Brief history of your music career?
Hi, mom!
The word “history” is a bit confusing, because my music career will take place in the future. Up until now, I’ve just been practicing for it. Back in Detroit, I played in a few bands, released a few songs, and ended up with some local recognition in the form of music award nominations. I realized that I was getting bigger than Ryan Seacrest at this point, and decided to move to Boston and start a band with my friend Paul. While doing this, I also started touring with a punk band, and got my first taste of non-north-american audiences. This was a pretty great experience. But after a while, I decided that I wanted to start doing my own thing. I started playing solo shows all over the place, and now I’m getting ready to release two albums, almost simultaneously.
What inspired you to become a solo artist?
I would’ve been a solo artist from the very beginning, but I never liked my singing voice. Because of this, I always sought out singers in the form of what I’d like to hear in my own music. After tumbling over many of the same roadblocks that most musicians do in bands, ie: style differences, motivational issues, etc., I decided that doing it yourself is much quicker and less stressful.
For anyone who’s never heard your music, how would you describe your style and sound to them?
Imagine what your favorite band sounds like. Now imagine that they are stuck in an airport in Albuquerque, and I have to fill in for them. Whenever someone asks me what kind of music I play, I get confused and just give them an extremely brief, emotionless response of something like “modern rock/pop”. I feel that this response is broad enough to not actually answer the question, yet still relieve me of the duty of answering it. Maybe it’d be better if I just describe how I try to approach writing music. I like music that can produce emotion in people, even without listening to the lyrics. The chords and melody can make the silliest lyrics sound extremely emotional. I’m really influenced by artists like Fountains of Wayne, Angels and Airwaves, Fall Out Boy, All American Rejects, Plus 44, Our Lady Peace, Butch Walker, Sean Lennon, Elliott Smith, etc.
What have you found the biggest advantages/disadvantages of doing everything on your own?
Some of the advantages are that you eliminate the endless hours of arguing over how the music should sound, the direction, the guy in your band who refuses to stop dressing like a member of the Village People, the name of your album, whether the drummer will show up for your next show, whether the guitarist is going to keep trying to sleep with your girlfriend, etc. Imagine if you were a painter, and you were subject to letting 3 other guys come in and make changes to your painting at any time, just because it’s the democratic thing to do. There are situations where you may prefer to be a co-writer with others, but it sometimes gets to a point when it’s no more productive than sitting around with your friends and playing five card draw. If you want something done right, you do indeed sometimes have to do it yourself. I enjoy working with others, but I also have to be able to do make my own art.
Some of the disadvantages are that you have to find people to come into the studio to play instruments that you don’t play. For me, this means bringing in drummers, string players, and an alto kazoo-ist. It’s the same situation for live performances. Instead of having band members who are just happy to play shows because they’re part of a band, you have to pay members to fill in the holes. Unless you can play all of the instruments yourself at the same time. But I’ve found that in the Boston and New York areas, you’re pretty much only going to find pay-to-play musicians anyway.
You’re currently recording a cd, can you tell us a little bit about it? (Name, writing process, how the songs fell into place, etc)
I actually have two albums coming out. The first one is an acoustic EP called “Only Enemies Tell The Truth… Friends and Lovers Lie Endlessly”. There are four songs on it, titled “Star”, “The 4 AM Wake Up Call”, “Midseason Replacement” and “13 Days”. I chose these songs for the EP because not only do I think they sound great on acoustic guitar, but I feel that these are some of my best songs. This should be released at the end of September.
A couple of the songs feature a full string section. I brought in some really talented players for this, including Wendy Mittelstadt on violin and viola, her sister Karen on cello, and Rafael Popper-Keizer (Boston Philharmonic) on cello.
As far as the writing process goes, I tend to write by using some sort of muse. This is usually based upon a real situation in my or someone else’s life. This is not to say that you couldn’t write about a situation that you haven’t experienced. Many people do this, and I have done it myself. I just find it easier to write about something that you have experienced, whether it be first hand or through someone that you know. I wrote “Star” based upon a girl that I met in New York. She achieved more by the age of 18 than most will achieve in their entire lives, and she did it all on her own. You may have seen her on screen or in a magazine recently. “4 AM” took the point of view of a late night drunken call to an ex-girlfriend and turned it into a sincere love letter. That song is an example of a story that I witnessed, but did not experience personally. Or at least, I would never admit it in public. Is this magazine public? You’ll edit this out, right?
