Stereoboard Talk To The Candlepark Stars About The New Album, Inspiration & What The Future Holds
Tuesday, 07 August 2012
Written by Patrick Gormley
LA based film and television composer Kerry Muzzey returns with 'Take Care and Safe Home', his sixth outing under the moniker The Candlepark Stars. Seen by Muzzey as the last of a three album arc that began with last years 'All the Little Things' and continued with the beautiful 'We Give and We Get', the new album is yet another blissful collection of cinematic post rock. Stereoboard recently caught up with the very talented composer to find out more about the new album, its inspiration and what the future holds for The Candlepark Stars.
Tell us about how The Candlepark Stars came about?
I'm a film and TV composer, and the music I normally write is more in a modern classical vein, like most film scores. A few years ago I heard the score from the movie "Friday Night Lights," and that's how I first found out about Explosions in the Sky, and their music blew my mind. After discovering them, I started finding all kinds of other post-rock artists, which then led me into other stuff like Sigur Ros and that fantastic Icelandic sound. I fell in love with this style of music: it was electric guitars and traditional rock instruments being used in really unique ways, some of it felt really modern and new, and some of it felt like that beautiful washed-out reverb sound from the 80s, like Jesus & Mary Chain and the Cocteau Twins. It's like each song takes you on a ride and has a story and an emotion built into it. So back in 2009 I took some time out of my schedule to write some new material and challenged myself to do it using completely different instruments than I'd normally write for. That material became the albums 'Shimmer and Gold' and 'Very Big Sky.' I made up the name The Candlepark Stars as a pseudonym, so that I'd be able to write this new stuff separate from my other work. I didn't want to get the two confused, and I didn't want to confuse my regular listeners. Honestly, I just did this as a creative challenge because I was tired of hearing my usual stuff and I wanted to try something completely different. I put it up on iTunes thinking, "Well, maybe someone out there will like it" - but I never imagined anyone would actually find it and listen to it. The fact that it somehow found some listeners was a complete surprise. But that motivated me to want to keep doing it, so I've now released a few albums as The Candlepark Stars.
What inspires you to create the music you create?
I have to be in a certain mood to write this stuff. A few years ago my mom was moving into a smaller place, and she gave me all of my old childhood photo albums that had been sitting in the attic for years. These were real moments captured on real film that had faded to look like Instagram or Hipstamatic photos, and they were beautiful. They were these amazing snapshots in time of me and my siblings and family members some now deceased, some still with us and looking at them was like watching an old super-8mm montage of my past. The feeling of melancholy was really overwhelming: it was nostalgic and happy but there was this overwhelming sadness attached to it that I couldn't pin down. So the way this distilled itself into the music of The Candlepark Stars is that I wanted to capture that feeling of nostalgia and I wanted the music to feel like you were looking back on something, looking back on memories like they were faded old photos, and feeling happy about what you saw but still infused with that sense of melancholy that you just couldn't quite put your finger on. So every single CPS song is a happy one, but every single one is tinged with a little bit of longing or melancholy. Not enough to be considered dark, but just enough to make you feel a little bit wistful. Each song is like one of those slow-mo 8mm film montages that you see in movies now and then: a grainy, faded, diffuse-glowy memory.
How was the recording process for the latest album 'Take Care and Safe Home', different to previous recordings?
I hate to let you down on this one, but it was exactly the same. If it ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it. I have a rule that I use for recording new stuff, which is a simple one, if it's not as-good-as or better than the last album I don't release it. I actually end up throwing a lot of music away because it just doesn't pass muster for me. The stuff that makes it through my filter is the stuff that turns up on the album. I never want listeners to say something like, "It's not as good as his last album" because as a huge music fan myself, I hate when that happens. When you're in love with a band's music and you're waiting and waiting for that new album, and then you finally get it and you're like "Huh? That's it? I expected better."
Do you feel that 'Take Care and Safe Home' takes your music in a new direction?
