Our Double Shot series includes an interview question and a song feature from an independent band or musician near you. The goal is to allow you to learn more about the bands we feature in smaller, more digestible amounts of content.
Grab your cup of coffee, click play, and allow us to continue getting to know Richard of Niacin Library.
Today’s Double Shot features Mesa Town from The Vulture and The Sun. Be sure and check out our previous Double Shot with Richard.
As far as your songwriting and playing styles, who influences you the most? What inspires your lyrical content? What instrument(s) do you play? Are you self-taught or trained?
Oh man, that’s a tough one to answer. I started “writing” songs before I could play an instrument or before I had any musical training. I would essentially grab a tape recorder and hum/sing melodies while writing lyrics. So once I started playing guitar, my goal was always trying to fit the guitar around the ideas that were coming out of my mouth.
I did have some formal training but it was very minor. When I was nine years old my mother wanted me to take guitar lessons. While I only had a few, I definitely remembered my teacher. His name was Tom Linton and he would eventually be known for being a member of the band Jimmy Eat World. Tom’s family ran this music shop and Tom would give out lessons while Jimmy Eat World was still developing. Like a lot of other kids in my neighborhood, we viewed Jimmy Eat World as our kind of hometown band. I remember being so excited when they were on the soundtrack for Drew Berrymore’s Never Been Kissed. I’m not so sure about the movie, but I was freaking out when I heard that they would be on the soundtrack.
However, it wasn’t until I was fourteen that I really started to play guitar. This essentially entailed my friend showing me some power chords and having this super basic, pink-spiraled notebook that had open position chords in it. I had no interest in playing covers or learning differing styles. I just wanted to figure out how to put “music” to the vocal melodies and lyrics that were piling up. It was definitely an uphill battle haha! You have to remember that this was long before the internet had zillions of guitar instructional videos. So, if you couldn’t read notation and you didn’t have a teacher, you were kind of stuck in your own little world. But I just held on. I would play it watching TV. I would play it alone. I played it all the time. Unfortunately, I had incorrect hand positioning that would lead to severe damage later on. But I held onto that thing for dear life and really tried my best to re-create what I was hearing in my head.
At one point, when I was about 16, I was able to move in with my older sister. She lived in Mesa, Arizona and I called up Milano’s to see if they had any guitar instructors available. It was just my luck because Jimmy Eat World had recently left Capitol records, were without a label and Tom was giving lessons again. I was beyond excited. I met with Tom about two more times and then we moved again. From Arizona to Idaho. So, to be clear, I think I only had a total of 5 guitar lessons with Tom Linton haha! And I’m sure he had a lot of students and wouldn’t know me from Adam. But still, it was incredibly inspirational. Soon after I moved to Idaho, Jimmy Eat World signed onto Dreamworks. All of a sudden my former guitar teacher was playing on SNL and was in regular MTV rotation. The other day I heard “The Middle” in the grocery store and it still kind of weirds me out haha.
I have been playing guitar for roughly 16 years and I love what the internet has done for musical instruction. To have such a resource available really is priceless. And now that I know super basic things like how to play in a key, it’s made the instrument much more enjoyable. Still, there’s a part of me that kind of feels like an old school blues player. You just wrestle with the thing until it sounds right.
In terms of what inspires my lyrical content, I would have to say large existential ideas. I think I’m still trying to figure life out. I hope I never do. That would ruin all of the mystery! I just need enough to keep going. Religion, spirituality, commerce and social norms are favorites of mine. I am not above love songs. I try to write about everything but it’s just easier for me to write about larger picture issues. I have to say that I’ve received a lot of positive feedback about the song MesaTown from this little EP and that feels kind of funny or strange. It’s completely autobiographical which is not usually my favorite songwriting topic. I just started playing this riff that reminded me of the 1990s. A lot of memories started flooding in and it kind of went from there.
But there are a lot of things out there more interesting than me! Haha! Speaking of which, I should probably end this response.