The other album I’m doing is a full length rock album. It’s titled “Soundtrack from a Happy Ending”. It features full band, electric versions of all of the songs on the acoustic EP, plus 6 or 8 others. Some of the other song titles are “Center of Attention”, “JD & Elliot” and “Hollywood Ending”. This one will come out a few months after the EP.
What are some of your favorite songs on the cd so far and can you tell us about them?
My favorites on the EP are probably “13 Days” and “4 AM”, because of the string sections on them. I’m still shocked every time I listen to them. I think 13 Days would work very well in a movie. I have to attribute that to the great players that I brought in for those parts. I’m never good at describing styles of my music. I guess that acoustic sound makes these songs sound like bands like Goo Goo Dolls or Dashboard Confessional, but I don’t really know.
On the full length album, my favorite songs are probably the ones that aren’t finished being written yet. There’s an as-yet-untitled intro song that gives the feeling of “Here we are, we made it against all odds. Nothing can stop us now.” This is the song that makes people yell “F@#$ yeah!” The song “JD & Elliot” is also unfinished. I started writing this one about two characters from a TV show called Scrubs. My intention was to submit it to the show’s music director for the show’s final season, but I think they may have already finished filming.
What is your ultimate goal as a musician, where would you like to see yourself in say five years?
I want to give away cadillacs to strangers like Elvis did, dump loads of cash on my friends from my personal blackhawk helicopter, buy a 35,000 square foot mansion for my mom, and make so much money from endorsements that I can give away my CDs and play all my shows for free. But I guess you can’t start at the top. Right now my goal is to release these two albums and start touring colleges. I’d like to make that my full time job, so I don’t have to do anything else for money. The more time I can spend on music, the better the product will be.
In five years? I’d like to see myself in my sky-high condo in Manhattan, overlooking the city. Or maybe San Diego. Of course, all of my friends would be welcome to stay with me. It’d be like a hippie commune without the hippies.
What is your background in music, how did you end up on this path?
I’ve been playing guitar since I was a little kid. I started learning by watching older kids play guitar when I was probably 5 or 6 years old. I always loved the sound of guitar, and probably was influenced a lot by the music that my two sisters listened to when we all lived in my mom’s house together. I also played bass and saxophone a little bit around the age of 7 or 8. I got my first real guitar when I was 9. I took lessons from an incredible guitarist named Steve Langley for a couple of years, went to music school, and started teaching professionally when I was 19. I was in choir in high school, but never wanted to be a lead vocalist until just last year. I guess you could say that once I started making music at a single-digit age, it just became part of life for me. Removing it would be like removing a limb.
What are your thoughts on the current music industry?
Since I’m not being paid millions by it right now, I hate it. As soon as they start offering me tons of cash, I will love it. Seriously though, that’s the way it seems most artists act toward the music industry. Those who are doing well in the industry love it, while those who haven’t had the opportunity to be a big name artist will speak against it.
One thing I do want to say about their behavior is that they should learn how to use technology to their advantage instead of attacking it. When sound recording was invented, artists were mad because they felt that people would be able to hear their music without paying to see their show.
What is it that sets you apart from other artists?
My pants are pretty sweet. And my hair is blue. I also try to write music that could be listened to in any time period, rather than something that will sound old in 5 years.
Where can people contact you and find out more about you?
Later tonight I’ll be at the bookshop on Newbury Street in Boston. After that, you can catch me in the restroom, tapping my foot. But if you can’t make either of those, you can always check out http://myspace.com/MichaelGurry and http://gurry.com. You can read more there, listen to music, and send me dirty messages.
Parting words?
Don’t take advice from celebrities. Especially those who try to influence you on political, environmental or religious issues. Most of them have been caught up in the plastic bubble fantasy world of HollywoodLand for so long that they can’t tell reality from a Harry Potter book.
Oh, and… go down swinging every time. It doesn’t matter what happens, as long as you did the right thing.
##
mike gurry is a delisious break from the meat and potatoe market of pop rock. look for big things to come from him in 2007-2008
I see Mike hasnt changed much (still sarcastic!) except for the music he plays. He has always been able to change (adapt) his music with the times but, is usually being two steps ahead of the rest. An act definately worth seeing so drop whatever you’re doing (unless you are holding a baby) and go see his show.