Story Teller

Transcript from the Astreaux World Interview:

I see myself as a teller of stories. The notes I sing, the words I write, these are mediums through which narratives breathe into life, a platform to examine the personal and archetypal journeys we all make. Words are not inert for me, but rather have an immense power to create meaningful connections to the world around us. As such, I do not believe that words can be held to rigid confines of strict meaning but instead are flexible frameworks for the evolution of thought and emotion. In a sense words themselves are co-creators, because although they have defined meaning, this meaning is constantly morphing, or adapting if you would, to the needs of the speaker. To the needs of the story being told at that moment. And we are all telling stories, every day to the people we meet, to the people we know and most importantly, to ourselves. We each have our own stories that serve to coalesce our experiences into a meaningful whole, to plug us into a collective understanding and, I believe, to create new worlds, new mythos. I think, at times, our search for absolute truths diminishes the importance of personal perception, of claiming our stories, accepting that we cannot ever possibly see the beginnings and endings of every thread that has woven itself in, yet still knowing that this is what is beautiful about our stories; myriads of alternate understanding.

As a songwriter, I love knowing that, in some ways, the words I have chosen will spiral out from me creating slightly different meanings, different sensory associations, and different filters of memory in every single person that hears them, and through these differences the audience itself evolves the meaning of each song. In such ways the songs are given a unique and infinite life trajectory beyond the narrow confines of my experience and definitely beyond my ability to control. I get asked all the time where my inspiration comes from, which has always seemed an odd question because the answer has to be “life”. I draw marrow from everything I see, everything I read, everything I hear, everything I touch and feel, from every experience that I am fortunate enough to be immersed in and from these I carry tiny echoed souvenirs, which become the skeletal foundations of songs. Fundamentally I see everything around me as the guardian of a unique story. Nothing is finite or static. Every intersection with a person, with an object, with anything within our personal landscapes has been forged by the narrative that led to that moment, and within any interaction, we are creating infinite living worldlines. There are story lines everywhere around us and it is the lineage of all these stories that gives meaning to our experiences and allow us to connect into a paradigm of collective understanding.

I believe that one of my roles as a music creator is to hear the stories that hover all around and give them a voice, which in turn, I hope, helps people to synchronize their own stories as well as to expand perspective. Many of my songs are seeded from myths, fables, fairy tales and archetypes, but such inspiration is only valuable to me in terms of how applicable it is to the hardship and achievements we, as people, face now. I believe that the stories I draw from persist because they allow us to see our own journeys as an arch within them. Because they offer us meaning in our personal struggles, solidarity in our triumphs and give us insight about what it means to be human. Beyond, I believe that the narratives we create to give meaning to our own experiences are what allow us to live beyond the decay of a singular moment and take our place amidst the stars.

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