Tag: Noah Gundersen

BGS 5+5: The Lost Wayne

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: The Lost Wayne (AKA Hunter Hoffman)
Hometown: DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia)
Latest Album: Tangerine
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Hamster, Smooch

Which artist has influenced you the most and how?

There have been, and there continues to be, so many that it’s hard to narrow it down to just one. But the artist who has had the deepest impact on me has definitely been Noah Gundersen. My sister introduced me to his music in my early 20s and I have been a massive fan ever since. His honesty and vulnerability in his writing is something I’ve always admired and been drawn to. We’re both around the same age and I felt the experiences he was singing about were lining up exactly with my life. I’ve seen him play live many times, both solo and with a full band, and you can feel the crowd just completely magnetized to him and feeling every lyric and emotion of each song. One way I like to test if a song is well written is if it’s message and gravitas holds up with just the artist and their instrument. His music is equally impactful with the fullness of produced sound or a solo acoustic set. He’s inspired me in so many ways in finding the deep truths in my songwriting and how to translate that into performing live. I could go on and on, but I feel like it’s starting to sound creepy so I’m going to stop!

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I moved to New York to go to acting school at The Neighborhood Playhouse and in my college years I had played little open mic showcases on campus and had written a handful of songs. I had dreams of becoming a musician, but was primarily focused on acting. I set a goal for myself that I wanted to get a show playing a full set of original music, so I went to an open mic at the former coffee shop/concert venue Waltz-Astoria in Queens. Pedro Gonzalez and his wife Song were the owners, and after I played my two-song slot he asked if I wanted to perform a set that weekend, since another artist had dropped out at the last minute. All of a sudden my dream became a reality in the first few weeks of moving to the city. After I finished my set and felt the rush of baring my soul through my songs on stage, I knew this was no longer going to only be a therapeutic hobby. I’m grateful to say I’ve been able to juggle both acting and music in my adulthood and I take pride in saying I am an actor AND a musician. It’s been a wonderful ride so far.

What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?

All of them. I just finished reading Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way Of Being, and it’s really opened me to finding inspiration everywhere. I’ve grown to appreciate how individual and subjective art is for everyone and that what I appreciate and connect to could be the complete opposite experience for someone else. So even if I don’t relate to something or “like” it, I try to keep my mind open and attempt to analyze why it doesn’t. Art helps us define who we are to ourselves, and as an artist I try to consume as much as I can, because you never know what’s going to hit you.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

Steal from other artists. And not in the copyright way, but in the inspiration. Sometimes if I’m caught in a writer’s block or a creative lull in my songwriting, I get so much from learning a new song from an artist I love. Or messing with it to sound a different way and make it cater to my voice. I’m also self-taught on guitar and have relatively zero knowledge of music theory, so when I learn and practice other people’s music, I discover new chord progressions or playing styles that can be so helpful to my own songwriting.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me?”

I’ve written a few songs through a sort of character in mind, but inherently every song I write is a form of me. 95% of the songs I’ve written have started from me in a room with my guitar, sitting with whatever feelings or circumstances are making their way through my life, and doodling around ’til something sparks. Sometimes I’m in a sad place and out comes a corny love song, or I’m happy as a clam and I word vomit a full existential crisis, my world burning down around me. At the end of the day it’s all me, whether I’m inhabiting a character or not, I have to start with the truth of it for myself. I think it can be a great exercise to write from the perspective of a character, and I can attest it’s a lot of fun, but my favorite songs I’ve written are the ones that are uncomfortably me. My experiences and stories are the only things I can honestly share, and if I can write a song that impacts someone the way so many artists have impacted me, then hopefully I’ll find myself in the ballpark of making something meaningful.

Photo Credit: Shannen Bamford

Mixtape: Davis John Patton’s Playlist for Making Sense of Things

Posted on by Editor

I could be mistaken, but we all share a few deeply rooted questions about ourselves, right? Who am I? What am I doing here? Why is it that I exist, rather than not existing? Over the years, I’ve found myself drawn to songs that invite me to make sense of these things. These songs hold a tension as they intelligently consider life and death while also expressing the candid emotions of one living in this strange existence. Additionally, I’ve included a few songs that don’t explicitly consider existence, but they tell stories and ask questions that even still invite me to make sense of them, piecing the puzzle together verse by verse.

At the end of the day, is it not supremely important how we answer these deeply rooted questions about ourselves and others? I hope these songs help you ponder and make sense of things as they have for me. — Davis John Patton

Gregory Alan Isakov – “This Empty Northern Hemisphere”

The imagery of the first chorus captivates me: adorning a home with radio wires to hear voices from beyond. A glimpse of something past this emptiness.

Henry Jamison – “Boys”

This song, and the album it accompanies, confronts our cultural idea of masculinity, but even more just the general process of reconsidering our very identity and the sources that built it. “Spring is coming; let me be like the cherry tree, renewed and fruitful.”

Penny & Sparrow – “Double Heart”

Our existential ponderings can only remain external for so long; eventually we look inward. I honestly couldn’t tell you what most of this song means, but hearing the cry of “double heart” reminds me that incredible brokenness and evil isn’t only in the world, but also in me.

Josh Garrels – “Wash Me Clean”

The production and instrumentation of this song are so thoroughly beautiful that it took me multiple listens to have the headspace to even listen to the lyrics. This song is a deeply personal cry that we and the “earth groan in pain,” a common landing place in existential wonder. Is this the final destination?

Phoebe Bridgers – “Chinese Satellite”

I could write pages on this song; it holds some of the most authentic and heartbreaking lyrics on existence I’ve ever heard. Who hasn’t felt the absolute wickedness of the world and cried out alongside Bridgers that we must have been meant for somewhere better: “I want to go home.”

S. Carey – “Have You Stopped to Notice”

A song of rest amidst the hopelessness of other ponderings. Carey brings listeners back to the life before them, and comforts: “We all want the answers, but we only find a few. Look at all you have still in front of you.”

Alaskan Tapes – “We”

After quoting the lyrics of six consecutive songs, I now bring an instrumental piece. A song with space to think.

Henry Jamison – “Witness Trees”

If I was forced to pick a perfect song, I’d probably pick this one. There is much to make sense of in this song, but I particularly love the lyrical and musical beauty when Jamison sings, “I see a sign in the breeze, in the wind, in the trees, in the skies over Austin.”

Benjamin Francis Leftwich – “Elephant”

One of the most repetitive songs I’ve ever heard, but it works so powerfully. What is the elephant in the room for me? “I know you know, it is easier to shy away… but I know that you won’t go away.” It seems we can only ignore our deepest longings for so long.

Noah Gundersen / Phoebe Bridgers – “Atlantis”

This song is the Knives Out of mysterious songs… When you make it through the first listen, you immediately want to listen back for clues at what exactly is going on. Catchy, to be sure, along with ominous stories with glimmers of longing that conclude with the listener being set free… ? Much to make sense of.

Penny & Sparrow – A Kind of Hunger

A lesson in existential pondering: eventually you come face to face with the reality of death. What do you do with that? Penny & Sparrow offer two profound thoughts: “Breath, in the end, is a thing to be spent.” / “Dying’s just a kind of hunger.”

S. Carey – “Meadow Song”

The best songs in the world are the songs that conclude great albums, right? I think this song is reflecting on a lost loved one, but in the spirit of making sense of things, I have literally no idea if I’m right. Give this song a listen, Google the lyrics which are essentially a poem, and make some sense of it.

The Black Atlantic – “I Shall Cross This River”

Here’s where we conclude, on a somewhat hopeful note. The bitter realities of existence are faced, externally and internally. But if there is one great enough to “see not this bitter man… see not this failure,” then “when my darkness leaves, when my fall is complete, I shall cross this river.”

Photo Credit: Austin Goode

WATCH: David Ramirez, ‘Harder to Lie’

Posted on by Editor

Even taking all 260,000 of the miles tracked and traveled by David Ramirez's 2006 Kia Rio, there were still some journeys left unaccounted for — the inner explorations he undertook while driving all that way … alone. What he realized, at the end of the road, was that he needed to do some things differently.

Three years and one writer's block later, Ramirez has emerged with Fables. Produced by Seattle singer/songwriter Noah Gundersen, it's a tale of the reckoning Ramirez went through with himself and with his girlfriend. The open-aired and open-armed production gives Ramirez's baritone voice room to roam through the songs.

The title of the set comes from “Harder to Lie.” While on vacation in Iceland, Ramirez and company were on the look out for the just-right visual setting to capture the song. They found it in Skaftafell, a preservation area in southeast Iceland.

"When my lady, our friend Clayton, and I began talking about a potential Iceland vacation, one of the first things we discussed was filming a song,” Ramirez says. “From the minute we left Reykjavik, our eyes were peeled for the perfect location. Funny thing about Iceland: Every location is perfect. One evening we crossed a long bridge that hung over a moon-like terrain. In the background were two giant, green mountains and sandwiched between them was a glacier. We pulled over at the next exit, set up camp for the night, and filmed 'Harder to Lie' the next morning. It's a one-shot, one-take video, and it took us three takes to get it just right. Hats off to Clayton Stringer for filming barefoot on black stones in 10 degrees celsius to keep the sound pure. He's a champ."

Fables drop on August 28 via Thirty Tigers.