There Are No Wrong Answers in Music (Emory Duncan)
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Indie Folk artist Emory Duncan joins us fresh off the release of Semicircles and Half Written Songs, an EP recorded inside his log cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We talk about treating creativity like a daily practice, wearing all the hats as an independent artist, leaving room for mistakes in the studio, and learning to trust yourself.
Key Takeaways
Creativity benefits from consistency. Showing up regularly gives the good ideas more opportunities to appear.
Independent artists have more control than ever, but that freedom also means taking on roles like marketing, content, production, and management.
You can set boundaries around the parts of a creative career you dislike, but those choices can create tradeoffs elsewhere.
Life outside of your creative work can feed the work. Relationships, nature, hobbies, and even day jobs can give you something meaningful to bring back into your art.
There is no single correct creative process. Sometimes the imperfect take works, and sometimes slowing down and building something carefully creates the stronger result.
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Related Episodes
Authenticity Over Algorithms (Mia Asano)
Mia and Emory both explore being musicians in an environment where artists are also expected to create content, market themselves, and build audiences without losing their identity.
Music at Your Own Pace (Kris Roe of The Ataris)
Kris discusses creating from a genuine place, not forcing songwriting, and continuing to grow creatively, which closely connects with Emory's thoughts on instinct and process.
Host: Michael Zimmerlich
Post-Production: EarthtoMoira
Music by: Daphne Greene
A podcast by Omelette Prevail, a creative company connecting creators, brands, and ideas through partnerships and collaboration.
Transcript:
00:00 Honesty and the Artist Myth
Mike Zimmerlich: Hey Emory, how's it going?
Emory Duncan: Hey, Mike. I am good, man. Thanks for having me on the show.
Mike Zimmerlich: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks so much for being on the show. Really do appreciate it. I'm really excited for this conversation because you just released your EP, and I'm so excited for it, and I definitely want to talk more about it. But I always like to start these interviews with a very profound and broad question.
And so for you, I want to know, what to you means when I talk about the word honesty?
Emory Duncan: What does honesty mean to me as a... and in life in general? Hmm. That is a good question.
I know that in music, I guess to narrow in a little bit, it means not trying to exacerbate the myths that have come before us for so long about the tragically tainted musician living a lifestyle that's not really sustainable, and the fact that you need to be struggling and in pain and maybe hating your life or yourself in order to write good music. And I just don't think that that's true at all.
So I don't know, trying to live my life outside of music the best that I can, and be kind and be a good husband and son, and also enjoy the other pursuits that I have that are not music, and let those things flow into music as they will. Yeah. Does that really answer that?
Mike Zimmerlich: It did, and I really appreciate the fact that you mentioned the myths about essentially being an artist, and that you have to... It's the stereotypical suffering artist, right? And that you have to suffer for your art and you have to feel pain.
I feel like you obviously have to have feelings of some sort, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that's the only way that you can tap into being creative, right?
And so I really appreciate you mentioning that. I do want to go off of that a little bit. Was music always a part of your life? Was that a part of your childhood growing up?
Emory Duncan: It was. Music was in the house. My dad listened to a lot of classic country, and my mom listened to a lot of classic rock.
And we just got this new kitten. She's very needy.
Mike Zimmerlich: I can see. Very cute.
Emory Duncan: It's me that's needy.
But it was always around, and my grandmother played piano. She had a gorgeous upright in her house. She died when I was young, but she always told my parents that I had an ear for music.
I thought that that was really telling in hindsight because I do play almost entirely by ear. So my parents got me a guitar when I was in seventh grade or something, and I didn't really know how to play it at all, but that was my sort of entry, as you would.
Mike Zimmerlich: Do you know how to read music, or are you just solely by ear?
Emory Duncan: Everything is by ear.
Mike Zimmerlich: Wow.
Emory Duncan: I played French horn, so I learned how to read music technically for a couple years, but it didn't translate. I don't read sheet music when it comes to guitar or anything like that.
It doesn't translate at all, and I don't remember how to play French horn, although that would be pretty cool.
No, everything's done by ear. It's hard for me to even communicate to collaborators who I work with what we're doing. I'm like, "No, it goes like this." And they're like, "I don't get it." And I'm like, "Just listen. It goes like this."
It can be difficult to communicate, but the upside of that is that you get these structural changes that are unexpected to trained musicians.
