← Daring Creativity
Daring Creativity
Pursuit of creative philosophy in music and filmmaking - Robert Summerfield
00:53:57
Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:01]
Radi Malinich
Before we start today's episode, let me tell you about my latest adventure. Introducing Lax Coffee Company, a specialty grade coffee company inspired by creativity and creatives. The debut range is sourced from some of the best farms in Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Africa, offering beautiful flavors and notes. Our single origins and house blends are roasted every Monday. For next day shipping, visit luxcoffee.co.uk and use code podcast for 15% off your first order. And yes, there's exceptional merge too. Lux Coffee Company is where art meets exceptional coffee.
- [00:51]
Robert Sommerfield
So I really had this moment where I was like, okay, why don't you dive into this mission of making other voices audible and like putting your creative energy into making other stories and especially just like voices heard on different platforms. And since I made that my mission, things just started happening, which, I mean, I'm rooted in realism. So I go in to do the work and I rarely sit and look out of the window and I'm like, what is the universe telling me? But I can say that since the moment where I decided to shift my perspective of what messaging am I going to put forth, things just started working out and started getting more and more opportunities to tell other people's story.
- [01:39]
Radi Malinich
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radi Malinj and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures in the creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles, how they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in the 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. You ready? My guest today is a filmmaker, musician and a storyteller. He studied documentary filmmaking at the International Film School in Cologne, journalism at the University of Vienna, and jazz at the Conservatory of Vienna. His storytelling spans linear and digital television, radio and film, earning him many awards and accolades. His songwriting and music production under several monikers has counted millions of plays across streaming platforms. In our deeply introspective conversation, we explore his journey from a philosopher's son to a jazz student, songwriter and documentary filmmaker. This episode reveals how his early exposure to philosophical thinking shaped his approach to music and storytelling, leading to a creative evolution that prioritizes serving others over self expression. It's my pleasure to introduce Robert Sommerfield. Hey, Rob, it's great to see you. How are you doing today?
- [03:36]
Robert Sommerfield
Great to be here. I'm doing very well for sure.
- [03:39]
Radi Malinich
It's one of those sessions that I was so looking forward to do because I've been hounding you for this for months, if not a year. So I'm glad I pinned you down and I got you to talk about your wonderful work that you do in all sorts of different medias. For those who have may never heard of you, how would you introduce yourself?
- [03:57]
Robert Sommerfield
I'd say I'm a filmmaker, musician, mixed media artist. I try to combine different formats, but I have a formal background in music and journalism and kind of ping ponged in those spheres my whole life. And right now it's probably film first and trying to churn out music every year. But definitely, I'd say it's the filmmaker's phase.
- [04:22]
Radi Malinich
Beautiful concoction of influences and interest and information. So let's rewind it back a bit. Creativity. When did it come across your life? What was your first awareness of creativity?
- [04:34]
Robert Sommerfield
Probably growing up. My dad was born in Chicago, so he brought the blues and music into my house. He was also a philosopher. It was always about finding the music in things. Not just music, but also finding the music in thought, meaning, like some kind of poetic sensibility. So again, I think as a kid you dance around different things. And I think at the age of 11, I had my first vocal lesson with a mom of a friend of mine. She's an opera singer. And I was this kid bouncing around everywhere and now I had to stand next to a piano and sing. But I loved it. I did piano next to that. Didn't love it as much and kind of like faded that out after a couple of years. But I learned enough to get into playing and singing. I guess almost every musician in their teens have this John Mayer phase where you're like, oh my God, singing and playing the guitar. That's the shit. I want to do that. So I made it through school, wanted to study music, had my eyes on that. Wanted to do something next to music also. But early 20s, didn't quite know yet. So I started studying music in Vienna, did the conservatory, did jazz and yeah, I think that was an important phase of finding out what the format is. Started with music and ventured into other things.
- [05:59]
Radi Malinich
I'd say I like that you mentioned John Mayer phase.
- [06:02]
Robert Sommerfield
It's kind of like you want to say songwriting was born out of my own personal moments, but I know so many people who, if you talk to them for a couple of hours, they're like, yeah. And then I heard Mayer play like, Gravity or Daughters, and I knew, I want to write music. So, yeah, that was that.
- [06:20]
Radi Malinich
That's an interesting influence. I think what you really mentioned with your dad being a philosopher, that's a really hidden nugget. Because I've known you for a while, I don't know everything about you, but I'm liking when I can put together and when I can join the dots a little bit. And I think the way you write music, the way you write lyrics, they are not Daughters of Gravity. There's good lyrics in Gravity. Let's be honest. I think John Mayer wishes that Daughters wasn't exactly. He said, that's a track 11. That's not a Grammy winning song for him. But let's talk about your dad's influence and philosophy because you've gone through this phase, obviously, like, you're wanting to be John Mayer face. And then you study in conservatory in Vienna, you study in jazz. So we get a little bit serious, a little bit more technical. But with that kid bouncing around and not necessarily wanting to stand by the piano. Like, what was your dad's influence on actually having the music be more explained or haven't been more sort of weighed behind it in terms of actual philosophy and meaning?
- [07:15]
Robert Sommerfield
I think the. The philosophy part probably really came into view for me when I started writing music. Right when you have this alchemy of emotions in your teens and you're like, I don't know where this is coming from. And then your dad, I don't know, shoves over books on existentialism and you're like, okay, I don't really the completeness of this, but certain fragments make a lot of sense. Especially maybe not avoiding depths and darknesses and embracing melancholy. I think that was really important to see how different people in the history of thought deal with issues, deal with big question marks in life. So, like, yeah, he gave me a book. I screened it, found something. Bertrand Russell on developing thought. Or my dad was really big into logic. And then you're like, okay, love isn't logical, but maybe there's a way to write a song about trying to find logic in love, possibly. And then you kind of get it together. Philosophy and music, I think it's very subconscious, but I think what it did, in essence, is light this fire of writing something that has some depth, I think, and that kind of tackles more complex emotions.
- [08:32]
Radi Malinich
Do you remember how you felt when you wrote the first Lyrics, when you wrote the first chord progression, when you kind of like, oh, this is me. You all have these sort of starts when we go, maybe this is not good enough. But when the music makes you feel something, when you feel like it's coming together, do you remember that feeling?
- [08:48]
Robert Sommerfield
For me, it was actually tied to my first concert. I haven't thought about this for probably 25 years now. It was this final concert where I was organizing basically the school band for, like, graduation or something. And part of it was like a repertoire of known music, but then also some originals. They were like, if you have some music, you can just play it. And I remember being like, okay, if you write this now, at least your school is going to hear this. Including probably, like, your secret crush. Everybody will know it's about her, possibly. So you probably have to hide what you mean. Which is interesting, because it seems like if you start off artistically, you try to hide behind things. And that's also a theme that continued on across music and film. For me, really understanding what you're doing here, if you're, like, creating a smokescreen and it's just happened so quickly that you created this smokescreen out of metaphorical imagery, possibly in music, or a smokescreen of complexity also, that's something with starting off writing music, you're like, okay, I want to create these harmonies. I gotta go Joni Mitchell on this. And it needs a lot of callous to be like, okay, no, I'm gonna make this really simple. Yeah, I remember to come back. I remember there was this concert, they were like, if you have original music, you can play it. I was like, oh, God, yes. The first possibility. So now I gotta write some music. And that's. I think that was the drive of being like, I'm not just writing this for my lonely bedroom, but for an audience. And that's how it started.
- [10:30]
Radi Malinich
That's interesting. I wonder about you, because this is interesting, because I thought you would already like the way you started explaining the answer. I thought you already had some music written, but now we had an opportunity actually to perform some of your music. You're like, I'm going to make it happen. That is bravery. How old were you?
- [10:45]
Robert Sommerfield
The whole process started, I think, when I was, like, 16 or something. And before that, just dabbling, singing. And I think getting the info that I could create this curated concert at 16 or it was like one and a half years later, I was like, okay, I have this thing, so I better piece together my scraps of music and lyrics.
- [11:06]
Radi Malinich
Yeah, that's incredible. How did it go? Did everyone find out it was a bio crash?
- [11:11]
Robert Sommerfield
I don't know. It's a tunnel. I can tell you how it ended. It ended with Rage against the Machine playing that F you I won't do what you tell me. That was like our end theme. So it ended on a high note, which is good. That's the only thing that I have in memory, really, to be honest about.
- [11:25]
Radi Malinich
That evening, that's absolutely hilarious. So you've gone on from all of this experience. You've decided to go on to study in Vienna and you study in conservatory. What was that world like? Then you actually. You can't keep it loose with jazz. You can keep it loose, but you need to know your basics before you can start being loose. What did that feel like?
- [11:44]
Robert Sommerfield
It was daunting because coming from songwriting, I wanted to study jazz to be able to write more colorful music. I'd say expand my palette and I already had that. I think lyrically, like, I knew I didn't want to write middle shelf, top shelf kind of lyric. I wanted to go and dig a little bit, but I really didn't have the arsenal of harmonic possibilities and tools. So I auditioned in Vienna. It was this really typical standing in front of strangers and putting your soul out there kind of moment. That worked out. And it was hard because the reality is most kids have the feeling that go to music school are already like halfway through music school before getting there. Right. You have your pianists and guitar players who hear everything, nearly everything. And with hearing, they can tell you exactly what type of chord plus extensions, meaning added notes are played. And you're just thrown into that mix. And then you're sitting there and you have to actually learn to hear and identify music for the first time. Yeah, it was a storm. Because you basically learn that you know so little, which can be. As a grown up person, you're like, that's awesome. That's a good feeling. I want that in my life. I never want the learning to stop. But when you're like a young person, you're like, no, I want to show what I know. And so that was rough. Sitting there and being like, yeah, I don't hear this chord. What are you talking about? It's dark. Yeah, this court is dark. I don't know. It's a minor, sharp, whatever.
- [13:15]
Radi Malinich
Did that play on your confidence as you just described? Like, when we get older, we enjoy not knowing much. We enjoy that opportunity to realize, you know what? No one knows everything. I've got chance to explore it. Whereas when you add that tender age of 20 plus, not even that, and you're like, oh, my God, there's better people. And when you talk about people who can hear a chord and with the extensions, whenever I watch rick Beato on YouTube and it's, yeah, that's a C7 sharp, SUS4 9. And like, what. And what is really interesting from my experience being in death metal band, grunge band, like, we didn't really think there was an extension. You just move your fingers on the fretboard, you're like, yeah, this is a standard chord. And I just got moved my finger. So it sounds weird. Like, we didn't think that this was it. Again, when he's describing some of the older music, oh, yeah, this is a harmony. I don't think that Jerry Cantrell and Lane Staley were really thinking about that, doing a sus 7 plus 9 or whatever. I think it was just a feeling. And I think the feeling of creativity of music is the most rewarding thing, most rewarding outcome, because that was the reason why. Do you remember when you wrote your first lyrics and stuff? Because being in the band always said, it's not trying to work with clients. Like, you're in a band with lots of people and you need to agree on something, you know, like. But, oh, but when it comes together, you're like, it's the best feeling in the world. So you were thrown in a deep end, but you threw yourself in a jazz deep end. What about the studies? What did that go for?
- [14:38]
Robert Sommerfield
We'll be back after a quick break.
- [14:41]
Radi Malinich
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your creative journey, you can pick up one of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding, graphic design, illustration, all the way to Career business advice with ideas how to navigate the highs and lows of the creative creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show notes. Any day should be a new book day.
- [15:25]
Robert Sommerfield
You have your mixture of courses, right? You have your instrumental course, which in my case was voice. You have your secondary instrument like piano, guitar. And then you have these speciality courses, yeah, advanced reading, listening, like the training of the ear, basically, that was daunting. And I knew the purpose of why I was there, which was I just want to write better songs. So I didn't go in being like, I Want to be the next best jazz musician in the world because whatever is, there's no such thing. So I always got back to that north that I was pursuing. But. And that kind of sparked also a new phase of writing music, possibly as a way of combating the uselessness that I felt in some courses being like, yeah, okay, I can. I'm just sitting here, I'm just soaking in. And at that point, soaking in. I didn't experience that as a gift, but more as, oh my God, what am I even doing here? So I wrote a lot of music actually in that phase, which was pretty good, I think. Experimented a lot, but it's fun. I don't know how it is nowadays, but I can't imagine maybe similar like music on that level, especially jazz. There are different schools, like in everything, art, also film. There are your people, your progressives, there are people who are more traditionalists, there are people in the middle. And while I was there, it was very traditional school looking way back. And to be honest, there was some people with opinion that like good music stopped in the early 70s or something. That was like teachers being like, yeah, nothing of use has been created past 1972 or whatever. That was comical and funny also. And with a distance, funny to see. And also the sport aspect being like, playing fast is good. Let's play this music at 200 something bpm joy spring and see what Coltrane did. If we can do it like the competition, especially open sessions, right? You go to open sessions and everybody's, oh my God, who's that? Yeah, as a vocalist, you're out of the mix anyway because as soon as you step on stage, everybody's, oh God, okay, we gotta play slow, we gotta play vocal music. This isn't soloing scales for 20 minutes. So it was funny seeing the different approaches to music and art.
- [17:52]
Radi Malinich
Yeah, there's definitely snobbery in every discipline. I think I've come across a lot of people who felt that no good music was recorded past 1950s or whatever. And it's easy to buy into the mindset. And I used to grind this opinion on this podcast with my guests who are usually similar race to mind that, okay, the 90s was the best decade in the world. Every teenager will tell you their teenage years was the best decade in the world. So I think is that open mindedness, because yes, you can close yourself off to your outside influences and believe that what you know and what you do and how you do it is the best way to do it. And you can freeze yourself in that time and okay, if that's someone's choice, that's how they do it. And you can see it in design, you can see it in filmmaking or people, when you're curious about what's outside, like, how do you connect to people, that we all keep moving forward. You can preserve something, but everything else is, and everyone else is moving forward. It's like, how do you want to talk to people who are slightly behind on your journey, who will catch up with you and how do you do it? You mentioned you got into journalism. Where did that come from? So obviously you mentioned that you studied jazz because you want to write more colorful music. And again, that speaks about that philosophy side. And I love that you said colorful music. That's a beautiful term, journalism. How did that happen?
