In this interview spotlight, we chat with Edward Fletcher of StuntPlane about the forthcoming release, influences and more.
Q&A along with links and streams can be found below.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
I have been driven to write these musical ideas and compete them, because the are ideas in it are original to me. I have developed these ideas over years and had to teach myself to play the guitar better in order to execute them. My priority, was to have the album be a genuine and naked as it could possibly be.
Who or what are your biggest influences when it comes to your creativity?
I am a child of professors, and I lived in Egypt and went to a British school for a year and a half as a kid. I have been introduced to lots of different worlds growing up. I have done many different types of art… but music effected my so deeply and personally. My first love was David Bowie. ChangesOneBowie was my first love. I hid in all the Bowie albums spanning from ’69-’84 while I watched my father fall to cancer over a two year period, starting from when I was 11 years old. I am not a sad person, but I do have a melancholy soul and it shows in my art.
the other two biggest influences on my music, were David Sylvian and Talk Talk. Laughing Stock by Talk Talk might be my all time favorite.
“sounds like you” is most influenced by the Positively 4th street, by Bob Dylan, and the early work of Elvis Costello lyrically; not on purpose, but I certainly I think that is the root of that type of song.
I really love music and listen to a lot of different types and people… However, the people I list below are the most influential on my sound over all. I’m not sure if you can hear them in my music or not… but they and their music are my text books…
David Torn, Chet Baker, The Blue Nile, Tom Waits, Chris Whitley, Tones on Tail, Bauhaus, Muddy Waters, Iggy Pop, T.Rex, The English Beat, Bryan Ferry, Talking Heads, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, The Sea and Cake, the Shins, D’Angleo, Al Green, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix, Sade, Grant Green, Miles Davis, Fredric Chopin, Bela Bartok and King Crimson (w/ adrian belew).
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
This album is filled with original rhythms and harmonic structures, lots of 7/4 and other odd meters. Sounds Like You its the most straight forward track on the forth coming Dyslexic Tango. I have been developing the idea’s for over 20 years… cutting things out, moving them around… finally when they had be worked and reworked so much that me ear never got bored, then, I added the lyrics. It’s my first commercially released album Ive done, though there is other music out there by me. I recorded all the rhythm guitar parts twice, one is with hum buckers and the other with single coils. The hum buckers pick up the lower tones of the chords and the single coils pick up the top end, but they are both playing the exact same part. Sounds Like You, is played with a Telecaster and Les Paul Standard (two the most classic electric guitars) and the solo was done on an 1957 Les Paul jr with a p90 pickup. on the album, 22 different guitars were used… Fender Stratocasters, TMG Telecasters, Gibson Les Paul Standards, PRS Guitars, and a Pink Sparkle Penguin Gretsch Guitar played in the forth coming video for “Sounds Like You).
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
I started of in Digital Performer and then Logic Pro, and the difference in editing is comparable to the difference between a word processor and a typewriter… and writing parts use midi allows my to explore so many different ideas.
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
You can check out more songs on my soundcloud page… and the StuntPLane album “Dyslexic Tango” will be available in another month and half on iTunes and CDbaby!! There are a lot of different music on this album… with instrumentals, some Punk/New Wave’ish tracks, and some more pop style songs.. but all belong together, with a pretty and heavy melancholy sound.
