James Michael Stevens Interview - The Final on Vinyl Podcast

I had a good talk with James Michael Stevens regarding his recent release, Into the Sunset.

Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck

Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Hello everyone, this is Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck with the Final and Final Podcast, and today we are are with James Michael Stevens, um, who just released Into the Sunset on June nineteenth. Welcome aboard, James. Hi, thanks, Keith. So glad to meet be with you today. I appreciate you coming on board, and it's my the first time I've spoken to you and actually covered one of your albums. So um maybe just a little background on from once you came. Um one of the things that really stands out for me that just blew me away was the fact that you had released at least one album per month for several years running, which is unheard of. I I just can't get over that. You must have had so much in the uh in the can and just kept putting it out until you ran out. So it'd be interesting to hear a little bit about that too.

Speaker 1 1:05

Well, I've um I've always been fairly prolific, but um, I guess about four years ago or maybe five years, I just I decided I was gonna try to you know have a massive project where I um released at least one piano album every single month. And on this one I I I called them every one of them was just the the month that it came out in January January, February, you know, and so on. And then some of them I had as many as 20 songs. So they weren't like you know short albums and stuff. They were a lot of songs. And during that year also I released some other things as well, some Oregon and some some sacred uh and I think Christmas music. So um I when I started doing that, I thought, well, you know, I I don't know if I can ever finish this. It was such a massive goal in a sense. But when I got through the year, I pushed through it, and and once I finished that year, I thought, well, you know, I can I can keep this going, you know. So I enjoy just pumping stuff out and and I've gotten to where I can write, you know, fairly quickly, you know, since the uh Into the Sunset album, I actually wrote the whole thing was written within two weeks, and uh at uh towards the uh middle of of April to the uh very first of May and all.

Speaker 2:22

That's quick, yeah. So how many total recordings do you have out there now?

Speaker 1 2:28

I'm not sure, but I I think I have um probably over fifteen hundred that are probably streaming, and there are some things with some other people as well, and everything, and and uh as far as uh like things available on like Sheet Music Plus and stuff like that, I've got over 8,000. Um and uh total publications probably around 10,000 because for years I was writing a lot with a lot of different publishers, uh a lot of sacred choral music and you know and stuff like that. So um so it's uh you know a fair amount. You know, just keep plugging away at it one note at a time, you know. So how long ago was your first recording? How many years? Well, my first publication actually was with uh Shawnee Press was back in uh 1981. And uh uh and the interesting thing about that was I always wanted to be a writer and really wanted that was sort of in my blood in a sense. I always looked up writers and was trying to see who who composed things and find out things about them. And and when I wrote that first thing, I was uh trying to write a lot. Of course, I was very young and very um naive and very uh uncrafted as far as my skills. Um but it took me after that first uh composition that was published, it took me another eight years before I got my second one, and that was within lots of uh lots of uh uh trials and errors and and pitching to a lot of people and everything. So I think um one thing I've learned over the years as far as the music industry is is uh you know you have to be persistent, you know, that people uh almost everybody um you know respects people that that don't give up and are persistent. And uh years ago, I think probably around the late 80s, you know, I I moved to Nashville for about five years just to try to get into you know what was going on and everything and learned so much and you know in that process. Made a lot of mistakes, but had some successes, and and anyway, I moved back here uh back in 2004 and been here you know since and everything. I see.

Speaker 4:41

So what was it like for you growing up? Were you in a house filled with music and uh had parents that actually were musicians or influenced you in any way?

Speaker 1 4:51

Uh I was born in uh Texas and grew up in Alabama, and my dad was uh who eventually became a uh m a physician and all, was um well actually was a very was a great musician, a real natural musician. He he was a great singer and he could he could play like a ton of instruments just a little bit, you know, and uh and had you know some some training and thing. My mom not as much so, she was closer to being tone deaf or whatever. But I just I think I got a great love of music uh from my dad. But it was interesting when I was very young uh I actually had hearing problems. And I think I for my first four or five, six years I I had a lot of operations in my ears and really didn't hear very well. I I think maybe when that was cleared up and I started hearing the music, I think maybe it was just amazing or something. But uh Wow.

Speaker 5:47

That's definitely something to overcome, especially for a musician like yourself. That's uh going from one extreme to another. That's that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 5:56

Well, my my sister, I didn't realize it at the time. I found out later. She used to, she was a year younger, she used to go around with me and translate for me. Because a lot of times when when kids can't hear very well, they they don't pronounce words very well either. Um course I never realized that. I thought I was saying everything just fine. But uh but anyway, but yeah, it's um i i that's sort of an unusual story. And I'll tell you another unusual story about my bringing up as far as my piano playing, is that um one of my first piano teachers um when we moved to a new town in Lower Alabama, I call it LA, um, she actually after a couple uh semesters, um not semesters, a couple uh one semester or the the fall, she she actually called my mom and because I had I did wasn't showing any interest in not practicing or anything, she kicked me out of piano lessons. So um I was I guess I was uh my mom was so embarrassed, but I was so I was very happy because I just wanted to hang out with the guys and play sports and stuff. And uh but later on I started uh picking it out on my own, remembering the lines and spaces and and picking up books and trying to figure out how to read them, and eventually I went back and took from that same teacher, and she was a very great teacher. But it was sort of a that's a little a little bit of an unusual situation too, I think.

Speaker 7:17

Yeah. So I'm just looking at uh your album again. Uh I I love the uh artwork, the the cover art's beautiful sunset, and uh you know, looking at all the titles of the tracks, it sounds like you really dug down deep. It was a very emotional album for you.

Speaker 1 7:38

Well, I I think so, and I think it was sort of a reaction, sort of in a sense, uh when I wrote it, um I'm a um a college professor, and the last two weeks of April are the very are just chaotic and hectic and got too many things going on. I was also trying to write graduation music and prepare for stuff at that time. And I think maybe that writing those pieces sort of in my spare time at night was sort of a an oasis or or a chance to an escape to get away from everything else that was going on. So so that may have m uh had something to do with some of the the titles and some of the feelings that were in the album were sort of maybe a reaction against you know some of the other things I was feeling at the moment.

Speaker 8:25

So it was very therapeutic for you to go through that process. I think so.

Speaker 1 8:29

Yes, I think so.

Speaker 8:32

Well, obviously um you had a lot to share. You know doing that within a two-week period is is very quick and that came together very fast. So um once you had it all together, then you had the mastering and and all of that. Um was that actually a longer process at the end?

Speaker 1 8:55

Not really, because uh it's sort of my process is a little bit different from everybody, uh well not everybody else's, but a lot of people that are in sort of this area of the new age solo piano stuff. When I um when I write something, I actually um even though I love to improvise and can just sit down and just play things and maybe just record, I actually uh write them uh every piece one note at a time and actually engrave it. So I write it down exactly on the page like I'm gonna play it, and then I immediately, right after that, I record every piece. So and I do all that, so I do all that myself. I do all the writing down, all the playing, all the mastering and everything at once. So so when I get through with all the pieces, I'm actually I've already mastered uh each piece individually. So at that point, it's just a matter of of arranging them uh for upload, you know, put them in the processes. It really isn't um difficult. And then also um I at this same time will will book put them in a uh reformat them and put them in a book, whereas I would have already published every single piece individually uh by that time as well. So at the end, it's not it's not really long, it's it's just a matter of just uh putting it all together, what I've already done.

Speaker 10:21

So you complete the whole process end to end. You don't send it out for any mastering or anything.

Speaker 1 10:28

No, I I don't because I'm I'm I'm actually trying to to make money at it. And you know, and time you know, there's no way if you're if you're having somebody else engrave it, you know, printed music and if you're having somebody else do your artwork and your covers and your mastering and all this stuff. I'm sure I I could do a lot better at every, you know, maybe part of that, you know, but uh but I just I just do it all myself.

Speaker 10:56

That's great. That's great. You do save a lot of money that way, I'm sure. Of course. So during the course of recording music over the years and and prior to before you uh even started, what would you say is some of your influences, you know, the things you heard that inspired you? Can you think of any particular artist?

Speaker 1 11:21

Yeah, I I um I sort of have got a weird sort of mix. I've always loved jazz and everything, for one thing, so I love the the role. I just finished, in fact, two jazz combo albums. One of them just came out. No, one of them's gonna come out in July, another one will be coming out and um and uh end of August and everything. Uh it'll be a Christmas one. Um but uh imp influences on jazz, I love people like I used to love, and I used to play some of Spiral Gyra. Are you familiar with them? Oh yeah. I just love the their their stuff. And I and I used to, it's like smooth jazz, I used to love to listen to like Earl Clue on the guitar and and you know, and he just has this uh really just uh smooth and you know style. And and then I uh um that's sort of balanced out with uh of course uh I grew up in in church and and got a very strong religious and church background in music, but on classical, uh I've been heavily influenced by that as well. I love uh my favorite composers tend to be like Rachmaninoff. I love Rachmaninoff's music and and also I love the French composers in the Precionist period, uh Debussy and Ravel, and then many others. I actually uh you know teach music history at my college as well as a lot of other you know forces and stuff. But so I I think I s have sort of a wide uh variety of things that I that I enjoy and have listened to and everything. So um not as much pop. I listen, but I do listen to a lot, but I uh and I've actually played in country band, you know, you know, before too. So I I I enjoy country. I I have to like it a little bit. I'm in Nashville, right?

Speaker 12:58

So right. Well, I I love jazz myself, so uh in holiday music, especially on piano. So if you're interested in sending that my way and want some coverage, I'd be interested in hearing that I'm sure.

Speaker 1 13:15

Well, I just finished uh also um I I've been writing a lot lately with a guy named uh Shay Watson. Shea is a good friend of mine, but he's written extensively on on um show uh network and TV stuff, like a probably hundred things or a lot more on like Lynn of the Restless and some of these Hallmark movies and stuff. And so we've been uh on we've been collaborating, and we've had some I've had some stuff come out on some of those things too, and but we've been collaborating on some of this jazz stuff on that. So I sort of write them in full and and record them and release them, but then he's taking a lot of them and like completely stripping them and reworking hims them himself. So he just released um uh one just yesterday uh on his it's called the J uh Shea Watson Jazz Combo, where there's five pieces on there where all of those are are me playing the piano and have written the pieces and he goes back and sort of under he co-writes them with me uh with me. So we've written a lot of things together like that. But it's interesting because we um um we never sit in the same room. We're good friends and we'll get together and stuff, but as far as recording, we never sit in the same room. We'll um I will do my work and I'll send it to him and he'll add it. I'll do all my things in logic and then he'll I'll export it to him and he'll do all this stuff in and Pro Tools, but we sort of correct collaborate back and forth just with our files and working together and working on ideas and stuff.

Speaker 14:46

That works well, you know, having those that technology, you know, that's really uh a step forward for musicians when that came into being, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 14:56

Well, it it makes everything just so much easier. I remember when I first started, uh actually when I first started writing choral works and stuff, everything I did was uh pencil and paper. Well well, first it was uh fine point flare and whiteout, and then it went to pencil and paper, and then I think in the uh late uh middle eighties, I guess, or early eighties, when I first went to finale trying to to figure that out after about a week or a couple first couple weeks with it, I wanted to take the computer and the finale and throw it all in the trash because it was so such a difficult transition, you know, to start with. But now it's just it's just so amazing with all the recording, you know, and all what you can do on your own without having to actually go into you know um some uh you pay in studio time and or engineering and mastering and all this stuff. So that's just made it sort of possible for people you know like me and others to to upload you know things and not um you know sell the house to do it, you know.

Speaker 15:59

Right. And and plus there's uh so many more avenues, particularly with instrumental music, for you to uh send your music out to for for use, like you had just mentioned, like on a on a Hallmark show or a soundtrack. There's all different services out there that have a need for that music, right?

Speaker 1 16:19

Yeah, so there there is. It's just just sort of figuring out the ins and outs of how that works. Uh I haven't figured it out quite as much on that end, uh, but but Shay is like a master of that, you know. So but I've but certain other areas like in print and stuff like that, is something that I'm very confident and you know comfortable with. So so sometimes you you're always learning, you're always trying to figure out new angles and everything's always changing. But sometimes through collaboration, you um you can you know take each strength from different areas and expand in a ways that you couldn't do by yourself. So it's very very interesting.

Speaker 17:02

Well, it's been wonderful speaking to you, James, and uh appreci appreciate your time, your music, and your insight into your process. And just so folks know, once again, James Michael Stevens Into the Sunset was released June nineteenth. And uh hopefully we can get together again and and do this sometime down the road.

Speaker 1 17:23

Yes, I'd love to, Keith. Thank you so much for your time and I really appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 17:30

Thank you. I appreciate your time. Take care.

Speaker 1 17:32

Okay, all right, bye bye. Bye bye.