Name: Ron Pope
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: American
Current release: Ron Pope's Inside Voices is out via Brooklyn Basement.
Recommendation: My friend Fefa Mello is an amazing visual artist. Her husband Paul Hammer is my musical partner. She continues to create things that stagger my imagination. Paintings, drawings, mixed media; she’s making magic with her hands.
Let’s do another visual artist! My friend Roberto Lugo is a potter. He’s working in ceramics making the most unbelievable pieces. We met through music and became pals, I really had no idea that he was such a huge deal in the art world. His work is in the Met now, it’s wild!

If you enjoyed this Ron Pope interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

When I hear my own music, it’s for work. If you meet someone who listens to their own music for fun, you probably don’t want to be their friend. When I’m listening to my own work, it’s usually while we’re in the midst of creating it. In those situations, it’s for arrangement things I might want to amend, little noises in the room, anything I might want to correct or change.

When listening to music for pleasure, it’s a fundamentally different experience. At this point in my life, I love to sit somewhere that no one will bother me, put on my big over-ear Bose headphones, and sort of disappear into the recording. What happens to my body depends on what I’m listening to. Jackson Browne’s “These Days” feels different than MUNA's “Silk Chiffon.”



That’s something I love about music; there’s something for nearly any situation you find yourself in. It can make you cry, it can make you dance, it can take you to space or ground you.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

I’ve pretty much always made music. In terms of making music now versus in the beginning, the biggest difference is the audience. In the beginning, you have no idea if anyone will ever hear what you create. There’s something freeing in that. You can make and release anything; there’s no impending judgment upon release. Now, I know that people will hear what I create.

Of course, that’s a blessing, because I dreamed of this becoming my job, but it does add a layer of emotional difficulty that I didn’t know would be there. You have to wonder how people will think your new work stacks up to the things you’ve been making and for your entire life. Just like it’s uncomfortable to be compared to musicians who came before me, it’s also difficult to be compared to myself from 20 years ago. I try not to think about any of that and just make what I’m going to make.

With time and experience, I personally believe that my writing, playing, production, and singing have all improved; I’m just trying to make things that I find inspiring and then set them loose on the world and hope for the best. If you sweat the commercial reaction, you’ll drive yourself nuts.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

Anecdotally, I certainly don’t feel that way. For me, the most significant musical experiences in my life came later than that.

During college and in the first years after, I was in a band that I loved. We all shared so much music then. Each of us had broad taste, so we were constantly passing ideas back and forth. I remember riding down the interstate in North Carolina on tour when I was 21; someone put in Death Cab For Cutie’s Transatlanticism.

The sky was full of stars, and I sat there with my best friends, listening to this gorgeous record in silence as we thundered down the highway to our next little tiny gig. That memory sticks with me.



Listening like that was powerful. I don’t get to do that too often anymore, listen to music with friends. When I listen now, I’m often alone. I loved that collective listening experience.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

I have a 1955 Telecaster that fundamentally changed the way I think about guitar and music-making as a whole. It’s such a simple thing, just two knobs and one switch. Six strings, some wood, and a little bit of metal. After I fell in love with that guitar, I wanted everything to be simpler.

I like pedals with three or less knobs now. I want my amps to have reverb built in, and I’m only playing combos now. I just want everything to be as simple as possible so that I can get to the business of making something without a bunch of fuss.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

I am not precious. I don’t have some specific process that I live and die by. Some days, I sit down and write a song by myself at the piano. Other days, I’m taking bluegrass flatpicking lessons. I sometimes turn on a weird assortment of pedals to see if my Les Paul can sound like a talking robot or a garbage truck.

I’m open to trying anything. I write alone, I co-write with friends, strangers, people in person or across an ocean. I love music that is organic and stuff that’s driven by electronic elements. That openness allows me to make all sorts of stuff and stay excited after so many years of making records.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

I don’t have a “personal sound.” My music is usually driven by two things, my voice and the lyrics. Other than that, I amend what I do as time goes on.

Sometimes, I’m making a giant noise, with an orchestra and a bunch of wild synths, and other times, I’m whispering over a delicate acoustic guitar. Each of those things feels like me.

I think getting married to a specific sonic fingerprint sounds horribly boring, so I refuse to do it.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

We made Inside Voices in Laurel, New York, on the Peconic Bay. The feeling of being there, with the water quite literally in our backyard, informed everything on the record.

We’d sit outside and listen to the sounds of the water, the sea birds, boats going by, and it would help to center us as we tried to make this incredibly emotional music. The sounds of the bay helped bring us back to earth.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

I love that different music fits different situations.

I’m going to make a giant Italian dinner tonight. I’ll listen to Dean Martin for that while I drink red wine and listen to my wife tell me about her day. I was listening to Tina Turner this morning. My daughter requested a song called “Burrito Rainbow” on the way to school and we had a singalong. I had Freya Ridings, Gracie Abrams, and Joy Oladokun in my ears as I went grocery shopping just now.



All of that music has had a place in my day and it’s only 11 am.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriad ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

For me, there is no right way. I’ve been making music for so long, it would be boring by now if I was hooked on some specific thing.

I have written songs with very standard forms and others that have key and tempo changes, where we move between totally different worlds. All of it is valid to me.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

It changes as I go. For Inside Voices, I wrote about 75 songs, all alone in my house over the course of about 8 months, then we moved into the Laurel house and recorded them in a single room, with my friend Paul Hammer and me making most of the sounds on the record in that room.

I’ve made albums where I wrote all the songs in three weeks and recorded them in five days or less. I wrote Daylight over multiple years and recorded almost the entire thing in one 12-hour session. I love to let my process evolve. That’s what keeps me interested.  



Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

I feel entirely too stupid for this question. I’m just a guy trying to find a rhyme I haven’t already used twenty times. I’m not taking myself that seriously.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

As my life has changed over the years, so too has the content of my music. Now that I’m a husband and a father, that’s all in the music. I have certainly learned to better express my feelings by creating music.

The more I understand music, the better I am able to create things, and so, the easier it is for me to access and express my feelings.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I find beauty in so many things. My days are full of regular stuff. Some days, I just want to do laundry and take a nap. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t put the same kind of weight into creating music that some other people do. I love making art, but I don’t think it’s so much more valuable than other things. The bus driver is usually the most skilled person on the tour. For me, the centerpiece of life is being a father and a husband, everything else is way behind that.

I express myself most through the love and support I show my family. Some of that sneaks into the music, so it’s all related. I just want to be a good man; being a good musician is way less important to me than that.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

Any time I hear a single cello, it grabs me by the throat.

It’s one of the reasons you never hear a single cello in my music, out in the open by itself. Something about that instrument breaks my heart, no matter what it’s doing. I can’t make sense of it.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I love to hear people who have ideas that feel brand new. I also love to hear folks who take old forms and make them feel new again. I’m open to it all!

I’m just excited to hear my next brand-new favorite song. Finding a new favorite is so exciting, so I’m always open to that. What will it sound like? I have no idea, and that’s what’s so exciting!