That's no excuse for not really knowing theory. My friends that have played with me have been like, "This is interesting, the way that you structured the arrangement here." They're like, "I would have never done this or thought of this." And I'm like, "I don't think about it either. It just sounded good to me."
Mike Zimmerlich: That's interesting. It sounds like it's very much by instinct.
I know for myself, because I grew up playing the piano and I played the trumpet for many years, I was more of a visual person, where I don't have the ear. I've tried forever to do ear training, and I can never get it.
But visually, I could read music all day long and not have a problem. I'm the opposite of that.
So it's always fascinating to meet people like yourself that are able to listen, to hear, know how to collaborate, and to replicate and emulate off of what you're listening to specifically.
And I can see how that can be freeing in some ways because when you're seeing things visually, everything is very structured, right? When you're looking at sheet music, everything's very structured, where if you're just listening and seeing where things are going to go, I can see how that can open up interesting possibilities.
Emory Duncan: Yeah, and I think there's a lot to be said for how music was recorded before the digital age.
Now you're looking at everything on a screen, and you're looking to make sure it lines up on a grid. You're making sure all the parts sync up in a grid on a screen.
And, you know, back in the '70s, Neil Young was like, "I don't know. Does it sound good?" That's all they had to go off of, right?
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah. Yep. That's exactly correct. It's all by tape at that point.
When you do record yourself, do you use something like Pro Tools, or do you go off of just recording on a device?
Emory Duncan: Yeah, I use Ableton.
As cool as it would be to say that I just record straight to tape, which I would like to be able to do in the future, that requires a confidence in things that are permanent that I'm not sure I quite have yet.
Mike Zimmerlich: Interesting. That's where technology and creativity kind of blend together, right?
I appreciate your approach of, I'm going to listen and feel, and from just listening to so much music and then creating my own music, where it's going to go.
But then also having access to technology that allows me to experiment even further.
A good case in point for yourself, yes, tape was great because of the fact that there were no bars and no visuals. You just go. But it's tape. You can technically edit it, but it was very cumbersome back then to do any kind of edits.
And there could be something said about the beauty of mistakes or the beauty of it not being exactly perfect, but at the same token, there is something also freeing about the ability to say, "Okay, I didn't like this take. I'm going to do another one," or, "I liked these takes. I'm going to put them all together to make the version that I want."
And now you have the freedom of doing that as well. Technically speaking, you could just hit record on Ableton, let it go, you play, and then you make no changes, and that's it. Whatever comes out, comes out.
But you don't necessarily have to either. That's the whole point of this, is that you have the ability to create something that you want to put out in the world.
09:00 Wearing Every Hat as an Artist
Emory Duncan: Right. Yeah, I think that it's a very good time that we're living in to be a creative. I also think that it's a very strange time that we're living in to be a creative.
For the creating, you have the opportunity to do this yourself at home. You don't need to pay gobs of money to go into a studio, and you can kind of learn how to produce yourself.
Of course, that can also be a negative because then you're wearing all the hats and you're marketing yourself, managing, you have to be a content creator, photographer, videographer, producer, engineer, songwriter, instrumentalist. I'm sure it goes on. So there's pros and cons.
Mike Zimmerlich: How do you feel about that now? Because you're right, especially as an artist, you are wearing so many hats.
And I would argue that even artists before the digital age, they had to wear many hats as well. It's just different hats than they are now.
But how do you feel about that as an artist? Do you find that it's hindering for yourself? Do you find that it actually has enabled you because you don't necessarily have to have a whole team, per se, to at least get things out the door?
Emory Duncan: Yeah, that is a great question. Glad you asked.
I think that it allows you to have an agency that other industries don't have. If you're an actor, you're kind of at the mercy of the roles that are given to you. And if you are a visual artist, maybe a painter, I guess you can promote on social media, but you're at the mercy of the galleries that will promote you.
So in this sense, it's fantastic to be able to put out whatever you want, whenever you want.
And then there's also a huge downside of that. Since everyone is doing that, streaming services are flooded with music, and it's hard to stand in a crowd.
Mike Zimmerlich: A friend of mine likes to say this a lot, and I've actually heard this from a number of people. It's from the film The Incredibles, where the villain goes, "When everyone's super, no one is."
And it's kind of true here, sort of to a degree, that when everyone has access to distribute their music globally and has access to the technology to create commercial-ready music, now you have to find for yourself how to get above the fold, right?
