargy? The song-a-day project, like any artistic burden, came about with a mixture of relief and restlessness.
“It was sort of like being let out of jail after 20 years,” says Strackany. “It really felt like a decade to me. It feels like the greatest feeling in the world to be given your wings back, but it’s hard to know what to do them."
More Time, Less To Do with It
“I never had any spare time,” he continues, comparing his Song Diary to James Joyce’s Ulysses. “Every spare moment was spent writing a song: no freedom. After the project was over, it became a new challenge to figure out what to do with myself. It gave every day meaning and it was hard to find meaning otherwise. Afterward, there was a long shadow—or echo maybe—cast by the project.”
Monastic Songwriting
A self described “loner, but not anti-social,” Strackany had to develop a rigid time management system while he was on tour, a schedule that’s now left him restless but able to meet with friends.
“[The project] was very monastic—incredibly so, much more so than I prefer. I definitely had no opportunity to have any recreation time. If I was playing the party I was in my car writing. It was hard to be so removed. I think it cost me a lot of opportunities to meet a lot of interesting people.”
Time-managed Songwriting
“Sometimes I would allow myself experiences,” he says. “It was always a gamble: if I have four hours, I can spend all four hours having had no experiences to reflect on, but having had time to write my songs, or I can take a gamble and sacrifice two of those hours and meet people and find things to write about but only have two hours to write, but maybe the writing will be more inspired. I had to continually assess what things were worth. If it was something extraordinary—going up to a watchtower to listen to the bells—I would go.”
Musicians as Prophets
Strackany still believes in the troubadour spirit, seeing musicians as prophets.
“In our culture, it’s all about things, things: what I can buy, what can I get, when I get this, I can get this… But the culture of India—from what I hear—is more like God, God, God. They want to get God, so they can get more God, and more God after that. And I don’t mean God in the angry Christian sense of the word, and not the little-g Greek-type god either, but more like…this cool breeze God, like this kite string…and [in India] there are holy men and seers and prophets on every corner offering to bless you. Offering to give you charms or prophecies or visions, and if you turn away from them they curse you. I often think about how similar these prophet’s motivations are to a musician’s—I think perhaps they’re the very same human instincts that send us out on the road evangelizing our message, our musical message that we can bring. I see a very linear comparison between prophets and artists. I don’t think religion has disappeared, it’s just changed shape. Art and religion have always been the same thing. The Bible is poetry, the message delivering meaning to life. Images and iconography and magic and suspension of disbelief—I don’t see much of a difference between those two.”
Paleo is currently touring the U.S.
