Chris Carvel is a Sydney-based musician, who decided to leave his stable corporate job in late 2020 and focus on writing and recording music full time. With budget gear, and recording in his studio apartment in Annandale, Chris has produced his first studio album titled “Megalomaniac”.

As a self-taught guitarist, Chris combines classic blues and funk styles with his learn-as-you-go approach to music production, and sampling, to create a unique but familiar musical sound.

Chris shares, “I wasn’t putting any pressure on myself. I just decided I would live life however I wanted, and playing music every day was just what came naturally. Pretty soon I realized the music I was producing was taking on a personality and story of its own, so I decided to share it.”

In this interview spotlight, I chat with Chris Carvel about the Megalomaniac project, adapting during the pandemic, technology and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and how do You describe your style of music?

I’m from Sydney Australia, living in the Inner West near Newtown.

I’d describe it as Experimental Pop Rock.

I’m really inspired by the colorful sounds of the 60s and later punk rock music, and in my music I’ve combined these influences with modern drum machines and synths, to create a new spin on those older influences.

How did you get here? As in, what inspired or motivated you to take on this journey through music and the music biz?

The first time I really took notice of music was hearing Jimi Hendrix records. I obsessed over guitar solos like Little Wing, Hey Joe and Bold as Love. So this got me to start playing the guitar at around 15 years old.

Then when I entered the corporate workforce, it felt really empty to me. Everyone just seemed to be working for the sake of money. My biggest fear was retiring and having plenty of money, but no more time to do anything I wanted. So pretty early on, decided that time was more important to me than anything else.

I went on a holiday to Thailand a few years ago, and saw a band play live at a club. They were playing music like Nirvana and Linkin Park. It felt so good just being there in that atmosphere, and that stuck with me. So that was when I decided the thing that would give my life the most meaning is to spend all my time making music.

After that I quit my job and ended up writing my first album.

How does your latest project compare/contrast with your previous release(s)? Were you setting out to accomplish anything specific, follow a specific theme, or explore different styles of creation?

This is my first official project, except for some cover songs that I recorded for my girlfriend while she was overseas, using a $50 mic, and free audio software.

I actually wasn’t planning on making an album in the beginning. The process was much more about learning and discovery, than achieving a specific goal. I knew I wanted to write music, and I knew that I had played great stuff on my guitar just while jamming, but I didn’t know how to actually write a song.

Then one day this thought came into my head: “the difference between a great musician and a songwriter, is that a songwriter actually records what they are playing”.

So anytime I had a musical idea, I made sure to record it and file it away on my computer. Pretty soon I had heaps of recordings, and some of them were just more fun to play than others so I kept adding to them, and they became their own thing.

I didn’t set a specific theme, I just tried to let as much music come out of me, and didn’t judge it too much in the beginning. But slowly it became obvious to me which songs belonged together. So each song is based on a different part of my life, and I tried to put myself back into that time period in order to write the lyrics for the songs.

I realized early on that it’s more about the interaction of different things, rather than the thing itself. My creative process usually started by just playing guitar along with my loop pedal, and coming up with interesting combinations of chords and melodies.

Sometimes I’d be playing something which would strike me as unique or interesting, so I’d loop it and then come up with something else to go with it. Then I would add a vocal melody to that.

I also tried other creative methods. For example on the song Oppose, I had an acoustic guitar chord progression that I liked, and I knew I wanted some synths to play along with it. So I played about 8 different synths over the whole track individually, so I couldn’t hear what the previous synth had done. Once I recorded 8 different instruments, I turned them all on at the same time. It sounded like a huge mess, but I could also hear interesting melodies within the chaos. Then I carved out a role for each instrument within the song. So it was kind of like starting with a big block of limestone, and cutting bits away slowly to create a statue.

Name the biggest challenge you faced as a creative during these unprecedented? How did you adapt? How have you kept the creative fires burning during all this?

If you’re talking about Covid and the lockdowns, I found that it actually helped to fuel my creativity, and gave me enough time and space to create and record more music. So in that way it actually aided my creativity and blocked out a lot of the distractions.

It probably made it harder to meet other musicians and collaborate together, so that was a downside, but I was still able to play with people in between lockdowns.

What was the last song you listened to?

Look up (to see what’s coming down) by Santana. Great track I found on Spotify

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? 8-tracks? Cassettes? CDs? MP3s? Streaming platforms?

I use streaming platforms or MP3s, because I don’t have any other method of playing music like a CD or cassette player.

It’s also much easier to replay the same few seconds of a song on a digital version, which I do a lot when I’m really into a song.

Where is the best place to connect with you and follow your journey?

My Instagram is a great place to follow me – https://www.instagram.com/chriscarvelofficial/

I’ll also be posting songs on my Youtube account in the coming months – https://youtube.com/channel/UC3-PLtSbgSRQpzgNVkJJLeA

I really appreciate Your time. Anything else before we sign off?

We’re all gonna die one day soon, so do what you enjoy doing while you still can.