- [19:09]
Robert Sommerfield
I think on the surface level of choice it was the do something safe. Ish. To balance out the wild cart, which is studying music and trying to make art, turn art into a viable means of existence. So that was the surface level decision. I think going deeper, it was the foreshadowing, something that happened later on in my life, maybe like five to eight years later, which is I felt that journalism was an outlet to tell stories in a very multidimensional way. I felt that next to the format of music and songwriting at that time, I thought very clear blueprints, meaning, okay, you have a song length of three to four minutes, if you write lyrics and beyond that, what is there? And you have your choruses, whatever song structure. I just saw journalism as a way of looking at culture from a meta perspective and also looking at myself in this music culture from a meta perspective. And that's, I think, why these struggles of music school never really touched me as deeply because then I just switched to journalism and I was like, okay, I think I'm gonna write a thesis on some music related issue that I'm going through that many people are going through or the whole culture is going through. Like transition to technology in culture was something when I studied music was a big thing. Like things like Spotify were emerging and nobody understood it. Not musicians, not people in the industry. And you were stuck in this black box. And then I just switched over to journalism. I was like, okay, let's look at this, let's see. Are there any comparisons that I can make? Walter Benjamin development of cultural technologies. Oh, bingo. That feels good. And in essence, it's, yeah, pursuing something intellectual, but it's also just going into the direction that feels good. It just feels good to emancipate yourself from something. And I think I did that through journalism. New perspective.
- [21:24]
Radi Malinich
I absolutely love that idea that I've got into journalism because that's a safer choice. And I've had guests and friends on this podcast who were on a mission to do one thing, then they were convinced by others not to go into that choice and only to grow into that thing later on in their life. And journalism doesn't seem to me personally like the safer choice because obviously you wouldn't think that when you've got those pushy parents, you're going to be either doctor, accountant or journalist. As if I'm from the stereotypical idea of what's the safe choice. But what I'm loving here is your sort of skill set and the armory of ideas that's sort of driving this eternal curiosity. Okay, I want to write more colorful music. I want to do this. I want to actually get to get into more storytelling. This is great because obviously what you do now, and I won't let you jump there yet, but obviously you work on documentaries and this is like, how do you create a myriad of storytelling? The curiosity, like, how do you decipher this? But before we get into story, before we get into your documentary making. Was Leo a journalist but you start putting out music, would Ashes be the first thing you've ever put out or.
- [22:33]
Robert Sommerfield
No, I did a lot of different music. I mean, it was always like soul based music, I guess, like derivatives of jazz in a sense. No, I did soulful songwriting music. I'd say I did journalism. I did video especially. I did video journalism with the now defunct company Vice in my early 20s and was kind of like video journalism. Paid for my music habit a little bit. So I had to produce my first demo EP to give to labels and whatnot. Didn't have the money, so figured, yeah, obviously kind of work for it. So I worked in video journalism to make money for the demo. Did that. It worked well, you know, if you're in editing, you need rhythm music is what I say with philosophy. I think finding the music in everything is a task that's always relevant. And so, yeah, no, I wrote, I'd say like jazz related soul music while studying jazz. And yeah, then things kind of like took off. Like I said, it was an interesting time. I think it was around 2013, plus minus. It was this time where labels, major labels were still very much. It was part of the lingo, looking for radio singles. That was the thing people said, like ANRs literally said, yeah, I love the music, but do you think you're capable of hitting that radio Single because Spotify playlisting, it just wasn't a thing yet at all. I think the music industry around 2012, 13, I'm bad with dates, but I think it was still reeling from music piracy. So they were happy to get into bed with a legit service like Spotify, but they were still radio. Yeah, it was interesting being in music school and stepping into the industry and discovering that.
- [24:18]
Radi Malinich
I like that you said that you were subsidizing your music from not having a job. I used to subsidize my non existent early design career with DJ gigs. So I literally like to work for free for people and do my development and then go and play a DJ gig to very ungrateful people. Playing them lots of dance floor jazz and like broken beating them. Like, what is this? I'm like, I'm just counting minutes. I just want to get paid and go home and do what I really want to do. What you've mentioned with the singles, it takes us back to John Mayer and maybe that John Mayer might be a running theme on this conversation. Because one of my things on the Internet is this clinic for Berkeley College of music Right from 2000, I think I watched about 20 times. And I always find something interesting in there. And in one of the elements he says, define your expectations. What do you want to be? Do you want to be on the radio? Because if you want to be on the radio, you got three minutes to get everything out. You have to do da da da da da da. And I watched it, let's say within the 15 years of my sort of creative career. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I never define my expectations. I never thought of it that way. I was morphing myself as a creator, as a commercial creative into these spaces that needed me or wanted me. But as a musician, you all of a sudden realize, okay, if I want to be part of or whichever, the machine I'm choosing, it comes with real limitations. Which as a free flowing, philosophical jazz influence artist, you might be thinking, oh, this is a bit unfair. But then you realize actually there's freedom and limitations. Actually I can really find every single edge and corner in the wall within this space. So when you were talking about radio singles, did you ever attempt to write one?
