Art is a consumable. Regardless of the creator's judgement (or wishes) a piece is never truly finished until it’s seen or heard. Harper Lee’s “new” novel, Go Set a Watchman, is a good example of this. The manuscript existed for decades, seemingly forgotten in Lee's archives until her lawyer stumbled upon it. But only now that Watchman is slated for publication can it meet the cultural criteria of a "book." Some raise doubts about whether Lee — who will turn 89 this month — has the mental acuity to approve the book's publication. Nevertheless, Watchman moves forward; the public's desire to return to Maycomb seemingly outweighing the need to determine what Lee really wants, or to err on the side of caution if we can't. At this point, even if Lee never meant for the story to see the light of day, now that we know of Watchman's existence there's no denying its eventual debut. Our hunger for it is just too great.
That's why Picasso's studies hang on gallery walls throughout the world; those preparatory pieces he most likely never thought would see the light of day falling under the gaze of critics and casual consumers alike, who won’t hesitate to interpret and judge each sketch as if it were a fully realized composition. This is true with musicians, too. Just look at the countless compilations of songs “from the vault” that make it to market with or without an artist’s permission. In essence, all "art"— be it good or bad — cannot earn that label until it is seen and judged. This idea of artistic validation via exchange also happens within the artist. Turning to Watchman again, if Lee indeed never meant for it to see the light of day, it’s because she took on the role of critic, and deemed the book unworthy of consumption.
That’s why creation is an act of faith. When you write, you want your work to be “good,” even if it’s just in your eyes, and based on your standards. When you create a canvas, it needs to effectively convey your point of view before you’ll put your name in the bottom-right corner. When you play, your song needs to hold up under the scrutiny of the savage critic that lives in your head. Failure is always a possibility. Bearing that in mind, and knowing that if your piece gets past your own internal censor it will be exposed to other critical eyes and ears, you push on through this strange sort of schizophrenia, because it’s who you are. At least that’s what I think.
That's why Picasso's studies hang on gallery walls throughout the world; those preparatory pieces he most likely never thought would see the light of day falling under the gaze of critics and casual consumers alike, who won’t hesitate to interpret and judge each sketch as if it were a fully realized composition. This is true with musicians, too. Just look at the countless compilations of songs “from the vault” that make it to market with or without an artist’s permission. In essence, all "art"— be it good or bad — cannot earn that label until it is seen and judged. This idea of artistic validation via exchange also happens within the artist. Turning to Watchman again, if Lee indeed never meant for it to see the light of day, it’s because she took on the role of critic, and deemed the book unworthy of consumption.
That’s why creation is an act of faith. When you write, you want your work to be “good,” even if it’s just in your eyes, and based on your standards. When you create a canvas, it needs to effectively convey your point of view before you’ll put your name in the bottom-right corner. When you play, your song needs to hold up under the scrutiny of the savage critic that lives in your head. Failure is always a possibility. Bearing that in mind, and knowing that if your piece gets past your own internal censor it will be exposed to other critical eyes and ears, you push on through this strange sort of schizophrenia, because it’s who you are. At least that’s what I think.
• • •
“Flesh & Bone” by The Solid Suns deserves to be heard. It opens with a pounding, muscular riff that is equal parts Jon Gamboa on guitar, Brian Keen on drums, and Jim Campbell on bass; each player working together to ensure that the listener doesn’t lose a step, even though they have us walking in an earthquake. Then the song gets slinky, with Gamboa and Keen laying down a steady rhythm that Campbell’s bass can’t help but slither around, while Gamboa’s voice melodically reaches out to us, hoping to get a look inside our bobbing heads. As the first verse ends, Gamboa’s voice grows to a growl, the music exchanges its easy meander for a concussive staccato burst as Gamboa sails into a chorus that reveals to us the sum total of our being:
All we were and all we are |
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Even in today’s global world, the song strikes me as being uniquely American in its content, scope, and reach -- something that seems clear when I watch the video Gamboa made to accompany the song. But if art is a hail mary, what are the Suns hoping their listeners catch with “Flesh & Bone?” Gamboa was kind enough to help me figure this out by answering a few questions I had about the song and its video, and about his creative process as a whole.
