by Mandy
While Mike’s roots were in classical piano, he began picking out popular songs playing on the radio through the boom box in his bedroom when he was in the 8th grade. He soon taught himself to play over 200 songs, and he credits this gradual development of the knowledge of song structure as a basis for which he learned to write his own music. Since then, he’s developed by leaps and bounds as a songwriter, but the man just can’t settle on being good at one thing. He’s always had a deep need to create, whether it is pleasing to the ear, eyes, or soul.
Your wings are a whir
delicate engines
transporting you
forward backward sideways around
and into stillness.
You levitate
before a purple beauty, drink
what the gods have offered
you.
The Interview:
Kita: What type of artist are you?
Mike: Well, I do a lot of things. I grew up playing piano, so I’ve been doing that all my life. I started writing songs in high school. And I’m a writer, poet, and singer. Those things kind of developed later. I never envisioned myself to be a singer, though, until a few years ago. And I did photography too, although I didn’t study it formally. A lot of these things I just picked up on my own.
Kita: Did you start out with classical piano?
Mike: Yes, my mom was actually a piano teacher, so she started giving me lessons when I was four years old. Then when I was in the eighth grade, my parents wanted me to take lessons from this woman who was a professional music teacher, and she was very good. She had taught at the Leningrad Conservatory, and then immigrated. She had guest soloed with the Minnesota Orchestra, so she was top notch, and also very demanding. I didn’t like it, I felt too much pressure. Finally, at the end of the year, my parents let me quit. That was pretty much the last time I played classical. I started thinking, “You know, it would be great if I could just play stuff on the radio.” So I would just try to play along, and I would record songs on a tape recorder, and I would try to pick out the bass line, and really learn those songs. And within a few years, I had learned a couple hundred songs. I never knew the names of the chords. I didn’t have music theory, but I discovered right away that I had a really good ear. In the process of doing that, I learned the structure of songs. I couldn’t articulate how to structure a song, but I just knew it. I tried for years to write a song, and I just couldn’t do it. And then one day, I sat down at the piano, and this song popped out. I wrote it in about half an hour.
Kita: At what point did you start focusing on this for yourself and not your parents?
Mike: In the eighth grade, for sure. Because then playing got to be really fun. I took refuge in music. I was not happy that year. I was pretty depressed. I was very shy, and I kind of went into my own world, and music was a big part of that. It might have limited my social development, but it also saved my life in a lot of ways. My parents were supportive. They always wanted me to be involved in music. They didn’t like pop or rock music at all, but they liked my piano playing.
Kita: Since it was them who really got you into this, did all your siblings play as well?
Mike: Pretty much. She [my mom] tried to teach everyone piano. A couple of them didn’t stick with it. I’m the oldest of eight, and I think about three of them didn’t stick with it.
Kita: So, when you hit that point of writing your own stuff, what became your biggest goals at that point?
Mike: I really wanted to be a songwriter. I didn’t ever anticipate being the greatest piano player, and I didn’t practice enough to be a great piano player. I did what was fun for me, and I wanted to be good enough that I could play in a band. But the thing I really wanted to do was write songs. So I always looked for opportunities to write songs to get other people to sing and find some way to record. I thought about having a career in music for quite a while. I have my undergraduate in psychology, and I started grad school. I went to Northwestern for a year, for their PhD program, and then I didn’t like it. I took a leave of absence from that program with a pretty solid idea that I might not go back. I worked for a year, and thought very seriously for a few months about just giving up psychology and just being a songwriter. And then, I realized that I did like psychology and that it was more practical, so I went back into grad school.
Kita: Do you feel that since that point, have you reached any significant goal steps along the way?
Mike: Not at all to the degree that I would like. I haven’t gotten a song well recorded, and I’d really like to do that. I don’t necessarily want to be a performer, although I started going after it a few years ago. There are some things about performing that I really like, and I wanted to take that seriously. But for me, the greatest joy is creating. I’m not satisfied with just creating, and I want to get it into a form where other people are hearing it, whether I’m singing it or someone else is. And I haven’t got that yet. People hear the songs and they like them and I get positive feedback, and that’s great. But I also want something more.
Kita: What has been the biggest struggle you’ve had to deal with?
Mike: Being able to make that transition, and wondering if I can get to that place where I’m making money. I would be really happy if I could just do my creative projects, full time. So how you make that transition…I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. I was ready to go sell my house and live out of my truck in the wilderness so I’d have more time to write. And I decided that six weeks before the economy tanked back in 2008, and by the time I got my house on the market, it was too late. And then I got cancer, right after that, and that changed everything. Now I’m really glad I still have the house. I really needed it, it turns out. So I’m happy with my life. I’m still struggling to figure out how to carve out enough time to do the projects that I want to do. And the other big struggle is that there are a lot of things that I like to do, and I would probably have gotten farther if I had just focused on one thing. But I don’t’ regret trying all the things that I have.
