A N D Y
PARTY PRACTICE When I decided to make the album with the running theme of a party , I was having trouble coming up with ideas for things that would happen at one . So me and my friends got together in the garage and smoked cigarettes and drank beers and thought about what would happen at a party . There ’ s the person who gets drunk too fast and the people who are too sober ; there ’ s the part of the night that gets a little greasy , and then the calm afterwards . “ Martha Sways ” was written about ending the night in a living room somewhere and slow dancing . I think I always outlast the party a little bit . I like the calm afterwards . My favorite part is sitting on the couch later and just talking shit .
EMBARRASSMENT “ To You ” is a song about opening up to someone and being humiliated . I can think of specific times that happened to me , though this particular instance didn ’ t . There ’ s a character that goes through most of the party named Jeremy . For Jeremy , it ’ s probably near to the end of the night and this [ other ] guy ’ s a little too drunk and decides to talk to him about their friendship . I knew that it was going to be him sharing a certain thing and then trying to go back on what he said , so my first lyric was about it all being a big joke . It ’ s a fear of perceiving an outcome to be one way and then feeling like you ’ ve totally read someone wrong .
REVISION The song that went through the most revisions was “ Eyes of Them All .” I wrote it two summers ago and never came up with good lyrics for it . I struggled with that one . I eventually changed the key and changed the arrangement .
Another one that went through a lot of revisions was “ The Magician .” Originally , it was a piano song , really sparse and quiet with big , five-second breaks . It was horribly spaced out . I demoed it like that , sat with it for a little while . Then I recorded drums and bass over it . It was still really spaced out . I just couldn ’ t figure out why I didn ’ t like it . What I usually do when I come to that conclusion is to strip away the chording instrument . I took away the piano and changed it to acoustic guitar with a looped beat behind it . There were these big fills ; it was really dramatic . The intro now is just this chord for a really long time . It ’ s still really spacious but I ’ ve found a better way for it to keep its momentum and continue to move .
THE PRESTIGE OF “ THE MAGICIAN ” I think the first line I wrote for that song —“ Do you find it gets a little easier each time you make it disappear ?”— gave me the picture of a magician . That decided what the song was going to be about . I pictured a sweating , nervous magician going through his act and trying to be like , “ Tah-dah !” at some point . “ The Magician ” doesn ’ t really have anything to do with the party theme so it was more about how I was feeling when I wrote it . I guess that would have been two or three years ago , at a time when I had no idea what I was doing with my life — trying to play music and trying to keep a personal life together but not knowing how . That was the idea behind the chorus : “ Just a shaking hand without a concrete plan .”
PICKING UP TOOLS AND THE TEMPO I ’ ve played instruments my whole life but I never played in school band or anything . Originally I played drums ; in grade nine , I was playing drums in a band . My guitar player taught me how to play “ Smells Like Teen Spirit ” [ on a guitar ]. I was a big Blink-182 fan ; we played a lot of punk covers . I used to be a pretty good drummer : single kick , fast-foot . There ’ s no fast-foot [ on The Party ]. I ’ ve lost my fast-foot . Now I just have a steady foot [ laughs ].
I think I will write faster songs eventually . It takes more confidence in songwriting to write fast songs . I think it ’ s easy to write slow songs . The more confident I become on piano , the easier it is to push what I can do on it . I ’ m really used to playing it safe with long , drawn out chords . “ Quite Like You ” is the fastest song on the album , and it ’ s still not very fast .
MY NEW GUITAR I just got this guitar made by Collings , from Austin . It replicates an old [ Gibson ] Kalamazoo — it ’ s brand new but it ’ s made in the same way as those Depression-era guitars , with the same body style and wood . I ’ ve had shitty guitars that are similar but this one is nice and new and it stays in tune . Most of the things I buy are old and quirky so whenever I buy a new one it ’ s kind of sterile . It hasn ’ t had frequencies reverberating in it for fifty years . [ To break in a new guitar ] I just play it . When some people buy a new one , I ’ ve heard they ’ ll hang it in the closet and play white noise at it for a week to get all the frequencies vibrating in the wood and make it sound different . It ’ s super cheesy .