A Conversation with Zak Smith – HuffPost 10.15.14

Mike Ragogna: Zak, on your latest album, Signs Of Life, you record acoustic versions of your past works. Why did you revisit your catalog in this way?

Zak Smith: I felt like there were some songs of mine that worked just as good or better if they were really stripped down. I’ve always been suspicious of songs that don’t sound good if you’re just playing them alone in a room with an acoustic guitar. That’s a preconception I picked up somewhere and I’m sure that contributed to wanting to do an album this way.

MR: Can you take us on a tour of the tracks that appear on Signs Of Life?

ZS: There are a bunch of politically influenced tracks, “Have You Looked Outside,” “Signs of Life,” “Brand New Party,” and “Traitor’s Way.” “Traitor’s Way” is kind of a condemnation of people sitting on the sidelines and saying there’s no point in getting involved or caring about what’s going on. “Signs of Life,” “Brand New Party” and “Have You Looked Outside” are songs about revolution advancing. The other songs on the album, like “Raise the Moon” and “The House You Haunt,” are about relationships, failed or ongoing, and about living with the presence or absence of the someone you love. “No Plan B” I wrote when I decided being a musician is all I wanted to do with my life, “Minstrel Show” is about fake, or overly posturing, bands I’ve run into in the past, and “Alamo” and the “Universe is Bigger” are about feeling like you’re up against overwhelming odds and trying to retain your sanity and make sense of everything.

MR: You’ve been recording a while now and have toured the East Coast often. What is it about making music that’s most satisfying for you?

ZS: When I’m able to write something that I’m really proud of. I love playing on stage and playing with the band, and I really love recording, but when I’m by myself and writing and I come up with something I think is good, it is a very fulfilling feeling.

MR: How does your creative process work?

ZS: It’s different with each song. Some of them come quickly, some I work on for months or even years at a time. I’ve always got a large number of songs in various stages of completion that I always try to chip away at.

MR: You’re well read, how did you come across some of your favorite writers?

ZS: My parents would read to me growing up and I had a great love for reading at an early age. When I got a little older I wanted to read the classics, I didn’t want to read anything contemporary, there was a quote from the writer Samuel Johnson that goes something like “read the best books first or you may never have time to read them at all.” Of course there are contemporary books that may also be classified with “the best,” so it was shortsighted to only read old stuff. But figuring out what to read was like figuring out what records to listen to, I would start with someone and work my way back through his or her influences. And then there were the big names that Id always heard of because everyone knows them, War and Peace, stuff like that.

MR: When you’re writing, are you still influenced by them?

ZS: Yeah, definitely. I think 99% of great lyrics wouldn’t stand up to the scrutiny that great poems would if simply written out and compared to each other. Great lyrics have the extra component of the music behind it to give it depth and forcefulness. That being said, there are some poets and poems that are more musical and lyrical than others, Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman for two examples. Anyway, I think it’s hard not to be influenced by stuff that has a very deep resonance and meaning for you, like great literature does for me, even if you’re not always conscious of it. One conscious example though is in the song “The Universe Is Bigger”, the line “All of us are in the gutter but some are looking in your eyes” is a take-off on the great Oscar Wilde line, “all of us are in the gutter but some are looking at the stars”

MR: What kind of influence would you say growing up in New Jersey had on you as an artist?

ZS: When you’re from New Jersey you have these big giant icons to look up to: Springsteen, Sinatra, Frankie Valli…guys like that. It gets in your mind that this is a doable career goal and almost a Jersey tradition. For me at least, that was certainly what it felt like when I was young and first became obsessed with music.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

ZS: Make sure you know what stuff really speaks to you. Make sure you’re not playing something a certain way, or writing a certain way, because you’re “supposed to.” If it doesn’t connect with you, and you’re not feeling it, you’re not on the right path artistically. Have strong opinions about the things that you love.

MR: How fulfilled do you feel as an artist?

ZS: Fulfilled in that I’ve grown a lot since I started, I’m a way better singer than I used to be, I’m a way better guitar player than I used to be, and I have a lot of songs written.