- [26:03]
Robert Sommerfield
Oh yeah. Also out of that clinic, I think there's a statement. You said something like us studying music, like we all hear you, me back in the day, we're all working at not having to finish this school. Kind of. His perspective was if you manage to break into the industry while you're still studying you actually that was the goal of your studies. I'm into learning so I think there's great value in finishing things, finishing studies. But it was a romantic rebel kind of thought being like wouldn't it be cool to study music and then get a deal while you're studying music for your own music. And so that was a goal and that's what I pursued and did. And then yeah, I was lucky. I met this A and R who like he was built the German mainstream, if you can call something like that. Actually he was like a founding guy in German reggae who discovered like the biggest bands in that. I didn't do any reggae but he had a sensibility for warmth and soul. So he signed me with a big company, one of these big companies that look for radio singles and it was free flowing. It was like, hey, you do your thing because that's what I'm interested. But release one or two eps. But then for the album we need those radio singles just to get some exposure. Yeah, I was definitely briefed to do that to create that sort of thing. Which is absurd but depends how you see it. But at that point as like a music rebel trying not to have to finish music studies because you're selling your own music. I found it weird to have to cater to a format that's interesting.
- [27:34]
Radi Malinich
I think there's a quite a few famous songs about the fact that artists get asked to write a love song, a pop song or radio single. I think of Sarah Bareilly's or even Korn. I think it says you all want a single which ironically became a single. And obviously Sarah Bareilly's love song is a very famous song about nudge to write a hit song. But I want to talk about the anatomy of songwriting a little bit more because you talk about expression like some people obviously welcome. I'm sure Chris Martin is very happy to be writing his sing along songs both stadium and full of people in mind. And this must be quite hard to keep up a top of everyone's mind with their sort of no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, like because some bands come and go, some bands come with good stuff and they realize I don't want to do this again, I don't want to write another single, I don't want to write another pop song. Your take on feelings and situation and mix with beautiful cocktail of philosophy and jazz when you get to find yourself could be assigned to a big company and they say can you write us a radio single? Is it easy? Is it counterintuitive Is it the opposite of what you wanted? Because you were never a guy who were going to write a radio single?
- [28:45]
Robert Sommerfield
Yeah, exactly. No, I think it depends on the person, right? Some people are just incredible in writing radio singles. Some people are really bad in writing radio singles for themselves, but really good in writing for other people. And I think that's just like a discovery phase that you have to go through. Me personally, I sucked terribly at writing radio singles for myself. I never wrote a radio single with a goal of writing that. And then it made its way into the radio. It just happened. But I wrote this song before. But that's also, I think part of my way out of the music industry is that for some years I just siphoned into writing music for other people. I was signed as an artist to this big company, but also as an author to the publishing house connected to the label. And yeah, I enjoyed not having to write for myself. And I think that was retrospectively a very important phase in my creative development. Because on the one hand, back in the day, if I think about it, it had a feeling of, am I giving up here? Am I giving up on writing big for myself to make it happen for myself? Am I like demoting myself to the backroom songwriter? Which is awesome. Like that job is incredible. But like those questions, what's happening here? And I think for the first time in my life, I assumed this mindset of putting my craft to service. Right. And that not only opened doors, like I was able to write for really big artists in Germany, travel to places like Scandinavia, work with people that I've never met before, and two, three days in studios, beautiful studios. But I kind of like assumed this mindset of putting myself and my own ego driven path to self expression. Yeah, Maybe putting that to the passenger seat and being like, what can I do to service the voice and the message of this person, whatever that is. And whatever the outcome was, it didn't really matter if the artist was just a pop artist or hip hop or soul. I think it just shifted my mindset to the value of owning your craft and putting this toolbox or service that you built over these many years.
- [31:07]
Radi Malinich
It seems quite selfless and you don't sound conflicted because some people want to be that artist on the stage. Some people want to write their own song so they've got all the royalties so they can buy the big house and be that big rock star. But what you describe it, I think it was sort of this hint of hesitance of I don't want to write a big song for myself, but I'm really happy to write it for other people. Which other people be like, I want to have the big songs. You write it or I write it. But as long as I've got a big song, that's what matters. You don't sound conflicted about this. I think it sounds very interesting because you think of people like Max Martin, they talk about, like the numbers game, like the how many syllables and how to break down and kind of stuff like that. I believe that music, just like everything else, is mathematically possible to create. How to appeal to us, how we are hardwired, just like you can do with other stuff. But your feeling about this, was it not a development stage? Was it the right things for you? Because again, to write for other people, that's a lot of confidence, am I right?
- [32:08]
Robert Sommerfield
I think it was more playfulness. It needed confidence. But I think I got the confidence through just being put into the situation. I think it also had to do with the fact that in that phase of my life, I was also realizing that I'm going to switch formats and what I do. It was a transitional phase where I was like, okay, I have the feeling that this music thing is. Is something that I'm going to do my whole life as an artist. I am like, I have that commitment to myself. But I had the feeling that I was getting back into film heavily. I was getting more and more interested into that again. So there wasn't as much weight lifted upon these situations, being in these rooms with music artists or labels, because I was like, if this works out, it's fine and it's fun, but I have my eyes set on a different path that I'm going to transition into or pivot into, or let's say rekindle, maybe. I'm talking about like my mid to late 20s here, right?
- [33:06]
Radi Malinich
Yeah.
