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your voice and maintaining the longevity certainly over a tour and not blowing it out because you ' re trying to hear yourself .
Rick - What was the writing process like for “ Grace Street ”? Is there a specific procedure in which you like to follow or do you simply go with the flow ? I read that you used a number of different recording techniques such as wine glasses tuned with a turkey baster ?
Ian - Ya you tune a wine glass with a turkey baster just putting water in and taking water out and getting it to pitch right . You add more water and I think and the pitch goes down , or maybe it ' s up I can ' t even remember now , but ya we just add a take away water until we had basically a G-Major scale and then I just sort of would play with wine glasses , I ' ve never done that before , but I mean that has nothing to do with the writing , that was just an overdub . As far as the writing goes , like you say I just go with the flow and it happens any which way . It sort of always happening it ' s kind if an ongoing thing . I ' m always writing and documenting ideas , sort of like a musical sketch pad if you will , some of them are more done then others and some of them are just a little tid bit of an idea , a little seed and then depending on how done they are I ' ll just sort of revisit them and decide when it comes time to put a record together which ones are going to make the record . Sometimes they ' re pieces of older things that I never thought quite worked and sometimes they ' re brand new . It comes from all different places , you know lyrically I tend to draw on whatever is going on in my life , whatever is sort of closest to the surface . I very rarely do both at the same time .
Rick - How do you find creative inspiration when writing new material ?
Ian - Well that ' s the whole thing , I find writing new material creatively , I don ' t know it ' s hard you need to sometimes trick yourself into being inspired . Sometime it can be something as simple as re-tuning your guitar to a different tuning . I mean there ' s a few different ways and techniques , always have a guitar in your hands , always working always searching and then see if you find one thing that sort of tickles your creativity , that little spark and you have to follow your gut , you owe it to yourself to dig deeper and find out what it is , and then you just document that , you can record it on your iPhone or whatever . Even if it ' s not a complete song that when you go back and revisit it your like ohhh yes ok I remember this feeling that this thing gave me and now I want to flush it out and
push it further .
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Rick - What made you pick up a guitar for the very first time and what made you develop a need to master it ?
Ian - My father bought me a guitar , I think when I was 16 , on my 16th birthday or something and it sat in a closet , I learned a couple of chords and then put it away , maybe my 15th birthdate because I think started playing when I was around 16 , but it just sort of sat in the closet . I had a friend who was a wonderful guitar player and we were hanging out . He started playing and showing me stuff . At that time I was starting to get into Led Zeppelin and he was like oh well that goes like this , I think that was it . Once you realize you can recreate the sound that you hear on a record by these couple simple moves , it was like ohh ok . I think that bit me .
Rick - What was the 1st song you ever learned to play ?
Ian - That is a tough one man . I think " Going to the country " by Bruce Cockburn . I was more of a finger picking guy . Coming from piano I kept dropping the pick in the sound hole . I already had some dexterity in my right hand from playing piano . I went down that route .
Rick - Aside from your incredible vocal abilities , your guitar playing is phenomenal … so tasty with so much feel and emotion . I ’ m so happy that bands like Big Wreck are still using lengthy guitar solos with smart song writing skills , with the occasional prog odd time signature in which I love and keeps it interesting . Unfortunately in today ’ s world a lot of new music IMO sounds fabricated and seem to follow a specific formula making everything sound stale and recycled . I mean who can we say is the next Led Zeppelin or the next Beatles or Metallica ? Do you get that same perception and how do you try to differentiate yourself from the rest ?
Ian - I gave up trying to figure that out a long time ago . Honestly I just concentrate on what I do . I ' d say in maybe the last 6-7 years that ' s sort of been my moto , just going back to what inspires me , and what do I want to hear from a record , what are my favorite
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