Andy is one of the most talented musicians I know. Some people think of musical talent as a preternatural gift for shredding through neoclassical riffs on guitar or ripping through Chopin concertos as a pre-teen. In Andy’s case, this talent manifests itself as incredible taste and intuition for songwriting and audio production. When you hear a song written by Andy — whether it’s the, uh, powerviolence of Weekend Nachos or the alt rock throwback of Sourmouth — you know it’s an Andy song.

Fortunately, Andy gets to share his gift with others not just with his own music but through his work as a producer and audio engineer at Bricktop Recording.

I didn’t expect to make ill-founded quantum mechanics analogies with Andy in this conversation about songwriting, but that’s what happened.

Listen Here

Learn more from Andy here:

Show Notes:

  • [01:27] How Andy writes an album’s worth of songs every few months — across different genres
  • [11:46] The difference between “idea generation” and “idea editing” in songwriting
  • [23:19] How does Andy facilitate creativity in the studio while still keeping sessions on track?
  • [31:13] The difference between “producing” and “engineering”
  • [40:27] The value of a skilled editor in any creative endeavor. And, why it’s easier to edit other people’s work than your own.
  • [48:45] How to avoid getting too precious with your own creative ideas.
  • [54:29] Getting spacey with some theoretical physics analogies to songwriting
  • [01:07:54] How to learn more from Andy

Links and Resources Mentioned: