Kate Stanton - 7/6/26

One email, a few MIDI files, and a shared obsession with atmosphere can turn into a finished single that sounds huge. We sit down with Ohio singer-songwriter Kate Stanton to talk about “Rise,” a track inspired by the Greek idea of mania, the kind of love that looks a lot like limerence and fixation. Kate walks us through how the song came together, from early synth sketches to deep vocal layering, and why making music that feels immersive sometimes matters more than showing off flashy parts.

A big thread running through our chat is remote collaboration done right. Kate and her German collaborator Tomas build songs through email, Google Translate, Dropbox, and a tight back-and-forth that keeps ideas moving without endless meetings. We dig into real home studio details: piano-first chord progressions, topline melodies, sending stems and MIDI, arranging in Cubase, and how programmed drums and bass can still feel alive when the goal is modern dream pop and atmospheric music. Kate also shares how journaling becomes lyrics, and how the toughest edits happen when a line that reads well simply will not sing.

We also zoom out to the bigger creative mission: a concept album exploring love in eight forms, from friendship to self-love, not just romance. Along the way we talk covers, perfectionism, protecting audio quality, the challenge of playing live with an overseas producer, and why albums, artwork, and physical media like CDs and vinyl still deliver an experience streaming cannot replace. If you care about songwriting craft, indie music production, and building a real artistic body of work, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe for more artist interviews, share this with a friend who makes music, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What kind of love song do you wish more artists would write?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Jay Franze 0:31

And we are coming at you live. I am Jay Franzi, and uh with me tonight the April to my Andy, my beautiful co-host, Ms. Tiffany Mason.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Good evening, Jay.

Jay Franze 0:43

If you are new to the show, this is George Storrus for the latest news, reviews, and interviews. And if you would like to join in, comment, or fire off any questions, please head over to jayfranzie.com. All right, my friend. Tonight we have a very special guest with us. We have a singer-songwriter hailing from the great state of Ohio. We have Miss Kate Stanton. Kate, my friend, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Thank you for having me, Jay and Tiffany. Pleasure to be here.

Jay Franze 1:12

This is round two.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Yes, it is.

Jay Franze 1:15

Round two. Welcome back. Thank you for joining us yet again. It's kind of crazy to me that you joined us once and willing to come back again. We do appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Yeah.

Jay Franze 1:25

A lot has changed since the last time you were here, and you have some new music out, so why don't we just jump right in? What is this

New Single Rise And Mania

Jay Franze 1:31

new single that you have out right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:33

So my latest, I'm doing this songwriting series with a collaborator in Germany right now. His name is Tomas. And we're kind of exploring love in eight of its forms based from the ancient Greeks perspectives. And this last one I wrote about mania, which is more like limerence and like obsession. It's not even really love if you think about it. Like think Wuthering Heights or something like that. Um it's called Rise, and it was a lot of fun because I got to layer my vocals. It started out where I sent him three different synth tracks, and we kind of volleyed. I sent him the synth tracks, then he built an arrangement around it. And then once I got that arrangement, I just added probably like 10 different layers of vocals, and that was a lot of fun. My hope is that it's it's fun to listen to in its atmosphere.

Jay Franze 2:32

Let's

Meeting Tomas And Bridging Language

Jay Franze 2:33

just step back for a second. You mentioned Tomas being in Germany. So, how do you come across Tomas to start working with him in the first place?

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Tomas did an amazing remix of a collaboration I did for FOM, which is February Album Writing Month. It's a songwriting contest I join in on every uh February. And he happened to remix a song I did. And you know, there is a language barrier, but with translation tools and music being our language that we both communicate with, we just we just really hit it off musically. We like a lot of the same bands, he's very much inspired by soundtracks and like he likes Hans Zimmer and he loves craft work, a lot of electronica and atmosphere-based stuff that we connected over. And then he enjoyed my voice, and I enjoyed his production, and he's he's very professional. Like he mixes and masters from his home studio, and we he helps me when I have a production problem. So he's been he's been good. We've been collaborating him on about a year now. Oh wow, yeah.

Jay Franze 3:46

So you mentioned a language barrier. So how do you communicate? I know there's translation tools, but what's the method that you guys use?

