Eight years after he acquired his passion for playing, singing and writing songs as a serious hobby, John Hickman’s exciting emergence as a critically acclaimed independent artist will inspire anyone of a mature age who thinks a full on pursuit of musical dreams is best left to kids in their teens and 20’s to think differently regarding that idea. Now fully retired from his longtime “day job” as an Aerospace Engineer, Hickman follows a series of single song releases – and a semi-finalist award in a 2011 Song of the Year Contest for his provocative high octane rocker “While Everyone Was Sleeping” – with Remnants, his infectious, musically eclectic and powerfully produced full length debut album.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with John Hickman about his latest project, challenges, motivations and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.
I currently live in Maui, but moved there after living 20 years in Seattle, and I am originally from Dallas, Texas.
In short, I would say my music sounds like classic rock, but with a few contemporary pop or rock elements thrown in. But I do find that a difficult question to answer sometimes, since the song descriptions can vary a bit depending on the song, as I like to change things up a bit with the styles of each of my songs. I try not to sound exactly like any particular artist or any particular sub-genre group of artists, for that matter. I usually have a hard time coming up with comparable artists for describing my music. At least for describing it as a whole – there may be one song that sounds a bit similar to this artist and another song that sounds a bit similar to that artist, but as a whole, it’s more a composite set of influences. It’s probably best not to copy any one particular artist (unless of course, you’re doing a tribute), but it does make it harder to describe your sound if it’s not extremely similar overall to certain established artists. I also like to write songs dealing with subjects that are more of a thought-provoking, philosophical, and intellectual nature.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
Sometime in the early 2000s, I thought it might be fun to pick up and learn to play the guitar, just for fun; seeing other people play and enjoy it so much somehow inspired me and made me feel compelled to take up music, initially as a hobby. I started playing an acoustic guitar in about 2005, and then I resumed playing keyboards around 2008 after a long hiatus from my childhood piano lessons. After a while, I began to take things more seriously by venturing into writing my own material, and I worked on improving my vocal skills by using book/audio packaged lessons and one-on-one personal instruction. I gained inspiration from the music of the classic rock greats I grew up listening to, which include but are not limited to David Bowie, Styx, Rush, Yes, Alan Parsons Project, and The Beatles. But there are some more contemporary influences in my music as well (at least defined as contemporary relative to classic rock artists) such as Green Day and Coldplay. I try to look for different types of sounds to add to each newer song, such as drawing from new libraries of MIDI keyboard or synthesizer sounds, in order to attempt to make things a little more interesting each time.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
One thing different about this release from previous ones is that I have been working with San Francisco Bay Area producer Joel Jaffe (Flaming Groovies, Ray Manzarek) on this project (and on other upcoming songs as well), who once again added some very nice lead guitar touches to the song in addition to his fine production work. Drummer Billy Johnson (Santana, Maze) was brought in to add his talents to the project.
“What’s This All About?” provides a commentary about many of the issues facing our society today which leaves many people asking that very question, or perhaps instead the more colloquial “WTF”? From politicians to protestors to cable news and media outlets to social networks and the anonymous bullies, there’s a lack of civil dialogue and respect and too much division in our country. The result is many of us suffering a certain amount of angst, no matter what our ideology, leaving so many of us to scream out loud “What’s This All About?”.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
Technological advances in computer hardware and software have made recording easier for the average person to accomplish, and the internet has allowed an open forum for anyone to share their music, which theoretically would allow more opportunity for exposure. However (or but – there’s a very big but), due to the extreme abundance of musical outlets and sources, it is a huge challenge for independent artists to get their material noticed. You can certainly put your material out there, but if everyone else is doing the same thing, then your material is a needle in a haystack the size of Mt. Everest unless there’s some way you can massively promote it and make it stand out (and of course, it helps if it is of great quality). But even if you have a great product, if no one knows about it or no one can find it, then ironically, you’re not able to share it with the world, even though in theory you are doing just that whenever you place it on the world wide web.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
There are several places available where my music can be previewed, streamed, or downloaded (or a CD can even be purchased – I know it’s old fashioned, but there’s interesting background material along with the song lyrics in the liner notes). Latest news updates are frequently posted on social media, mainly on Twitter or Facebook.
Anything else before we sign off?
I would like for people to take away from my songs a message of hope, of being uplifted, and that any problems can be solved if we all work together to fix them. The songs on my album “Remnants” dealing with tragic events (“Remnants of the Human Race”) and controversy (“While Everyone Was Sleeping”) can remind us that there is a chance to make things better if we act now. The songs of loss and grief (“Where Have You Gone?”) and heartache (“What Have You Done?”) can offer hope for a new beginning. Along with the rough spots of life, there is much to be grateful and thankful for. Overall, I believe my songs bring about a hopeful message – not all the songs are joyous, but that is life (“That’s Life”), and together we’ll make the changes necessary to get through it.
Incidentally, “That’s Life” and ”What’s This All About?” are part of the ten songs that will be included on an upcoming album due to be released in early 2019.