- [33:06]
Robert Sommerfield
There was less pressure because I knew I'm steering somewhere else slowly, maturely.
- [33:10]
Radi Malinich
How do you start writing for other people? Because the reason why I asked you about confidence is that you come in dead blank like you're in a studio, and unless I don't know the ins and outs of the sessions. But to come up with something on the spot, you're not gonna wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and say, I've got this idea for this artist now. Because if you're there, you have to deliver, right? You have to deliver and you have to be there. So your study of jazz music and sort of the experiences of writing for yourself, how did that Feel. Did it feel like being exposed, or is other sessions quite fruitful that you find that answer fairly easy? What does that feel like?
- [33:47]
Robert Sommerfield
I think it all has to do with the vibe of a room, right? With trust. Trust your instincts. With writing music in these settings, it was all just about playfulness and fooling around, having fun with words, with sound, not trying to go for the Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, but being like, let's do something very simple, easy, without, like, an iceberg of meaning under it. But let's just be guided by intuition, because oftentimes it's right. Whatever thought you have through whatever medium, even though it feels intuitive to you and kind of like, okay, that was the first thing on the top of my mind. I think what we don't think about is the cosmos of thought and experience that's built beneath this intuitive little thought, Right. To arrive at this one thought, which seems meager, you had to go through phases of experience and melancholy or highs and lows. And I think even simple thoughts like lyrics or film ideas or just instincts are built on a lot more depth than we think, but it's kind of, like, stored beneath. So I think at some point I was like, yeah, this is just child's play, what we're doing here, in terms of simple rhymes, whatever. But I don't know. Fifteen years of writing songs led me to this point of doing this in a very childlike fashion. It's not built on nothing here. What's happening?
- [35:21]
Radi Malinich
Okay, I think the most important thing you said is the 15 years is that, like, having the wealth of knowledge of how we can do this. Because it sounded like you cleared a level that it was like, you can do this. Because you and I got to know each other because of Spotify. Your music being on Spotify. I found one of your songs in Discover Weekly, because I've. I've got three different accounts on Spotify. One of them got hijacked by my wife and my kids, so that's gone out of. Because I very much enjoyed having the algorithm that finds you more of what you like. I think we always say, algorithm does this, and that shows me the same on Instagram. But I love that I trained the algorithm to show me really good music. And you showed up in one of her songs, and it was one of the 30. I used to send songs, links to one of my sisters. And I carried on with my life, and she replied to me the next day, hey, I've been listening to Ashes all day long. And I'm like, let's have a look, let's have a look. And I listen to your stuff and I'm like, oh my God. I found the depth and the layers and everything that you've been describing here. I was like, I'm gonna tell him. I'm going to tell him. His music is amazing. And that's how we became friends. Because of the technology that we have, which, you know, you're critical thinking about emerging trends for, for musicians like Spotify, the world is changing, the world is moving. There's a lot of discomfort about how rich Daniel Ek is right now, but he's created a tool, he's created a media company. Just because you have to see it from this sort of slightly harsher perspective. Just because you published a song somewhere in Alabama, you live in your parents house and you publish five songs on Spotify, that doesn't mean that you need to get $20 per one play. Like I think we can choose to be on the Internet and we can choose to do things that work to advantage. So I think for Spotify, Spot and Identify I think makes sense because it's like a public service in a way. It doesn't pay well, but it gets be profound. I think that's, I think was one of the best things that you know for our friendship that we go to meet and we go to chat and we done some work together. But I discovered your first episod. Sierra, right? Sierra and Lagoa limited is one of the standout songs that still blows my mind. It still blows my mind in many different ways. The whole EP is incredible and I think you still should be proud of it, just like with everything that you put out. But you mentioned that Laguna was written for your dad, is that right?
- [37:46]
Robert Sommerfield
Yeah, it was written after my dad passed away and it was actually written Place of solace. Yeah. The message of the song is this. The creation of spaces where good things prevail, I'd say. And yeah, out of that kind of abstract thought the song was written.
- [38:06]
Radi Malinich
I absolutely adore your lyrics because we got to work together on the visuals for your second episode and it was Technicolor love. It was the first single. And I read your lyrics then and I've read them recently and I'm like, how did he write this? Because it's abstract, it's got meaning, it's a modern poetry. I just absolutely adored the way you write lyrics. But what's your process? Do you write things as you see them? Is it a reflection to part of your sort of journalistic view on seeing people's stories or is it sort of where you're projecting, like how do you write lyrics and how do you see what was the projection?
- [38:42]
Robert Sommerfield
That song was about finding meaning in normalcy. I think it was about these very normal moments that kind of, if you're in the grind of life, just wash by. Which is something I think that I have to make myself realize constantly is what that song was about was writing, finding beauty, like in a supermarket, basically. And I write songs with music also the same way I do film, which is I have some harmony or some melody. Usually it's harmony, it's coming from jazz. If you align harmony in a way that you like, the melody is also evolves out of that. Especially if you don't. If you go beyond, let's say your standard four chord songs and you throw in certain functions, then you limit yourself of what melodies can be. Limit yourself. You kind of like guide your ear towards where melody can go. I'd say. So I just sit down and associate freely. Write the music, vocalize, and then with the melodic movement. Lyrics just happen.
- [39:59]
Radi Malinich
So do you do that thing when you've got your melody and then you just do abstract words. You put notes into the chord structure and then you put more color in it. Is that how you do it?
- [40:08]
Robert Sommerfield
Yeah. And I mean syllables. Depends. At some point, obviously the lyrics and the melodies, they dance and then first it's the melody and the melody dictates and it's okay, we only need four words here, or only need. But you know, feels right to place four words here. And then at some point you're like, okay, but in these four words I can't express what this color can express. So it has to be this sentence or this verse and then the melody is adjusted obviously to create space for that.
- [40:39]
Radi Malinich
Tell me about artistic expectations. Because there's a lot of new albums come out very often from very famous artists. People like, yeah, I wasn't expecting this. I don't like this. This is not what I wanted. Like what did you mean? What did you want it? I think that sort of whole thing like, oh, what? Why? Because we evolve as humans, as creatives, we evolve in our way how we think. In your personal evolutionist sort of recording artists and the name of Ashes, I call it Full Grow album, a full length album was a departure from that mellow, jazzy down tempo. When I heard it, when you shared the demos with me, I was like, this feels right. I wanted more of the downbeat mellow because that's a selfish perspective. Like I want the Music that's really suitable for some of the moods of my life. But what you produced, it changed perspective of what I expect your music to be. And it's packed with the most amazing vocals, lyrics, hooks. And I was just like, oh, my word. This is. In my opinion, this was your radio singles. But how do you feel that perception of an expectations of public and your listeners to what you produce or generally like how music's produced and is there a weight behind it?
- [41:47]
Robert Sommerfield
I produced and wrote this last album, or already in this transitional phase of I'm going back to journalism, getting really into documentary film. So I was kind of like, okay, why not write music and produce music that can serve as a backdrop to visual things that I'm creating. And I wanted to, yeah, create music that has a spectrum of, like, these steepness, but also uptempo energy, thinking, like putting music into a film, basically. It's hard to create an interesting film that runs from one upbeat moment to the next and they're just competing. You need different pockets of lows to create these ramps of elevated feeling. So I approached this album with film in mind, being like, why not create something? I don't know yet if I'll need it, but why not create an album where I'm certain that possibly with future films that I do, I don't have to look for music or let a composer compose music and be like, okay, I produced this album. I have all the stems here. I can mute my vocals, I can put my vocals in. And actually, that worked out not just for me. Like, I did that in films, but also colleagues of mine, filmmakers, they approached me, they were like, hey, this one song, could I use it? Can it be like the credit roll song of my film? And I was like, of course, that's what it was intended for. I think it worked out.
- [43:14]
Radi Malinich
It's a fantastic way of seeing things because I think when you've got that in mind, that a bigger output and bigger outcome and, like, what it can be, I think that's what makes it work last so much longer. I can put my hand up asking you for theme tune. One of your tracks was a theme tune for the previous season. And yeah, I can't wait to use some of more of your music for everything that we do next in the future. But we've been flying, hovering over your documentary work. You've given us a really nice segue of, okay, I'm thinking how I can put this into practice and into action. So documentaries, we've been talking about storytelling. This kind of brings us onto that kind of conclusion of what you're creating now. So what type of documentaries do you do now and how did you get into it and what was the sort of inkling behind it?
- [43:59]
Robert Sommerfield
That's an excellent question. What type of documentaries? It's obviously all centered around societal topics and people dealing with issues and realities that have some kind of universal. Yeah, I'd say connect. I'm definitely not a niche filmmaker. I don't concentrate on nature films, I don't concentrate on work related films. I do love cultural, like crossing cultural borders. I love introducing perspectives into my world that I've never perceived. But it's a general statement. I guess that's why you do documentary film. This feeling of putting myself to service, I think that's at the core of why I started documentary film. And also I've been a vocalist all my life. So in essence, what I've been doing is turning up the volume on my own voice and trying to beat the white noise of media by means of song and vocals. So I really had this moment where I was like, okay, why don't you dive into this mission of making other voices audible and like putting your creative energy into making other stories and especially just like voices heard on different platforms. And since I made that my mission, things just started happening, which, I mean, I'm rooted in realism. So I go in to do the work and I rarely sit and look out of the window and I'm like, what is the universe telling me? But I can say that since the moment where I decided to shift my perspective of what messaging am I going to put forth, things just started working out and started getting more and more opportunities to tell other people's story.
- [45:35]
Radi Malinich
You've used this word a few times throughout a conversation as the word service. So when you were writing for other people, you use it as a service. You're talking about how can you be of service to others and how we can amplify their voices. And it's that beautiful way of when we let go and offer our skillset, as you said, things started to change. Things start to happen. What was the feeling like when you were starting giving opportunities to other voices? What was your first array into world of documentary? And yeah, what was that like? Because all of a sudden you're working with a lot more audio, visual content and obviously a lot more moving parts and a lot more sort of identities and egos in the place. So how does that work from being in the studio and having almost like a child's play, having fun with silly songwriting in A way and then going actually and talking about more of a societal issues and more stories.
- [46:26]
Robert Sommerfield
It got very cerebral. I didn't start by doing, I know, portraits about things that just happened in front of my door. I got involved with a type of foundation, like a humanitarian foundation, where I basically developed a little doc series about people around the world who are tackling challenges in global health. So I was entrusted in finding people and kind of like change makers in the field of global health who have different projects that basically elevate their communities. And that project was filmed between Kenya, Rwanda and Germany with different projects that have also this cross border approach, meaning there's collaboration between, for example, Germany or the States and Kenya and Rwanda. And I was just mind blown by the energy, by the capability of people worldwide to make things happen in a space that has a lot more moving parts than me writing a song and pitching it to a label. I thought that was hard. And then I realized, oh, wow, there's a whole new level of complexity to creating an NGO to deal with a topic. Fundraising, doing advocacy and politics. Yeah, I was just astounded by the capability of these people. And so I was thrown into this kind of complex field of global health and I filmed in these countries with different people and I became a learner again. I'd say it was back to this drawing board that I experienced. Starting to study art, I was again in the position of knowing more about complex processes. After finishing each film project, which was really, really awesome, all of a sudden these kind of like articles in journals or news articles about malaria started making a lot of sense to me and I realized, oh, okay, this is something that activates things in my brain that haven't been activated while I was in this bubble that I was in for a lot of years. Yeah, very stimulating.
- [48:38]
Radi Malinich
Sounds like an interesting chapter that got unlocked through surveys. And I think that's one of the most fascinating things that in early sort of careers, especially when you were writing the music as a 15 year old, 16 year old, to say, okay, I'm going to write my first song and perform it in front of this school before we bang out the killing in the name we change. And I think this is the beautiful way of being eternally curious, like how we can form into these things that open ourselves. Because you mentioned in your early twenties you didn't know exactly what artist you wanted to be, what you wanted to do that could be seen from people who think, let's do something sensible like journalism that could be seen like, come on, you need to know what you want to do. Whereas the older we get, the more we realize that actually I can be anyone tomorrow. I can literally take every piece of wisdom, skill set, understanding of how things work, and I can change and actually create a whole new career because we don't have to be changed to these things. So would you say this sort of new. It's not necessarily new, but would you say this different view of the world has now influenced the way you write songs or think about music or songwriting? Because I know that you bubbling a few things in the background, but obviously they're not as prevalent in your life as they used to be once upon a time. But is that an inkling to rhyme of societal influence lyrics, or is it easier to actually just go and escape for a bit and write things that are closer to the soul?
- [50:02]
Robert Sommerfield
No, I think I don't have the agency of now transporting what I'm doing with doc work into music. I love exploring artists. Like, for example, I did one jazz album about the repertoire of Joni Mitchell. So I think I'm really interested in exploring, yeah. Different repertoires, seeing how they fit into traditions, into societal phases and happenings and movements. And I think that's the way I do approach music. But now music still is very much a. I try to keep it intuitive. I try to really act out the cerebral part of my craft in documentary film, where, yeah, you obviously have to. And I try to use music as an intuitive harbor. And that works quite well because some people can roll on cerebral thought all day, every day. But me personally, I need these pockets of and activating different parts of my brain. And it's also different when I do film. There's an. There's different agency to it. I think I don't have that agency in music when I do doc film. I really have the agency of shining some light on underrepresented or stories that are neglected by mainstream views and whatnot. And in music, it's not about creating this kind of shedding light on something. I think it's actually just about doing it. Music for me is a lot more just about being in the moment and not where the music is going to land eventually.
- [51:34]
Radi Malinich
I think, Peter, for what says it's intuitive, the music is intuitive and it's pockets of different things because through many conversations on this podcast and you speak to some celebrated figures and they're like, yeah, I only create for two hours a day or only do this for a while or I need to be in a young of the balance. Because when you're 15 years old, before you even have the John Mayer face, you're thinking, I'm going to be creative every day. I'm going to be in studio every day. I'm going to do that every day. And you realize that is impossible. No one's good at endless. Well, you know, even Max Martin is surrounded by about another 19 people helping him to do this stuff because not everyone's got that gold every day because we're not always aligned with this. So I like to use the word intuitive because I think that's pretty much what got you to where you are today. So, Rob, enjoy learning more about you, more about your process. I'm excited about what you do next. And yeah, thank you for making what you've made already and what you're going to make in the future because it's a music close to my heart and I cherish the fact that we can be, as a result of it, friends. So thank you.
- [52:34]
Robert Sommerfield
Likewise. Thank you so much for the invitation.
- [52:46]
Radi Malinich
Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions or even suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Rad and Malinich. Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil McKay from 7 Million Bikes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. Foreign Just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or your regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.