SPEAKER_03 3:54

We are kind of old school, it's all email. So yeah, I just hit that Google Translate and and send so many audio files. And that's why I kind of said music is our shared language, because if I have an idea, I will just sing it and send it to them. Even if that singing is supposed to mimic a bass line or mimic drums and it sounds terrible, but you know, like we can communicate musically very well.

Jay Franze 4:22

All right, well, we're gonna do is we're gonna need you to go ahead and mimic some drums for us.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah, I know Michael Jackson, oh my goodness, but it gets the job done, right?

Jay Franze 4:35

So I'm assuming you don't speak any German. So does he speak English?

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Not a lot. And I went to Germany as a teenager. One of my best friends was a German exchange student. So I know a little German. I pretty much only remember curse words. Um right?

Jay Franze 4:59

We're gonna need a list of those.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Oh, I can I can nail those now. But and then last Christmas I did learn a German Christmas song that we were able to collaborate on, which was challenging for me. But we just have to do the written emails and Google translate, and then a lot of the music bat notes back and forth is pretty much how we communicate.

Jay Franze 5:24

All right,

Dropbox Workflow And Production Split

Jay Franze 5:25

so the communication, like you said, is through email, you're using your translation tools. But now when it comes to music, yes, you might hum some parts or you might even hum some rhythm parts. What is the actual writing process like? Because I know you write songs, but he's producing them and doing the production. So how does that come together for the two of you?

SPEAKER_03 5:47

So we share a Dropbox folder or just Google Drive, and I am kind of one of those people that uh I'm sure many musicians are this way, but when you're in the the zone and you're writing song after song, you just kind of upload, and maybe one of them out of ten is a gem, the rest are garbage. Sometimes fertilizer for the good stuff, but sometimes just yeah, what was I thinking of that? But if he resonates with something and usually maybe a week, sometimes under 24 hours he'll turn around something, he'll say, What do you think of this? And I'll listen to him like, Okay, well he liked this one because this sounds really cool what he's added to it and stuff. So and then other times it's like almost 90% produced by me in Logic, and I send it and he just adds maybe some drums or mixes and and masters it. So it's okay.

Jay Franze 6:47

Let's talk about that for a second. You talk about you have your own production studio at your home, and you have the ability to to play and to record yourself, not only your vocal, but some baseline of instrumentation. So, how much of that do you do before you give it to him, and then how much does he add to that?

SPEAKER_03 7:10

So these love and eight forms, the recent ones, almost everything other than vocal and piano are his arrangements, the bass line. He's really good with rhythm, and I really appreciate his his drums and bass arrangements in particular. The vocal layering are things that I sent him. But almost all of these song sketches were chord progressions I sketched out on the piano first.

Jay Franze 7:40

So you're coming up with the actual chord changes and the melody, and then he's producing the instrumentation around it.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Yes, yeah, the arrangements, yeah.

Jay Franze 7:50

Okay, so when he's doing that, do you know what kind of software he's using?

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Uh cubase. Actually, I know he has cue base.

Jay Franze 7:58

Uh so you're sending the actual waveforms and then he's importing them into his system.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Yeah, yeah. And like for the synth song for Rise, I sent the MIDI files and and then he kind of uh does his thing.

Jay Franze 8:13

Okay, so you had MIDI files that you used as well. And he was able to import those into Cubase and then work around that as well. And then I'm assuming that he's programming drum parts and putting everything together. Exactly. I mean it sounds really, really nice, modern, and full. Thank you. It's not like by programming something it's lacking anything. A lot of people think when you program something you're lacking the real musician performing that part. But I think in this type of music, especially that whole atmospheric feel to it, that the programmed music is expected. Yeah. So you're able to do that with just the two of you, which is very impressive. Thank you. Um but let's step back for a second. So when you're writing lyrics and the melodies, how long is that process taken for you?

SPEAKER_03 9:05

I mean, I write every day, I journal every day, and then my journaling usually becomes my lyrics. I just have to put it into some kind of structure. And usually I'll just sit down either here with my keyboard or with my piano upstairs and choose choose a topic. Like for this, it was easy because I chose the Greek forms of love before I started writing the songs, and then I would sit down and kind of decide what kind of chord progression and vibe I want to go for, and then start sketching out the lyrics, and then usually less than a day for lyrics, and then a lot of tweaking when I'm then working on the melody.

Jay Franze 9:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Yeah, lots of tweaking then.

Jay Franze 9:49

I always find that like writing the foundation of lyrics isn't really the hard part. It's when you're trying to put it together with either a chord progression or a melody, and you're like, okay, well, this no longer works.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Yeah, and the prosody that you thought when you were writing it doesn't work so well when you're singing it, you know, like you gotta have some rhyme.

Jay Franze 10:08

And oh, I got uh one less syllable here. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Yeah, that word sounds terrible.

Jay Franze 10:14

Yeah, well, who can sing that word? It's great on paper, but who can sing that?

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Yeah.

Jay Franze 10:20

I understand

Covers Originals And A Perfectionist Bar

Jay Franze 10:21

all that stuff. So, how many songs have you done with Tomas at this point?

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Oh goodness. The very first song we did was about a year ago, and it was a Pink Floyd cover that we did of Comfortably Numb, which is not an easy song to cover. It's iconic, right? But we kind of did a whole dream pop.

Jay Franze 10:42

Real quick, just tangent off of that. How well was it received?

SPEAKER_03 10:47

It's been it's been played on uh Long Island Night Radio for their covers night a lot. So, and I've been getting good feedback. But there are purists that that is like the best guitar solo of all time. I'm not trying to like make anything. That's why we kind of went in this whole different direction, and people who've heard it can tell it's just atmospheric, it's dreamy, it's not you're not trying to take the place of it, you're just trying to reimagine it. Yeah, just because how much I've appreciated Pink Floyd and my life.

Jay Franze 11:22

Like that song is so yeah, you just can't replace that song or Pink Floyd has got their own feel to them, their own vibe, and in some cases it's atmospheric itself, but it's in a different way, it's not the same as what you're putting together. True. Anyways, I'm sorry, back to your your original point, which was the songs. How many have you done up to this?

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Oh, so we've done I don't know the exact number, but we've done a lot of covers and then the originals. I mean I've probably just in the ye past year, I've probably done thirty or more with them, maybe even more. And that's completed. Like we have so many I call them song seeds. I'm not sure what he calls them in his in his little It's a curse word in German. Yeah, there he is. I'll have to ask him. Um, but we kind of keep files of cover songs that inspire the songwriting, and then original songs, and then I have another file of just demos that we've started that I haven't even begun. Sometimes he'll send me full instrumentals to do a top line melody, and I have done probably five to ten of those with him.

Jay Franze 12:41

Does that work for you going backwards?

SPEAKER_03 12:43

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it's more fun. I find it more fun to create the vocal melody because that's one of my favorite things to do, and then build the song around it. But it's also kind of fun to see what he's imagining with the music and then building something off of that. There is one, I think I only posted it to SoundCloud, and it's called The Grief You Felt, and it was in 3-4 time, and I just kind of started. He sent me the instrumental, and I just started singing like different things about what people go through, and then I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna keep at it while I'm going, and I just I just kind of went on that riff the whole first part of the song.

Jay Franze 13:26

So 30 plus songs, impressive. Are we looking at a collection of work?

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Yeah, I think we have a good working relationship. I think this back and forth of ideas, and then like I said, what I appreciate the most about him is his professionalism with with a piece. He's like me with the perfectionism. It can drive you crazy, but it can also force excellence out of something. So I do appreciate that about him.

Jay Franze 13:55

Yeah. Do you have um any examples of that you could share?

SPEAKER_03 14:01

The songs that are in the folder of demos that I've started and may never see the light of day. No one will ever hear them because they don't meet a standard of um if there's still a little cringe when I hear, I'm like, that's not ready yet. I don't know what I need to do there yet, but it's not ready.

Jay Franze 14:20

So he shares that same level of commitment that you do.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Yes, because I can share a story with him in particular. One time I posted a song of ours that I had made a video on Canva, you know, the yeah. I didn't realize this was like when we first started working together too. I didn't realize that it would degrade the sound quality because I think I have the free version, or maybe the other version doesn't, but whatever I had done degraded some of the sound quality, and I posted it on my personal YouTube, and he messaged me, emailed me right away, and he's like, Oh, you can't hear the the the bass and the the sound, and I mixed and mastered that. He's like, so I took it down immediately, and then I uploaded it through iMovie with the the high quality Wave file that he had sent. And I was like, Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. I didn't like even it sounded good to my ears, but you're right, it probably did degrade some of that, yeah.

