A Conversation with Vance Joy – HuffPost 9.8.14

Mike Ragogna: So what’s with all this about Dream Your Life Away stuff?

Vance Joy: That’s the title I came up with, just because it describes my experience of starting to write songs. Going down that path is a bit unorthodox; most people start and say, “Oh, you know what, I can’t do that.” I’d been doing University and other things but I’d written a couple songs because it was a dream I had been keeping secret; doing music. About a year and a half ago I decided to take the plunge and pursue that dream and I’m really glad that I did because I’m on this path at the moment that’s really exciting and surreal.

MR: I hope that having a number one record on alternative radio was part of your dream because it came true, buddy!

VJ: It was just all about writing something I was proud of and felt was pretty decent, but it’s a nice thing to accomplish. I know I’ve got a lot of people who worked hard to get the song out there.

MR: And congratulations, good for you. So let’s talk about “Riptide” and what went into it.

VJ: I started writing that song in 2008, I didn’t think too much of the first two lines, it was a simple song, you know? I thought, “I don’t know if this is going anywhere” so I kind of shelved it. At that time songwriting wasn’t really in my plans at all, it was just something I did as a hobby. I still do it, it’s just like a hobby I happen to do all the time. But I left it alone for four years and then I came back to it when I started playing ukulele and I played this melody that ended up being the melody for the chorus. Those two lines from 2008 resurfaced and I built them up and in a couple of days I had the song done. It came out quite effortlessly, the lyrics were kind of stream-of-consciousness. It took a bit of fitting pieces together but there were a couple of breakthrough moments where it came together really nicely, the song stuck together really strongly. I went and played it to my friends and family and I got a really good reaction. I’ve been playing it since the end of 2012 and it’s kind of taken on a life of its own.

MR: Awesome. You hit number one with a song that you started writing in 2008. You should test the waters with a song you started writing in 2007.

VJ: [laughs] Well, there was a song I started writing in 2006 called “Georgia,” it’s on the album. It was a guitar riff that I couldn’t find a place for, but then on New Year’s Day this year I finally found a melody that went over it and sounded good. It didn’t take long for the song to come together after that–it was just that breakthrough thing that happened five or six years after the original moment.

MR: No wine is fine before its time?

VJ: [laughs] Yeah, it’s a long time between drinks.

MR: You’re penetrating the US market with this new album. Have you found it particularly challenging to break into our market? What would success in the US look like to you?

VJ: I’ve always been prepared for a long slog in America. I knew there were a lot of radio stations, a lot of territory to cover, a lot of people to convert, I guess, But I always had good experiences playing in America from the start. There were a few people who would come and see me supporting someone and then they’d come to see me. There’s always a lot of hope, I think, even if it’s on a small-scale it’s always encouraging. I’ve always been pretty optimistic about being able to get a group in America and make it viable to tour there. In terms of what I envision about America, I feel that there are examples of really good artists who are consistent, like John Butler Trio who tour around America based on a loyal fan base and his consistent songwriting and the fact that he’s a hardworking musician who does a lot of touring. It seems to me that if you’re willing to do all those things you can have a home in America as well, and having a home in America is something that adds a lot of longevity to your career.

MR: You must have had some clue this could happen, especially when “God Loves You When You’re Dancing” was big.

VJ: I’m pretty lucky. I’ve got a couple of good managers and they always saw it as a possibility, they instilled in me the fact that I would need to commit a lot of time to doing it, so I’ve spent the last eighteen months slogging it out, being on the road most of the time and facing all of the challenges of doing an album in that space. I think it’s totally worth it now that we’re finally coming to the surface a bit and people know my music. I’ve been playing in a lot of festivals, that’s been amazing.

MR: “Winds Of Change” is another highlight. That came together in 2009 and you feel that was one of your strongest moments in songwriting, right?

VJ: Yeah, that was a strong moment because it was the first song I wrote that was coherently decent. I wrote that song and pretty secretly in my heart I was totally switched on to the possibility of trying to write more songs and wanting to do music and be a musician. It was a turning point, writing that song. That’s why I thought it was a good emotional start to the album.

MR: Apparently, Hemingway was inspiration for your song “First Time”?

VJ: Yeah, there’s a line in A Moveable Feast where he talks about listening to a story from one of his colleagues and it really hits Hemingway’s heartstrings, but every time he hears it after that first telling it doesn’t seem to have that same impact even though the story gets better and more detailed and the storyteller gets better at telling it, it never has the same punch. I kind of like that idea. I wanted to write a song that had that idea in terms of relationships.

MR: “Red Eye” references a modern classic movie, Scent Of A Woman.

VJ: There’s a great line in that film where he’s having a rant, which is not unusual for Al Pacino, especially in that movie. He has a big speech and he says, “Even a dog gets a warm bit of sidewalk to lie down on” or something along those lines. I really love that idea of the dog sunning itself on the sidewalk so I just stole that and tumbled it around a bit and put it in the song.

MR: The recording process for this album was pretty unusual. Part of it was finished in a tree house?

VJ: Yeah, the producer Ryan had this crew who were doing a show and he said, “Build a tree house for the people they’re doing a show about.” They built a tree house on his beautiful farm property with some old Douglas Firs in the surrounding area. They built this tree house in a couple of weeks, it’s a beautiful little studio that’s great for vocals and putting finishing touches on songs. We sat up there for a couple of days, it was really intimate, doing backing vocals, hashing out ideas. That was one of the really good moments in the album because we’d done much of the songs and we were just listening back and finessing a few little things.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

VJ: I think the best advice is just to worry about your songwriting. If you really want to be doing music that should probably be your first concern; making good songs. Don’t worry about your style or sounding like someone else, don’t worry about getting the right kind of press release for your gig and getting all of that stuff. That stuff is all important, but it’s better in the hands of people who work in the industry. Just worry about writing good songs and recording them to the best of your ability.

MR: “Riptide” has had fifteen million views on YouTube, and it’s not silver, it’s not gold, it’s platinum in all these countries all around the world. What kind of impression does that leave you with something you created?

VJ: It’s kind of surreal. Last year it started making an impression on the internet and getting a lot of listens and stuff and that was when it blew up for me. I was like, “Wow, this is going to happen, people actually want to hear this song. This is good for my possibilities of doing what I want to do.” Since then it’s kind of kept getting bigger and bigger and I’m almost detached from it. It’s really become its own thing. It’s strange to think that I actually wrote those lyrics, I actually wrote that song, it actually came out of me at one point, it wasn’t this big thing, it was just this little tiny song that I had written. It didn’t have that aura of being a big song.

MR: What do you think it was about that song that resonated and made it that big?

VJ: I think the recording is really special. We did it in a day. My drummer and I went to a studio in Melbourne and spent seven hundred dollars recording it. It was my first proper experience in a proper studio, so there were certain naiveties that went into it and I think that comes through. We didn’t play to a click track so it comes flowing in and out of time. The choruses are almost a little bit off, I think there’s something really human in that, it’s almost like a bizarre, strange chemistry which can work sometimes. I just did a couple of vocal takes, really raw at the end of the day and just pushed super hard. It felt like the way that I’ve learned to sing was probably more controlled but there’s a certain looseness and lack of control which I think works for the song–besides the fact that it’s a catchy song and there are really colorful lyrics. I think all that stuff comes together and makes a really tasty song.

MR: Is that also good advice for a new artist?

VJ: I think so. Recording a song in a day, or at least allowing something magical to happen by throwing caution to the wind is something that I’m a believer in.

MR: What’s the best advice ever given to you?

VJ: I had a couple of good ones. A singer-songwriter from Australia said, “Just write what you write,” which I really like. You get involved in songwriting and you’re at the mercy of whatever. Songs come into your creative channels, so just follow that intuition. I also got another advice about songwriting which is that it’s not going to be easy but every little thing that gets in the way and makes a song hard to write or makes you think that you’re not at the top of your songwriting game is just an obstacle you can push through. It can be overcome. That always gives me hope. When the songs aren’t coming I just think of the fact that I’m just standing in front of an obstacle that I can get around.

MR: What’s the future look like for Vance Joy?

VJ: I think in the next couple of years I’ll be playing a lot of shows. I want to be writing songs and record again some time, when there’s a bit of time off. I don’t look too far ahead, I’ve got vague plans but my whole mantra is, “One foot in front of the other.”

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne