In this interview spotlight, I chat with Waking Stone about the latest music, AI in art, dream collabs, and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
This AI thing is getting way out of control. I have students using ChatGPT to write death metal songs about country music…and country songs about being sad. You can feed some Ais a text prompt and create a Hollywood-quality short film. How do you feel about this new wave of technological innovation?
We are artists who have experienced what we see as a cultural loss of value for creative self-expression. It is more than just an industry concern, as we’ve seen music move from a profitable “product” to a “content asset”, it is also an ethical concern for the elevation of artistic human expression. That said, we are also entrepreneurs and people who have dedicated our life’s work to the pursuit of artistic creation, and we must survive and pay our bills like everyone else. So, we remain open to the new learning opportunities that can come from AI in the music production sphere, but we draw a firm boundary when it comes to employing generative AI in any of our songwriting process. Our love of this process is what keeps us going as artists and our need for affordable production solutions is what keeps us learning and innovating. We cannot reject the new technology here, just as in the 90’s we went kicking and screaming into the internet age, we are more than leery of the promises of this new tech, especially as it relates to the social and cultural value for human generated art and music. Much of the Indie music landscape in our experience, is dominated with concerns of vanity metrics and algorithmically driven formulas. We have chosen to not allow these concerns to take the front seat, which may cost us numbers and listeners, but it will not cost us our art and souls.
I know it’s hard…but what’s your favorite song and/or favorite artist of all time? If not favorite, in your top 3?
Ok we’ll go with top 3 artists and we’ll answer separately:
Ashley: Paul Simon, Ani DiFranco, and Bob Marley
Jim: Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, and Led Zeppelin
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific or different with this project? What’s the back story?
Waking Stone is a new project for us as we launched our first single in January of 2024. We have been married for going on 19 years now and have playing music together since we’ve met in 2002 and have released several EPs and albums over the years in various outfits. The new project and album planned for this year (“Still Living in War”) feels to us like a next-level work as we’ve arrived at an age of maturity in our partnership, songwriting processes and production skills, both individually and as a team.
In all honesty, the creation of this album has required that we let go of expectations and fully confront our fears of failure. We hit rock bottom, as many artists did during the pandemic, with lost tours, fractured fan bases, and a painful survival reality check. Somehow, we were not able to stop writing and in many ways the friction and adversity has resulted in some of what we feel is our best work. That’s the good thing about rock bottom, there is nothing to lose!
The new album, “Still Living in War,” really does encapsulate our personal journeys through a difficult time while also holding up a mirror to the collective shadow. We’ve sat with our discomfort and have stood witness to the world from our little perch, long enough to see some extreme reflections worthy of penning into our attempt at a timeless perspective.
What drives you to create? What keeps you going, especially on the bad days?
The muse. Really, we are each other’s muse (not to sound campy, but it’s totally true for us). Celebrating the little moments of triumph – a good review or new synch placement – can give us the sense of fulfillment that we crave as a professional partnership, but it its nothing compared to the soul-level connection that we feel to each other and this self-expression we have carved out for our time together here. We feel we are building something beautiful and special. It is a true commitment to each other and our work. We remind ourselves daily that we are playing the long game so that we can help keep this in perspective and keep our expectations in check.
What is it like being a married couple that is also a songwriting team?
The good news is we really like each other! We don’t always agree creatively, but we respect each other’s process and really try to dance with it. We like to work towards our individual strengths, and we feel well-matched in skill. For example, Jim is a multi-instrumentalist who often will share an entire arrangement draft with me before asking for vocal ideas. Then I’ll get to jump in the recording booth to ad lib some ideas with nonsense lyrics before figuring out what the song is about. It’s an awesome situation as a vocalist, to have a solid composition to start from. We’ll often work out song structure after the initial ideas are drafted. In contrast, I tend to start with concept first and work backwards. I might take an idea for what I’d like the song to be about and start with a super simple progression and then pass it off to Jim to arrange and develop further. We both write lyrics, so we’ll often edit and discuss each other’s lyrical ideas rather than sit together and write, because we both really like our own space to ponder. Our process has certainly changed over time, and we expect that our process will change as we age as well. It’s a pretty cool adventure to share and we never get bored, that’s for sure!
Where is the best place to stay connected with You?
We are most active on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. We love a good old fashioned email newsletter connection too! Link to our newsletter and socials on our website https://wakingstonemusic.com
INSTAGRAM @wakingstonemusic https://www.instagram.com/wakingstonemusic
TIK TOK @wakingstonemusic https://www.tiktok.com/@wakingstonemusic
FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550197525888
YOUTUBE @WakingStone https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6WoCDptBJq8BjkOLB5UNCg
PATREON https://patreon.com/WakingStone
For Press – EPK https://wakingstonemusic.com/epk
I appreciate Your time. Want to say anything else before we sign off?
Thank you for your part in supporting independent artists! We really appreciate the opportunity to share our story. We’re just getting started with this new work and have already completed most of the production for our 2nd album (due in 2025) and are stealing away moments to complete writing our 3rd album. This is an ongoing adventure for us and we hope to inspire folks to join us on the journey!