Jay Franze 15:17

Yeah, we talk about that frequently with music specifically, but also with audio files or photographs or video. Every time you process that, you're losing some of the original quality. So, what have you enjoyed most about working with them? It's been a year now.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Fresh perspectives, a hundred percent. He kind of flipped the way I see some things. I also think it could be seen as a limitation with the language barrier, but I also think it's helped us only focus on the music because that is all we ever can talk about. You know, like it's just the music and just the ideas, and that's another thing I appreciate is um life gets busy, we both have families, it can just be like a quick, what about this idea, boom, and back and forth with that. So I think that perspective was needed, and I also think I communicate better with written language than I do verbally. I just I feel like I've always been like that. So and it gives me that time to to kind of sit down and and just write rather than take time away from chatting about maybe something that I don't know, it's been it's been nice because it could be a limitation, but I feel like it's pulled strengths out of my songwriting. Yeah. And what is the time difference? Five hours. He's five hours ahead of me. Like for a specific uh point of a song that needs addressed, I'll send the the Dropbox link and the exact timestamp and explain it the best I can in English for Google Translate, which I feel like these days Google Translate is is really good with like yeah, and like all the pronoun mixing up and past tense and all of that stuff. I feel like it does a really good job. But as far as ideas and stuff, I'll just start a new email and subject line and we'll keep them organized by subject line because otherwise both of our inboxes would be just like a big bomb.

Jay Franze 17:18

Well, if

Finding Her Sound Through Atmosphere

Jay Franze 17:19

we take a look at it, I mean, last time you were here, you talked about the process of your writing and you talked about all of the different producers that you've worked with. So it sounds like now you've kind of narrowed it down to one that you've been working with pretty regularly.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Yes.

Jay Franze 17:35

Do you like that better than working with multiple?

SPEAKER_03 17:38

I think that I have built a trusting professional relationship that I would like to maintain. So yeah, because I think that gets harder with time and and other things. Like, and at the end of the day, don't you think that the music industry is about relationships and trusting someone with your baby, like this is my song, and I trust that he's not gonna just like release it on his own or take an idea or something. So I think that is where I'm at now. Yeah, good point.

Jay Franze 18:11

It's gotta be different than working with a a group of different producers because you never know what their commitment level is. Where if you have one that you work with on a regular basis, you guys can develop a relationship that leads to deeper and deeper songs. Yeah. So I I like the fact that you're you're doing that, and I think you can hear a difference in the songs from even when you were here, what was it, about a year and a half, two years ago now, to what you've come up with now. It's a it's a different level of song. It's to me it seems to be a step up. So thank you. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

I think I think I was um experimenting a lot and trying to find my place in original music because it's one thing to cover all the cover songs I've done, but when you're writing something original, it can be I don't it's a lot of experimenting on on who you are and what your sound is and how your voice should be. And I think I needed to explore. Can you tell me what is atmospheric music? I define atmospheric music as music that kind of creates a vibe, just like a feeling. Think um David Lynch in music, you know, something that just may not always make sense, but it makes you feel something and is more an emphasis on mood than maybe fancy ornamentation or something, just like a a vibe. Okay.

Jay Franze 19:41

Instrumentation, synthesizers, pads, you know, kind of an airy feel to it.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Yeah.

unknown 19:51

Okay.

Writing A Friend Through Story

Jay Franze 19:52

You um worked on a song called A Friend with him as well.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Yes.

Jay Franze 19:57

Can you tell us a little bit about that song?

SPEAKER_03 20:00

That one I experimented a lot with a different style of singing. That one was really fun because I was singing at a quicker tempo and I was kind of playing with rhythm, and I was exploring Philia, a Greek form of love and friendship from Aristotle. I thought that was fun to research that and then kind of make a fun pop song out of it. And then he added, like that was just piano for me. It was kind of like the beginning, I'm just kind of singing the notes on piano. And I kept the bird song. I had really loud birds outside of my my window when I was recording that, and we kind of kept that in the mix. I thought that was fun. And then I sent it to him, and he added all the fun guitar and the build-up in the studio. It's kind of a slow burn, and then it just kind of takes off in the chorus. So yeah.

Jay Franze 20:52

Well, can you elaborate a little bit more on the lyrics?

SPEAKER_03 20:56

That is 100% about feeling like I was thinking of Sam Wise Gamge from The Lord of the Rings, and how nice it would be to have a friend like that. And just like when I think of friendship love, I think of Sam, and I think of like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and I think of Link and Navi, and I think of these sidekicks that that friend will go with you through anything, and that's what I was inspired by with the lyrics. That's what I kept visualizing as like Sam at the top of Mount Doom and just saying, No, I can carry you over. Like, how awesome would it be? I just need a friend like this.

Jay Franze 21:40

Do you find it to be difficult for you to do that?

SPEAKER_03 21:43

I think that is kind of where I'm at right now, too, because I can't possibly experience everything in life to write about. Like, I don't understand how the Taylor Swifts of the world have so much going on that they can write. I mean, I I don't have that many relationships in my And it's like I like what you said, Jay, because you can take a shred of truth from your own life and you expand upon it, whether it's through books. Books have been a big inspiration for me as of late. But like a friend, I did pull from a betrayal wound from a long time ago. And it's kind of a dream about having a f a loyal friend, like Sam from Lord of the Rings. I mean, it sounds a little geeky, but that's really what it is.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Jay Franze 22:32

No. I mean, I've done some of that recently. I've I was talking to a a young girl the other day, and she was talking about the struggle she has viewing the world the way it is today and the challenges that politically the way things are going. So I wrote a song from her point of view, and it didn't feel any harder than writing it from my point of view. I just had to think of what she was going through. But I had to know what she was going through in order to make that happen. Like I didn't just sit down and say, I'm gonna write a song about this. I had to know somebody's story and I had to see the struggle she was going through, and I think it was that emotion that made it happen.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

And I think uh just you talking, my first thought is I think you being an author also plays into that empathy that you can write about uh other people's experiences like that, which is a a cool skill.

Jay Franze 23:26

I guess there is some truth to that because when I I write even just an article, I like to include pieces of story. I don't want to just talk about whatever the event was. I just went to a show over the weekend, I wrote an article about it, a review on the artist, but part of what I talked about in the review was my experience driving to the venue and the temperature and humidity and poor choice of clothing and that type of stuff. So I think having a little bit of creativity that you can throw into those things is helpful.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Yeah, definitely. Was it Buckeye Fest by any chance with the humidity?

Jay Franze 24:06

No, I uh I went to a a place called Annie's Music Center, which used to be known as something else, but it's a indoor-outdoor venue on the river in Cincinnati. It's down by River.

SPEAKER_04 24:19

Check it out.

Jay Franze 24:20

So if you're familiar with River Bend, absolutely, yeah. It's maybe a few blocks down. But it's a smaller venue. It's not an outdoor ample theater or anything like that, it's a actual club. So inside you're in like a New York style club, black cinder blocks, painted, everything's just club. But you walk through their back door and you're out to a outdoor stage and out by the river, and right. It was beautiful. I mean it was a outside was a beautiful place to hang out and just chill.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Right on the Ohio. I'm gonna check it out. Annie's okay.

Jay Franze 24:54

Yeah. I mean, it sounded pretty good. It was what was funny is the stage was there and there was a rock band on the stage. But right in front of the stage was a square, but it you went down like three steps. So if you were in front, if you're standing in front of the stage, you're down, so everybody else in the room could still see the stage.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah. Oh nice. That was really cool.

Jay Franze 25:16

It was a pretty, pretty cool place. The people were nice. So when I was leaving the place, they told me I might want to be careful of the camera because it's raining. So I'm like, thank you. I appreciate your than the language barrier, what do you find to be the most challenging part of working

Overseas Collaboration Limits Live Playing

Jay Franze 25:40

with somebody that's overseas?

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Just that we could never not never say never, but it's not going to be as easy to play together live. So that's one of the reasons I've been working on piano arrangements and stripping down some of the songs to play live at some point. Because that would be really cool to just call them up and say, Tomas, let's let's go do this open mic night or let's go let's go play live um on Porch Fest this weekend or something like that. So that's probably the only drawback since we wrote the songs together. It would be fun to perform the songs together.

Jay Franze 26:17

No, I can understand that. And take it one step further. I mean, the style of music that you write to me would be suited for television, movies, you know, that type of stuff, sync licensing for sure. But I don't necessarily think of it as performing live in stadiums. So when it comes to performing live, do you have any plans or any thoughts or anything that you would like to do?

SPEAKER_03 26:44

This has been a dream in the back of my mind since the pandemic, because prior to the pandemic I did play live with a duo, and I haven't really been doing that. I've been working more on my skills with production and and collapse and stuff. But Nick Cave did a solo concert on piano during the pandemic, and I've seen other artists do this, like Agnes Obel, Tori Amos does it, where it's it's stripped down to a piano arrangement, and whether it's in like a an art setting or even a cathedral setting, some kind of beautiful setting, that is what I envision someday kind of performing my songs live in. And that's what I've I've been working on on some piano pieces with that. So I'd like to do that sometime. I think that would give me freedom to to share in that way when I want to.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

I'm

The Greek Eight Forms Of Love

SPEAKER_02 27:40

curious about these those eight forms, love in eight forms. Okay. So can you expand on that?

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Um just Greek philosophy of of how they viewed love not just being aros, not just being um romantic love. It can it can show up in familial love, it can show up in friendship, like a friend, and then it can show up in limerence or mania as and rhymes.

Jay Franze 28:08

I see how you looked at me when you said that.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

Yeah, and agape, I wrote that one. Hear me out. It sounds I wrote that one about yoga because I felt like agape is usually like a god higher level form of love, but it can also be from a yogic perspective. And and then there's self-love, which is often a battle. That's why my song on self-love is called Love is War. It's often a battle to learn to love yourself, but just love in eight forms. It's not just what you think with like the notebook or Titanic or something like that. It's um love is more complicated than just one thing. Two things can be true at once, and in this way, eight things in life can be true at once. Who approached who with the idea? Uh, me. I approached Tomas. I actually asked him. I I sent him my very first demo was Love is War, not When We Bend. When we Bend, I actually wrote when I was doing yoga, I wrote it to yoga poses. But so I sent Love is War, which was a piano pop song, and I said, This song made me decide that I think I need to expand and give myself permission to have these topics to write about. And I said, Are you interested? And he's like, Yeah, of course. So, and he sent some ideas for some of them, which we're about halfway through. Well, we are halfway through, but I haven't decided on one song out of the four remaining if I want to use. I have two ideas for for one of them, so I'm still deciding.

Jay Franze 29:54

Well, let's talk about that now. Let's go ahead and hash it up and make that decision for you.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Him being in Germany and you being here, has he exposed you to an instrument that you've not heard of or a style, or you know, is there something that you've learned from him instrumentally or musically that he's shared with you?

SPEAKER_03 30:16

I do like his percussion ideas because I grew up always admiring my brother who is a really good drummer, and I always dreamt of like maybe performing with my brother someday. And is that why you beatbox? Yeah, try to beatbox. I really can't, but a wannabe drummer.

Jay Franze 30:33

Boots and cats, boots and cats, boots and cats.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

He adds really neat percussion. Like, we both love Tears for Fears. We did a Mad World cover, and he in the final mix, he added like a rain stick, and I was like, I have not heard one of those since Natural Wonders in the Mall when I was a teenager. Right. And then um for Love is War, he added, I'm kind of doing this thing in my voice with in the chorus, like Love is uh like kind of a cranberries wannabe thing. And um, he added this percussion that sounds like a little bit of a war drum percussion, which I thought was really cool. So I've learned from him that he can be very creative. He does play off my lyrics, he can be very creative with that.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Like I do a little uh series called Music and Musings with my friend Anna Maria. She's a she's a classical concert pianist, and we kind of pick a research topic and we explore it. And I feel like that's what Tomas and I did with these eight songs. And I feel like when it's all complete, you put a big bow on it and just say, Okay, I hope someone listens to it. And because it's fun. They're fun, they're fun to explore, they're fun to look at things in different lights and um and sing about sing about Sam Wise Gamge and things like that.

Jay Franze 31:58

You say put a bow on it, which means a collection of work, a body of

Why Albums And Physical Media Matter

Jay Franze 32:03

work. It is an album, it is not uh uh eight singles.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Yeah.

Jay Franze 32:08

So do you think of it that way? Are you gonna release it as an album versus eight individual singles?

SPEAKER_03 32:14

It is a body of work, yeah.