TG - Most listeners rarely get a glimpse of what's involved in taking a song to fruition. Generally speaking, what is your process like, and how has it changed over time; and, specifically, what was "Flesh & Bone's" journey from idea to finished product like?
JG - My writing process has evolved over the last decade, not out of choice, but out of necessity. I wrote a lot of music as a teenager. I put out a couple full-length, self-produced solo albums and tried to make a couple bands work in high school. Music came easy and naturally then. I would lock myself in a room with a guitar and wouldn’t come out until I had a song. The lyrics and music were written simultaneously as one cohesive work. They spilled out of me. It was really simple stuff back then, but it was my thing. It was my therapy.
There was a time in between then and now that I didn’t make music. I lost all creative drive. I couldn’t make music even when I wanted to. My focus was on other things: love, life, and the pursuit of happiness. This period without music in my life lasted about four years.
After not so elegantly exiting a five-year relationship, I found myself full of holes. I wanted to fill some of them with music again. However, when I went to write, it just wouldn’t come out. I had to find new ways to write. I had to adapt or lose music forever. It was the best thing that could have happened.
Now, the possibilities are endless. Sometimes a song starts with lyrics first. Most interestingly, a song can start with just an idea or concept that I want to explore. More often than not, a song will start with the music. Progressions, chords, melodies, and riffs seem to flow out me like they did in the beginning. The lyrics are what slow me down these days. It’s something I’m always second-guessing. I think it’s because I put zero thought into the lyrics in my early music and just said whatever was in my head. I consider my self-doubt to be a positive thing. It causes me to constantly rewrite and rearrange lyrics until they say and mean exactly what I want.
“Flesh and Bone” is really close to me. Despite the video, it was written with no political intention in mind. It took only a day or two to get the music worked out with the band, but it took months for me to settle on the lyrics. I doubted the chorus several times. It didn’t sound like anything I’d done before, so I was unsure of it. However, I’m glad I stuck with it in the end because it would eventually set the tone of our (upcoming) third album, Ungodly Hour.
I don’t really want to discuss what the song means because I think it’s one of those that is left open to the listener. It’s more important to me that they take what they want from it.
TG - A lot of bands talk about "the fans." When you write and record, do you have a particular audience in mind? How, if at all, does the existence of your audience impact the decisions you and the band make in the studio?
JG - In the early days of The Solid Suns, I did think a lot about who might listen to our music. Unfortunately, it may have negatively impacted our second studio album, Lacunas. At the time, I was concerned about making the album more “approachable” but still sound like us. That meant sacrificing, and compromising on some things I really didn’t want to. At the end of the day, I think some songs actually benefited from the attention to detail and production we put into that album, but many of them were changed in a way I wasn’t completely satisfied with.
As a band, we’re approaching our third album very differently. We’re writing and playing the music we want to. I’m writing the songs I want to write instead of what I think I should write. The result is a darker, harder, and heavier album.
TG - I often feel like I'm my own worst critic, that I'm the biggest source of the doubt I feel. How about you? What role does "doubt" play in your process?
JG - Doubt is a double-edged sword. It can be extremely corrosive and bring everything to a standstill. However, I try to use it in a positive way. It’s almost like a vetting process. I use my unhealthy, crippling doubt to try and weed out the bad ideas I may have. It doesn’t always work that way, but the hope is to have something better in the end. Creatively or in life.
TG - The video seems to fit the song perfectly, both thematically and in the way that it's edited to move with the music's progressions and changes. When did your vision for the video come into being? Was it something you thought about after the song was cut, or did both the song and the video sort of grow together?
JG - The video came out months after the song was released as a single and closer to year from the time it was written. I had no idea what the video would be when I wrote the song. Ironically, the video has little to do with the subject matter of the song, as fitting as it may be.
Making the video was an excruciating and maddening process. It ended up taking close to a hundred hours over several months to research, collect, and edit all of the footage. At a few points, I honestly thought it might never be finished. Watching a lot of the clips over and over again in the editing process started to take its toll on me mentally. I took a few breaks from it and eventually made a final push to finish it several months after I started.
