More Than a Piano, More Than a Song

The Grammy-nominated “Superman” may be John’s best-known composition to date, but it’s far from his only triumph. The song “100 Years,” from his third album, The Battle for Everything, landed in the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100 and was featured in numerous television programs, while his most recent release, Two Lights debuted in the top ten on the Billboard 200. Insightful, introspective, and deeply rigorous in his creative process, John met with us in a New York hotel room to give us a peek inside the mind of this musical superman.

Who were some of your early piano influences?

Growing up when I did, you can’t help but talk about Elton and Billy. My first concert was Billy Joel at the Forum [in Los Angeles]. Being raised as a piano player in those days, I liked Queen’s “Somebody To Love.” Joni Mitchell was playing the piano, and McCartney and Lennon were writing on the piano. The first record I ever owned was a Stevie Wonder record. I just loved them as songwriters. Those folks really got me inspired.

My mom was a graduate of the music school at the University of Southern California. She’s a piano teacher and she started my sister and me early, teaching us the fundamentals. But she was very smart. When I turned 13, I didn’t want to practice. I wanted to go play basketball. She was smart to let me quit, and that’s when I started writing songs. It became fun and something I wanted to do, not something I had to do.

Do you write at the piano?

I write both on guitar and piano. For me, it’s much easier to come up with a melody on the piano than on guitar. Guitar is a much more percussive instrument and I tend to write the rock stuff with it. I write the more melodic stuff on the piano. Up-tempo rock songs on the piano are tough. I admire people who do that.

Can you describe your songwriting process and what role the piano plays?

A lot of songs start as goofing around with a melody. [Plays the opening phrase for “100 Years.”] Just finding a lick and going from there. I basically roll tape — or bytes, these days — put on the headphones, and start going, especially if I don’t have a specific concept or lyric I’m working on. I’ll let it roll for two or three hours, because I don’t want that moment of “Oh, that’s good. Let me stop and write it down, so I don’t forget it.” I want the inspiration to keep going, and a lot of songs, lyrics, come in that state of consciousness, that no man’s land. The work ethic of songwriting for me isn’t the two hours just hammering it out. It’s the going back and listening to the ten hours of what you did the night before, realizing that it sucks and that you have to throw it all away and doing it again the next day. Then hopefully in a month or two, you find a germ of an idea that’s worth pursuing. So much of songwriting is pain and suffering because most of the time, what you do goes in the trash. So much of it is the tedious, going back and wading through 100 hours of work tapes. I like to go to Tahoe to write, and I’ll do the L.A. to Tahoe drive. It’s about eight hours, and I’ll bring my work tapes and listen.

How many songs do you write that don’t make the cut onto an album?

I have to write 100 to 150 songs for a record to get ten I think are worthy. And when I say write them, I mean at least get them to a place where you can evaluate them. Then you get 40 that are okay, then those whittle down. The songwriting process is grueling. “The Riddle” [from Two Lights] is the perfect example. That song took about a year and a half to go from a germ of an idea to being finished, and I still struggle with it, even though it’s done. That song went through 100 permutations. I could literally go on my laptop and show you 100 different lyrics versions of that song. So many times I wanted to quit and throw it away. That’s where the work ethic — and almost masochism — comes in. I’m not going to give up. I’m going to take it as far as it can go.

How long did it take you to write Two Lights?

I’m always two to three years between records. I’ll write for a year and a half or two years, and on this last record, I probably spent nine months writing songs that I ended up throwing away. After those nine months, I listened to everything and wasn’t inspired, so I tossed them and went back to the drawing board.

There’s a reason why songwriters aren’t the happiest people you’ll ever meet. It’s tough. You get more critical of yourself, and your range of acceptability shrinks, and for some people, it shrinks to zero, and that’s why they quit or go crazy. It’s hard. You try to do something the best way you can with the skills you have, and then you go listen to a Leonard Cohen lyric and are like, “What the hell am I wasting my time for?”

There’s also a joy, when you think you write a worthy song, and you play it from beginning to end for the first time. And that experience really makes up for a lot of the pain and suffering. And if you’re one of the blessed few for whom, for whatever reason, the stars align and people are allowed to hear your music, when somebody sings your words back to you, or you see that a song you wrote makes an impact on someone’s life, that inspiration and that kind of feedback gives you the energy to do it again.

What advice can you offer to songwriters in the Keyboard community?

I have a three-step plan. First, it’s important to write a lot of songs. I see too many people shopping the same tape for three years with the same three tracks. I wrote 500 songs before I felt I got a good song. Not everybody has to do that, but always keep writing.

Second, record your songs. I don’t care if it’s just you singing into a little Walkman. Record your songs so you can document them and listen back. Every night I’ll sit at a piano and think I wrote “Let It Be.” And I’ll wake up the next morning and listen back and go, “F**k.” It’s easy to think you have achieved magic in the moment, but record it. Sit down and let the tape roll. Don’t think. Just roll and listen back.

Finally, the thing that teaches you the most about your songs and yourself is playing them in front of an audience, which is also the hardest thing to do. If it’s not working, you’ll know by the end of the first chorus. You can’t get that sitting alone in a room. With every tour, I’ll go out and do some acoustic shows by myself at a piano. It keeps you grounded and you can’t hide behind the lights, behind the band, or behind a hit. What we do is, I believe, a very honorable profession, and it takes a lot of balls to go out and sing your songs that you’ve written for people. Just doing that is reward in itself.

As far as getting a record deal, I can’t say that if you’re the next Bob Dylan, you’re going to go out and get signed. It’s not the NBA, where Michael Jordan is always going to play. It’s the music business. Listen to the radio — the best songs are not on there. Ray LaMontagne is not on the radio. Jeff Buckley is not on the radio. Leonard Cohen is not on the radio. You better love what you’re doing and have a passion for it, because there’s no guarantee of success. Is it still possible to write songs that aren’t trivial and can become popular? I hope so, because that’s what I’m trying to do. There’s a school of thought that says, “If you have a hit, you’re irrelevant.” On the other hand, I grew up on artists who did both well — Lennon and McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Sting and the Police, Bono and the Edge, and Kurt Cobain. You can still write songs that are popular and can last. It’s not all about seeing yourself on the Top 20 Countdown or selling a platinum record.

You have a Kurzweil PC88 here in the hotel room — do you bring that around when you travel? And what other keyboard instruments do you regularly use?

On the road, I bring my laptop and a [Digidesign] Mbox, and I’ll rent a Kurzweil in the room so I can work. I do have a PC88 at home. Yamaha endorses me — after I got my first record deal, I took my entire advance and bought a piano. I couldn’t afford anything more than a C7 acoustic grand, but it’s served me well, to a point where whenever I make a record, and we usually make them out of town, I just bring my piano.

We always end up either renting or buying cheap uprights for different colors. For this record, because I co-produced it, I really wanted to experiment with piano stuff à la Joe Jackson. The theory was, whenever there’s a guitar overdub, can we do it with a piano first, or some other keyboard instrument? I ended up buying a Rhodes, and we had a couple Wurlitzers in the room. I always look for little toy pianos. On the last record, we had a bunch we used in different contexts.

For the road, we bring the Yamaha CP70. As most pianists know, miking a live piano is really hard, especially when you’re playing outside, and the thing goes out of tune so fast.

Do you prefer an acoustic piano?

I’ve heard some great samples, but there’s still nothing like playing a real piano. Every time I can put my hand on one, I do it. It’s everything from the touch to the harmonics to the look. It’s just organic and honest. There’s nothing fake about it.

I like the distinctiveness and expressivity of your piano voicings. Is that something you’ve consciously worked to develop?

That’s a great question and it would come only from this magazine. For me, it’s so important. Piano voicings are your style. Listen to Jimmy Webb. The way that guy voices his chords is crazy genius. Todd Rundgren — those songs do not sound that way without those major sevenths. I spent way more time on this record than any record in the past, after the songs were written, experimenting with piano voicings, because it’s so integral for the color of the songs, and it creates a style. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to sit there and methodically go through things and feel what works. I appreciate that question, just because I put so much effort into trying to voice the songs in a unique way. As a songwriter, I’m much more excited to be known by my piano voicings than my voice, though 99.9 percent of the culture knows me by my voice. If a couple people know me by my piano voicings, that makes my day!

How do you feel about the successes you’ve had with your music?

I’ve been lucky. My goal with every record is to make another one, and in this day and age, that’s all you can ask for. There are better songwriters out there than me who aren’t getting their shot, so I just appreciate getting to do it for a living. I don’t know how long it will last, but I really have lived a lot of what I aspired to as a kid, and I definitely don’t take it for granted.