Creative Process
Name: Meg Baird
Nationality: American
Occupation: drummer/musician
Current Release: Furling is out 27th January on Drag City

If you enjoyed this interview with Meg Baird, visit her website www.megbaird.com to buy music, watch videos and catch up with live dates.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you?

When I’m creating something new, outside sources always find their way into my stream of consciousness—like moths or magnets.
 
New work can often be a way to record what it feels like to be in a certain time, or an attempt to clarify it. Sometimes it can be a retreat from it as well. In “The Saddest Verses” I fell back into a long history lens, playing scenes through a terribly flawed historical record. Some songs are like creating retreats, and secret cabins like the scenes in “Unnamed Drives.”
 
For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?
 
Starting is easy. I stumble on ideas all of the time, especially on the guitar. Finishing is the very difficult part, especially sorting through the boredom and disappointment of my own tired patterns and habits. I have too little movement in my songs, and they can cozy up into the same corner so easily. It’s trite to say, but those really catchy ideas typically appear fully formed in a first pass, in ten minutes. “Will You Follow Me Home?“ came to Charlie and I messing around in the living room, just for fun.
 
Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?
 
Early versions and research (often just reading) are usually a big part of the process, but there aren’t any rules. I will start with a strong idea of what can happen (the tedious pile of voice memos!), but then I like to give plenty of room for things to take on their own shape. For instance in “Cross Bay,” I had a very strong idea of the central verse where I am thanking someone in a pretty straightforward and autobiographical way. I was dead set on that detail, but the rest of the images formed around it, and strayed further and further away from that simple central image I wanted to convey.
 
Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Yes please! Everything helps, but I don’t have any rituals or rules. Feeling good, grounded, playing with matches all can help feel more connected and worthwhile.
 
What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note? When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?
 
The first note is as natural as water. The lyrics, however, take shape from vocal sounds that work with the music. It can be a bit excruciating to really hear what I am trying to say. I use way too much paper, far too many notebooks. I sometimes splurge on too many fancy pens, hoping that the mark making of hand writing will help to free things up. Sometimes I will record a wordless nonsense version, then transcribe that into the “feet“ notation you use when learning what iambic pentameter is. I use that structure to write real words and make sure they are breathing along with the meter that I want to sing with the music. Probably most of the songs on Furling employed that method at least here and there, most especially “Wreathing Days.” I wrote that out in notation tablature and then filled it in as an improvisation, then filled that in with some research on the history of the phrase “good bye.”
 
What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

Sung lyrics are not the same as reading words on the page to me. If I used the same exact voice I would in an essay or social critique (not that I feel especially qualified for this type of writing) it would feel manipulative, almost like propaganda or slogans. No matter how individual, political, rousing someone’s sung songs are, there is a point where they slip into some type of collective voice—i.e. literally getting in people’s heads in a way that they might sing along. Perhaps opera, libretto, rap verses would be very different from this—you know, very direct forms of address--but those forms are outside of what I am able to do. It’s not a hard and fast rule, just something I’m especially sensitive to in the way I write lyrics.
 
In general, good lyrics don’t break the spell. Or if they do, it’s in a really affecting, knock out way--not in an embarrassing way where you nearly wish the lyricist had pushed through to a better version.
 
There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?
 
It’s a state of hearing voices (in a way that is very real and not frightening), and of being in sync. The planes and interactions of things are more apparent or in clearer conversation with each other, and you have a heightened awareness of it all.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?
 
There’s always more work to do, but things really do have a way of saying “ta-da!“ when they are finished. I use very digital methods all the time, but I tend to imitate processes from when materials and time were more precious. Recording digitally, but thinking like tape, or any kind of hybrid along those lines. This approach could always change (and I truly mean that) but for now, I don’t tend to enjoy feeling like I am artistically immersing myself into a very digital world behind the screen.
 
What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

I love to be there, to be very engaged in how things are literally feeling and sitting in a room. I love working with great engineers, and I know that they are bringing an incredible amount of observation and experience to a piece. I am not a micromanager, and enjoy trusting and learning from other people’s ears. Working with Tim Green was an incredible treat in that way. He is so meticulous and listens so carefully, without being a classic “perfectionist.” He vouched for a few performances that I was unsure of (the “Wheeling again” vocal line in “Will You Follow Me Home?” for example), and I’m very grateful for the feedback.

While mixing and mastering, I tend to be a stickler about really small moves--nudging things in place, evaluating performances and emotional resonance.
 
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I’m always in a state of creativity, it is hard to turn off. However it can be tricky to return to a state of feeling like I should expect anyone else to engage with my work and ideas. While you are creating, you spend so much time in personal P.O.V. and outward projection. Releasing requires working through how others see you, which is challenging for me to navigate, and not really the fun part of all of this. When I made the decision on my first record “Dear Companion” to look away from the camera, it wasn’t meant to be coy or shy or turning away. It was meant to say that I like to look out in the same direction as listeners.
 
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing 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 don’t think there is anything mundane about making a great cup of coffee. I think what ties them together, or transforms a “task” to creative work are the intentions and poetry around it. I’m thinking of the difference between making a great cup of coffee to satisfy a standard vs. making a great cup of coffee with a story around it. It becomes more of a performance or a poem that way, or at least a gift. Understanding your materials, their origins and your motivations can transform many things out there.