Jay Franze 32:17

So I miss the days of the collection of work.

unknown 32:22

Yeah.

Jay Franze 32:22

Tiffany and I have talked about that on a regular basis, that it used to be fun to get a collection of songs and to be able to have a storyline that might go through it or even just credits and the stories from the artists for putting that project together. So it could be cool to release it as a a collection of work in addition to the eight individual singles.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

I uh totally agree with that because I like bands like Genesis and Tool and bands that had concept albums where the first song wrapped up with even a secret track at the end of the CD when you had the CD booklet open with the lyrics. Like I I totally agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

It was almost like binging a uh streaming show now.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Yeah, yeah. You have to see it all, you have to experience it all.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Each song is an episode and it made the whole series.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Yeah. You know what's funny is I since I mentioned her earlier with the music and musings, Anna Maria, she talks about like a complete symphony as a feast, like a Thanksgiving feast. She's like, I don't want just little Snickers bar, little snack, I want a feast. Like I feel like that's a concept album for for pop, rock, and country music. Like we want we want the album, we don't want just singles.

Jay Franze 33:37

Well, it'd be cool to have you know one unified album cover, the artwork to be unified. And then when you do s if you do release them individually as singles, then you have things that would tie into that album and all the artwork could play off of each other, the stories can go from one to another, it is a concept. So I don't know, it could be cool.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Well, I think that's why people like the Taylor Swift so much, right? Because the Easter eggs or whatever, you know, you could it's the same kind of idea where that first song, you know, the next episode comes out and you go, Oh, I see how those two are related, and then the next one comes out, oh I see how those two are related. Yeah. How you do with the streaming.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Or when he was talking about album artwork, I was thinking of vinyl records, the band Yes. I remember seeing those at the thrift store and like buying them up because I'm like, album artwork alone, like this is so cool. How they've just they've put these whole worlds inside of the the artwork, and then the music was just like next uh level, like it's a cool experience.

Jay Franze 34:41

You say one of the best parts of putting a project together was doing the artwork and coming up with you know everything, whether it be the font that you used. I mean, it was just another creative outlet was coming up with all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Yeah.

Jay Franze 34:54

Photo shoots, artwork. Good old days.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

Yes, yeah. Maybe we'll return to that with with AI and all the changes, and maybe we will have it return to where people want like real art and real artisans making the music and making crafting the songs and well I don't know if you've noticed, but artists have been releasing CDs again. I think that's awesome.

Jay Franze 35:19

Yeah, I would prefer that. I would prefer you start releasing CDs again. For one, that's how you make money. You're selling a physical product, so at least make some money off of it. But for two, it's good to hold something in your hand. I mean, I can't hold Spotify. I mean, other than holding my phone, you know, those songs are gone the second I listen to them.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

And so many artists I grew up listening to, I would buy the CD and follow along with the lyrics, and then I would know what they're singing about, or if it's deep in metaphor, like some of the Tory songs, I'm like, what is she talking about? But you know, you'd at least try.

Jay Franze 35:54

You'd be like, Wow, that's now you just ask AI, what's the song about?

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Yeah. No, I want to I want to figure it out the what I think it's about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

My storyline.

Thanks Where To Listen And Close

Jay Franze 36:08

Well, you were here once before, so we give you the opportunity to thank somebody who's worked behind the scenes or supported you along the way. You have anybody you'd like to thank this time around?

SPEAKER_03 36:17

I always want to thank Jeff Panzer for promoting my music and helping me out. I want to thank Tomas for the awesome collaborations and you guys for having me on here. I really appreciate our time together. It's fun.

Jay Franze 36:31

That's awesome. All right, folks. Well, we have done it. We have reached the top of the hour, which does mean we have reached the end of the show. And if you've enjoyed the show, please tell a friend and Miss Tiffany. If you have not, tell two. You can reach out to all three of us tonight over at jforenzy.com. We will be happy to keep this or any other conversation going. And Miss Kate, as we say, we cannot thank you enough for for joining us tonight. We would like to leave the final words to you.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Thank you for listening to my music and supporting my dreams. And I hope you'll listen on YouTube. Kate Stanton sings and all my music's on Spotify or wherever you stream. Thanks for having me.

Jay Franze 37:09

On that note, folks, have a good night.