[gossip session] | A lifetime of snapshots: An interview with singer-songwriter Jessica Allyn [part 2 of 3]
Cover artwork for I Am a Camera.
(This is the continuation of the interview I’ve conducted with singer/songwriter Jessica Allyn. This is part 2 of 3. Part 1 can be found here.)
Part 2 | I Am a Camera and the writing process:
JMT: As mentioned before, you said that Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood inspired the concept for I Am a Camera. Do you have special preparations when writing lyrics for an album?
JA: I was lucky with this record. There wasn’t that much prep involved. I had always wanted to write a rock musical, but it seemed so far out of reach. And then one day everything fell into place by accident.
JMT: Personally I’ve always written extremely concrete and detailed stories, at times bordering on over-saturation. I like my reader to be fully aware of what is happening, usually because I’m fixing to make them uncomfortable. I noticed the majority of songs on I Am a Camera were written as almost mini-stories. Do you prefer to write in stories/specifics or leave them more ambiguous?
JA: I generally don’t have a plan when I sit down to write. Sometimes I just play, ad-lib and see what I come up with. For the most part it ends up in story form but I find that you can still be ambiguous (if needed). I am definitely an over-sharer and I have to agree with you; I often push it to the uncomfortable edge. Whether it’s in writing or performance I want the audience to feel everything.
JMT: I feel loss and anger are capable of creating much more colorful metaphors. Every artist that’s ever existed knows pain, anger and loss are classic lyrical and poetic themes. You’ve seemed to focus on anger and loss in particular for this record. Do you find those particular emotions to be more conducive for writing?
JA: You are not wrong. I don’t want to sound emo—and I know I’m going to—but anger, loss and abandonment are running themes in my life. I often feel like it’s all I know. I cannot write about something I don’t recognize. Happiness and love (whatever that word means to you) are almost foreign to me. That’s not to say I’m never happy or in love. I just don’t write about it. I don’t know that it’s the healthiest way to go about things but I just get more creative fuel from negative experiences.
JMT: Are you of the mind that a writer has to actually experience something in order to make the story they’re writing believable?
JA: For me, yes. I think some people can be inspired solely by their imagination and I think it’s incredible. But I know I get fuel from real life experience. It feels honest and I like that. So that’s how I write.
JMT: Have you always felt a drive to write down the things you observe? Moreover, observation doesn’t necessarily equal personal experience. You said that writing from real-life experience makes for better writing. Does being so close in perspective ever pose a problem?
JA: I’ve documented just about everything I’ve experienced (personal and otherwise), completely oblivious to fact I was doing it. It wasn’t until a year ago that I realized I had been living my life as a camera. But I’ve been journalistic and writing poetry since I was a child. I think having a tormenting and often lonely childhood provoked the writer in me. It was a way to release. I’ve spent a lot of my life behind a bedroom door just writing. I think I often found myself appalled by human behavior and wanted to express it, but never had anyone to talk to. Writing became that shoulder to cry on in a way. It does become difficult at times to have such an “up close and personal” perspective when writing. It’s hard to not sound biased or cross the line sometimes. I’m still learning how to make it work.
JMT: For an album does the theme usually come first or does your writing tend
to dictate the theme?
JA: My writing definitely dictated the theme of this record, although I generally don’t like to pigeonhole myself to one specific theme or concept when writing an album. With I Am a Camera that Christopher Isherwood line described me perfectly and a few days later I found old scraps of paper with lyrics on them. Thus the concept was born. I was going to go in chronological order, a timeline of my life from age ten to current day, as a camera. This was a very specific project; I don’t think my future projects will be as one note.
(Follow-up: Jessica has since said that I Am a Camera is the first half of what will be a full rock musical: “I think in this case it’s truly concept alone. It’s a rock musical. Or, the first half of what will be a full musical. I really wanted to try out a few songs, see how people reacted and then build from there. So, this was definitely in all it’s insanity and glory, a full concept album. There is possibility of a part two.”)
JMT: Ironically, on your website you mention your attention span is quite short. Does that affect the recording process?
JA: Oddly enough, no. When I’m passionate about something, when I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I immerse myself in it. It becomes my life.
(part 3, including discussion on technology and how it affects artists as well as mental illness, will be posted tomorrow, so check back!)