I don't think it does, to me it feels like an extension of the last 2 albums. Like, if you could combine 'All the Little Things' and 'We Give and We Get' and 'Take Care and Safe Home' onto one single CD I think it would play like a story from start to finish. I didn't mean it to be that way, but when I listen to these albums it feels like these last three albums are part of a series, and like 'Take Care' is the final one in a series of three. 'Shimmer and Gold' and 'Very Big Sky' fit together really well, and I think the last three albums fit together equally well. 'Take Care and Safe Home' definitely feels like an ending to me... like whatever comes next, it has to be different. There are two songs on this new album that are very different, super-upbeat, actually and those don't define any sort of new direction, I was just getting tired of doing the "contemplative" thing and wanted to write something that was straight-up happy! I think the Candlepark Stars music will always be similar to what it is right now. I don't want to suddenly add singers to it, or turn it into something different. I guess I don't want to make any radical left turns, I just want it to continue to be what it has been, and maybe instead of a new direction it'll just continue to evolve.
What has the reaction to the latest album been like in the states?
I'm not sure, honestly. I've gotten some nice feedback on Twitter and Facebook from some of the regular fans that stay in touch, and it looks like there are some new "Likes" on my CPS Facebook page, so I hope that means that people like it! The audience for this music is pretty small, and I don't have a ton of ears focused on it yet. I think it spreads by word of mouth. But hey, that's how Explosions in the Sky started too, right?
Could you ever see yourself bringing the music to a live setting?
Unfortunately, no. I do everything myself so me doing this stuff live would just be me sitting there and pushing "Play" on the CD player! These songs are like buildings, I write them over time, bit by bit, layer by layer, and because it's just me doing it I can't perform live. I'm just a one-man operation in the same vein as artists like Eluvium, Slow Dancing Society and Startle the Heavens. I think all of us are just one guy sitting in a dark studio alone, writing music.
I find the music to be very cinematic, do you agree?
I love that and I do agree, and I love that this music can resonate with a total stranger. I love that you, a person who's never met me or talked to me before, can listen to this music and feel something and be moved by it, and that it can conjure up images in your head as you're listening to it. I'm a huge fan of going for long walks with my iPod, it changes the way you see the world and the way you experience things around you, and I think this music is really good for that. It can be peaceful or energizing. I've even used it to fall asleep to.
If you were given the chance to do a score for any director who would it be and why?
That's a tough one. I'd love to work with Patty Jenkins someday (she wrote and directed "Monster" a few years ago) because she loves music and she's really passionate about it and the role it can play in a movie. And of course there are the other big names out there like David Fincher. I'm a huge fan of contemporary Italian movies - most of them never get released here but I have a region-free DVD player so I buy them from Amazon Italy - and Gabriele Muccino is a director whose work I love. Some of his dramas are almost operatic in the way that they use music. I like a director who doesn't bury the music in the background, but who uses it to make a point. Music is such an emotional thing, and matching it up to an equally-emotional film can be a powerful experience.
Los Angeles has always been known for its vibrant music scene; give us your take on the current scene?
I've only been in L.A. for 2 years now, and I don't get out to hear live music very much. I'm definitely not into the club scene and loud music and dubstep and that whole scene. But I've found some really fantastic new music by going to restaurants for brunch or dinner, especially in eclectic areas like Venice. You'll hear the coolest mix of trip-hop and old big band stuff and 60s pop songs and somehow it all works. I always leave my phone on the table and the minute I hear something I like I turn on Shazam to find out what it is. So I'd have to say that I'm pretty out of touch with the scene here in town. I still feel like a newbie in Los Angeles.
What does the future hold for The Candlepark Stars?
I plan on writing more stuff as The Candlepark Stars, but my most important rule will always apply, like I mentioned earlier I won't crank out an album just for the sake of releasing a new album. It has to be something that feels inspired and it has to be music that I really like. Where some of my recent music has gotten really big and emotional, I think I might scale things back a bit in the future and maybe make something quieter and more intimate, but it's too soon to tell. Right now it feels like the well is dry, because this album clocked in at just over an hour's worth of music, and that pretty much ate up all my ideas. But I'm guessing that I'll probably start writing the next album later this year.
Check out Stereoboard's review of 'Take Care and Safe Home' here.
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Tell us about how The Candlepark Stars came about?