Several things inspired the look and feel of the video. The initial thought came from watching videos of another band in Vegas called Strange Mistress. Their videos were just basically weird, old stolen footage strung together and set to their songs, and I really liked it. It inspired the idea to steal and repurpose footage for "Flesh & Bone."
The manor in which it’s all presented was inspired by the films The Fifth Element and Man of Steel. In the former, Milla Jovovich’s character studies the earth on a futuristic version of the internet. She’s presented with a digital, picture-based encyclopedia, which she uses to learn about us. When she gets to the letter “W” and discovers war, she is devastated by the unlimited potential for destruction and evil that mankind has. This, combined with the visual stylings of General Zod’s message to earth in Man of Steel (especially the way text appears on the screen in the beginning), allowed me to find a way to make all these different clips work together.
The nod to Anonymous in the beginning is just that. I appreciate a lot of what they do and respect their hyper-awareness to the world around them.
TG - Taken together, “Flesh & Bone” and its video seem to send a clear message about faith, and what people should and shouldn't place their faith in. Broadly speaking, what are your thoughts about faith (not necessarily the religious kind, though you're definitely free to speak on that if you like)?
JG - Constructive conversations about faith are like atomic bombs. It’s political suicide. People lose friends or are ostracized from their families over faith. Wars are fought and countless people kill or have been killed for their faith. With that said, I’ll tread as lightly as I can on the subject while still being objective.
Faith and trust are important. Our faith is usually just placed in the wrong things. I would love to see more faith placed in each other rather than into religions and pseudoscience.
I’ve gotten a lot of response from people about six particular seconds in the video. During these six seconds, the word “LIE” appears on the screen in front of an old, Italian film’s depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. People have asked me how I could possibly show such a thing.
The first thing that enters my brain is, “These people know that’s not really Jesus, right? It’s just some Italian film actor from a hundred years ago.”
I try explaining to them that it’s not out of line to propose such a notion. There are more people in the world that don’t believe in Jesus Christ than those that do. For the majority of the world, spiritual or not, Jesus Christ is not their lord and savior. Just as American Christians believe all other religions to be a lie, other religions or non-religious people feel the same about Christianity.
This has not been an easy idea to convey.
It was not my intention to single-out Christians, but rather to paint an accurate picture of the United States of America. Even today, most Americans identify themselves as Christian. Just as I don’t personally identify myself as Democrat or Republic, liberal or conservative, I tried to portray an unbiased, unwavering look at America over the last six decades or so. The video shows the good with the bad. The far-left, the far-right, and everything in between.
When it came to subject of religion, I had a very personal interest in how it was seen in the video. I was raised in a Christian home. I went to church all the way into my teen years, despite coming the conclusion that I was an atheist at around 7 or 8 years old. I critically learned a lot about a religion I didn’t believe in for many years. It was important to me that people could see how damaging religion could be, especially for a young mind. I wanted to show people that it isn’t always sitting in pews, Noah’s ark, God’s love, and soup kitchens.
What I really like about the video is that not everyone will be perturbed or disgusted by the same things. For some people it’s the religious parts. For some people it’s race. For some people it’s war. For me, it’s two very specific moments in the video. The first is showing a child forced into a beauty pageant, dancing for the judges. And the second shows the malicious brainwashing of kids at a Christian bible camp. A little girl is brought to tears and overwhelmed. The mistreatment of our children makes me sick and the radicalization of the Christian extremists in our country is frightening.
If the video made you uncomfortable at any point, then I did my job. I wanted to ruffle a few feathers. I wanted to open up dialogue. I wanted to hold a mirror up to America’s face and ask it not to look away. Whether you loved or hated it, I’m just glad you watched it.
TG - Most listeners rarely get a glimpse of what's involved in taking a song to fruition. Generally speaking, what is your process like, and how has it changed over time; and, specifically, what was "Flesh & Bone's" journey from idea to finished product like?