Two years ago, I took a class on creative nonfiction, and started working on a memoir. So now I’m working on a poetry book and a memoir and all these songs. I’m still hopeful that someday, I am going to be able to do more with all of the things that I’m doing.
Kita: You’ve really become a jack-of-all-trades.
Mike: Yes! There are ways in which all of those things come together. For example, poetry was one of those things that I had never really considered. And then one day, I was out watching a hummingbird and I started writing a poem. I’d only written a few poems in my life, and by this point, I was in my forties. I got to the end of the poem, and I was surprised by this line. It was, “For you I would be a poet.” It just jumped out at me! There was something deep inside that was evoked by this experience and the poet inside just woke up. I wrote sixty-five poems over the next year and a half. That’s kind of how my artistic path has been; here, there, and everywhere. The important thing has been to find out that to be happy, I have to be doing something creative. There’s like, this fire in me that has to come out in some form or another.
Kita: Are there more things you still want to try?
Mike: If I had the time, I would like to learn to play the guitar, and I’d like to drum, and learn different styles. I’m working on some ideas on how to bring all these things together, actually.
Kita: Would you say that your art and other business have harmonized well?
Mike: It’s felt more clashing. Although, my training as a psychologist and my experience as a psychologist has influenced my writing, for sure. Because I write a lot about inner landscapes. I studied a lot about that, and that’s what drew me to psychology. And that’s what’s really compelling, I think. What I’ve been doing for the past ten years is psychological testing. It’s a dry, boring kind of writing. So I’ve really felt this strong clash the last several years. But it has also given me the opportunity to live the kind of life that I want. You have to value all those things. And maybe that tension is really important. Somebody said, I think it was Tennessee Williams, “The worst thing that can happen to an artist is success.”
Kita: Do you prefer to work alone or is collaboration more your thing?
Mike: I’ve done both. It’s been interesting to try and collaborate with other people. I think it’s great to encounter other ways of doing things. But I still have had more enjoyment from doing my own thing.
Kita: What or who would you say are your biggest influences?
Mike: In poetry, it’s been Rilke and Mary Oliver. William Stafford. Musically, I grew up playing a lot of Billy Joel. And the blues, I love the blues. I think that musically, I’ve been influenced by a lot of different people so much that it’s probably hard to name any of them. I tried to force myself to write in different styles so I didn’t get stuck in one thing. I even tried to write country songs, which I was never very good at.
Kita: Where would you say you feel most inspired?
Mike: I love to write outdoors, actually. Nature is my biggest inspiration, by far. Especially with the poetry, but even before that with the music. It is just part of who I am, as an artist, and as a person, and I feel this deep connection with the earth. Travel is often very helpful. When I go on a trip and then come back, a song would just pop out. I love the way that Darell Scott, a great songwriter, described it. He just waited until a song came knocking, and then he tried to honor it by letting it out.
Kita: What have been your biggest growth points or epiphanies?
Mike: When I was a senior in high school, there was this guy who came to town. I grew up Mormon, so this was this Mormon guy who was traveling around and doing his show that he had put together. My dad volunteered to drive him around when he came to town, and he brought him over to dinner at our house. My dad never said this, but I’m pretty sure that he did that in order for me to meet this guy. His name was Lynn Bryson. He [my dad] started talking about how I was a songwriter. So we finish dinner and go into the living room, and I play a couple of songs. Lynn said, “Well, I travel all over the country. I’ve heard lots of musicians and writers in the church, and if I had to bet, I would say you are the one who’s going to write the next great church musical.” I laugh about it now, because that’s so far from what I would do at this point in my life, but at that point, it was just, “Wow, he sees that in me!” It was like a bolt of electricity went through me. I just knew that I would do something important in music one day. That was one. I was in a bodywork session with a good friend of mine. I had the sensation of paralysis that started in my head and went down through my body, and it was terrifying. Pretty soon, I just started unwinding, and all these bizarre sounds were coming out of me. I don’t even understand what it was. In the midst of that, it was similar to hearing a voice. It was this sense in my belly. And that feeling took shape into words that were, “You need to sing.” And I was completely against it. I mean anything but that. But I couldn’t deny that. And I knew I needed to sing. That’s why I started taking voice lessons. For some reason that was where my anxiety and fear about that was the strongest. So I had to do the scariest thing. That was a lot of growth.
I want to be bird and flower
drinker and drunk
the opening and opened.
If I cannot be you
I will be my longing.
To contact Mike, call at 8015121352, or email shef_ips@yahoo.com.
Have anyone else you'd like us to chat with? Suggestions are taken in the comments below.
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