JG - My writing process has evolved over the last decade, not out of choice, but out of necessity. I wrote a lot of music as a teenager. I put out a couple full-length, self-produced solo albums and tried to make a couple bands work in high school. Music came easy and naturally then. I would lock myself in a room with a guitar and wouldn’t come out until I had a song. The lyrics and music were written simultaneously as one cohesive work. They spilled out of me. It was really simple stuff back then, but it was my thing. It was my therapy.
There was a time in between then and now that I didn’t make music. I lost all creative drive. I couldn’t make music even when I wanted to. My focus was on other things: love, life, and the pursuit of happiness. This period without music in my life lasted about four years.
After not so elegantly exiting a five-year relationship, I found myself full of holes. I wanted to fill some of them with music again. However, when I went to write, it just wouldn’t come out. I had to find new ways to write. I had to adapt or lose music forever. It was the best thing that could have happened.
Now, the possibilities are endless. Sometimes a song starts with lyrics first. Most interestingly, a song can start with just an idea or concept that I want to explore. More often than not, a song will start with the music. Progressions, chords, melodies, and riffs seem to flow out me like they did in the beginning. The lyrics are what slow me down these days. It’s something I’m always second-guessing. I think it’s because I put zero thought into the lyrics in my early music and just said whatever was in my head. I consider my self-doubt to be a positive thing. It causes me to constantly rewrite and rearrange lyrics until they say and mean exactly what I want.
“Flesh and Bone” is really close to me. Despite the video, it was written with no political intention in mind. It took only a day or two to get the music worked out with the band, but it took months for me to settle on the lyrics. I doubted the chorus several times. It didn’t sound like anything I’d done before, so I was unsure of it. However, I’m glad I stuck with it in the end because it would eventually set the tone of our (upcoming) third album, Ungodly Hour.
I don’t really want to discuss what the song means because I think it’s one of those that is left open to the listener. It’s more important to me that they take what they want from it.
TG - A lot of bands talk about "the fans." When you write and record, do you have a particular audience in mind? How, if at all, does the existence of your audience impact the decisions you and the band make in the studio?
JG - In the early days of The Solid Suns, I did think a lot about who might listen to our music. Unfortunately, it may have negatively impacted our second studio album, Lacunas. At the time, I was concerned about making the album more “approachable” but still sound like us. That meant sacrificing, and compromising on some things I really didn’t want to. At the end of the day, I think some songs actually benefited from the attention to detail and production we put into that album, but many of them were changed in a way I wasn’t completely satisfied with.
As a band, we’re approaching our third album very differently. We’re writing and playing the music we want to. I’m writing the songs I want to write instead of what I think I should write. The result is a darker, harder, and heavier album.
TG - I often feel like I'm my own worst critic, that I'm the biggest source of the doubt I feel. How about you? What role does "doubt" play in your process?
JG - Doubt is a double-edged sword. It can be extremely corrosive and bring everything to a standstill. However, I try to use it in a positive way. It’s almost like a vetting process. I use my unhealthy, crippling doubt to try and weed out the bad ideas I may have. It doesn’t always work that way, but the hope is to have something better in the end. Creatively or in life.
TG - The video seems to fit the song perfectly, both thematically and in the way that it's edited to move with the music's progressions and changes. When did your vision for the video come into being? Was it something you thought about after the song was cut, or did both the song and the video sort of grow together?
JG - The video came out months after the song was released as a single and closer to year from the time it was written. I had no idea what the video would be when I wrote the song. Ironically, the video has little to do with the subject matter of the song, as fitting as it may be.
Making the video was an excruciating and maddening process. It ended up taking close to a hundred hours over several months to research, collect, and edit all of the footage. At a few points, I honestly thought it might never be finished. Watching a lot of the clips over and over again in the editing process started to take its toll on me mentally. I took a few breaks from it and eventually made a final push to finish it several months after I started.
Several things inspired the look and feel of the video. The initial thought came from watching videos of another band in Vegas called Strange Mistress. Their videos were just basically weird, old stolen footage strung together and set to their songs, and I really liked it. It inspired the idea to steal and repurpose footage for "Flesh & Bone."
The manor in which it’s all presented was inspired by the films The Fifth Element and Man of Steel. In the former, Milla Jovovich’s character studies the earth on a futuristic version of the internet. She’s presented with a digital, picture-based encyclopedia, which she uses to learn about us. When she gets to the letter “W” and discovers war, she is devastated by the unlimited potential for destruction and evil that mankind has. This, combined with the visual stylings of General Zod’s message to earth in Man of Steel (especially the way text appears on the screen in the beginning), allowed me to find a way to make all these different clips work together.
The nod to Anonymous in the beginning is just that. I appreciate a lot of what they do and respect their hyper-awareness to the world around them.
TG - Taken together, “Flesh & Bone” and its video seem to send a clear message about faith, and what people should and shouldn't place their faith in. Broadly speaking, what are your thoughts about faith (not necessarily the religious kind, though you're definitely free to speak on that if you like)?
JG - Constructive conversations about faith are like atomic bombs. It’s political suicide. People lose friends or are ostracized from their families over faith. Wars are fought and countless people kill or have been killed for their faith. With that said, I’ll tread as lightly as I can on the subject while still being objective.
Faith and trust are important. Our faith is usually just placed in the wrong things. I would love to see more faith placed in each other rather than into religions and pseudoscience.
I’ve gotten a lot of response from people about six particular seconds in the video. During these six seconds, the word “LIE” appears on the screen in front of an old, Italian film’s depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. People have asked me how I could possibly show such a thing.
The first thing that enters my brain is, “These people know that’s not really Jesus, right? It’s just some Italian film actor from a hundred years ago.”
I try explaining to them that it’s not out of line to propose such a notion. There are more people in the world that don’t believe in Jesus Christ than those that do. For the majority of the world, spiritual or not, Jesus Christ is not their lord and savior. Just as American Christians believe all other religions to be a lie, other religions or non-religious people feel the same about Christianity.
This has not been an easy idea to convey.
It was not my intention to single-out Christians, but rather to paint an accurate picture of the United States of America. Even today, most Americans identify themselves as Christian. Just as I don’t personally identify myself as Democrat or Republic, liberal or conservative, I tried to portray an unbiased, unwavering look at America over the last six decades or so. The video shows the good with the bad. The far-left, the far-right, and everything in between.
When it came to subject of religion, I had a very personal interest in how it was seen in the video. I was raised in a Christian home. I went to church all the way into my teen years, despite coming the conclusion that I was an atheist at around 7 or 8 years old. I critically learned a lot about a religion I didn’t believe in for many years. It was important to me that people could see how damaging religion could be, especially for a young mind. I wanted to show people that it isn’t always sitting in pews, Noah’s ark, God’s love, and soup kitchens.
What I really like about the video is that not everyone will be perturbed or disgusted by the same things. For some people it’s the religious parts. For some people it’s race. For some people it’s war. For me, it’s two very specific moments in the video. The first is showing a child forced into a beauty pageant, dancing for the judges. And the second shows the malicious brainwashing of kids at a Christian bible camp. A little girl is brought to tears and overwhelmed. The mistreatment of our children makes me sick and the radicalization of the Christian extremists in our country is frightening.
If the video made you uncomfortable at any point, then I did my job. I wanted to ruffle a few feathers. I wanted to open up dialogue. I wanted to hold a mirror up to America’s face and ask it not to look away. Whether you loved or hated it, I’m just glad you watched it.
Header art by T. Guzzio. Original photo via The Solid Suns.
CONNECT WITH THE SOLID SUNS:
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This is the second time The Solid Suns have been featured in PC. Gamboa, Campbell, and Keen are based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, where they are hard at work on their third studio album, Ungodly Hour, slated for release in the Fall of 2015. The Suns are funding the album's recording themselves, something you can help with by going to their Indiegogo page (DO IT NOW!). If you liked “Flesh and Bone,” (and how could you not?), you can hear it again and download it for free below. Keep up with the Suns by checking out their website, and by following them on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. If you happen to be anywhere near Vegas when the Suns are slated to play live, go see them! You won't be disappointed.
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