Which is an interesting challenge because the argument that can come into place is, okay, it's the comparison of the quality of the music. It's how you're promoting it and how you're pushing it out there. It's a combination of these different things.
Theoretically, the ones that are promoting the best, the ones whose music is the best, are the ones that will go above the fold.
That doesn't always happen. In a perfect world that might be the case, but that doesn't exactly happen.
But that does give an even playing field amongst everyone. There are no true gatekeepers anymore. There are definitely some that will be able to help you amplify and get to a larger audience.
But in general, you don't necessarily have to have specifically a record label or anything along those lines that has the sole access to, let's say, getting your music onto radio or into the record stores, or whatever the case is.
That was more the case, not 100% the case back then, but it was more the case 20, 30, 40 years ago.
Emory Duncan: Right. It is interesting because it does sort of level the playing field, but then it also tilts it and gives an advantage to people who are naturally gifted, like videographers and editors, or people who have already made a social media following.
So there are ways to compensate for the music being quality. That is something that, I don't know, I'm willing to work with that. I think that's a better issue to have.
Mike Zimmerlich: I like your approach, that you're willing to work with it.
Is it a perfect system? Absolutely not. But is it something that you are accepting, that this is how it is, and then I accept that if I want to make a profession in music, that this is the way it currently is, and I have to work within that?
Then I think that's the approach, right?
If you are looking for a professional career in music in some form or fashion, you have to accept the fact that this is where it is now.
Things can change later, for sure, but also understand this is what is expected now based upon what everyone else is doing and how society experiences music.
And I like that approach a lot because then it's more or less not whether you like it or dislike it. It's irrelevant.
It's whether you accept that this is how it is, and I want to have a career in it, and I'm willing to take that on to get my music out there.
Emory Duncan: Right. You have to play the game if you want to make a career, and I don't feel bad about that.
Mike Zimmerlich: So why don't you feel bad about that? I'm just kind of curious. Are you the kind of person that just accepts how things are? Or do you apply the things that do matter to you to yours and ignore others? Or do you fight to make a change?
What kind of person are you when it comes to something like this?
Emory Duncan: I have to find a line between, this is difficult to verbalize, what I'm willing to do in order to have the career that I would like and see for myself.
So if I don't want to do press or interviews, or say in theory that I don't want to do any of that, and I don't want to post on social media, I'm going to have to work five times as hard in other areas to compensate. And I don't know what that looks like.
So I think for whatever you're... You have to play the game at some point, and if you don't want to, you can have boundaries, but they may be limiting. They may cause you to work quite a bit harder and make it nearly impossible for yourself.
Mike Zimmerlich: I will say this too, you do not seem like a person that's not willing to work hard.
I can tell that you work very hard for not only your career and for your music, but the lifestyle that you lead as well.
One of the things I noticed, which was very interesting, is the fact that you live in a log cabin, which a lot of us are like, "Oh, that sounds so amazing."
We can get away from the city or get away from the hustle and bustle and just be in the serenity and be there 24/7. Sometimes that feels amazing.
But I can only imagine that not only did you have to work hard to be able to get that lifestyle for yourself, but also it's probably hard to continue to have that lifestyle as well.
Emory Duncan: Everything is difficult in California. It's an expensive place to live.
We're lucky enough to have a tie here. My uncle is renting us this cabin, and he is friends with the owner. Without that little seed of nepotism, I don't think that we would be able to afford to live in a place like this.
We are incredibly grateful, and we don't take it for granted.
18:00 Romanticizing the Life You Have
Emory Duncan: That said, I do think there's an aspect of the grass is always greener, and I have a proclivity to romanticize somewhere where we're not currently.
I'm from Texas, and I thought that living in Los Angeles was going to be where I was going to be for the rest of my life, and I moved there.
I was there for five years, then met my now wife, and we moved up here to Northern California.
And now we just went on our honeymoon to Greece, and we were like, "Wow, I wonder what it would be like to live here or in Europe."
So I think that we always... It's human nature to romanticize somewhere in the future where you're not.
And it's a daily exercise to sort of romanticize the life that you're currently living, and I think that my wife and I try to do that here as much as we can.
Mike Zimmerlich: Do you incorporate that into your music? I like the way you said romanticize.
So is that something that you put into your music when you do your songwriting, or do you find inspiration elsewhere?
Emory Duncan: I'm not really sure where any of it comes from.
My wife and I are very outdoorsy people. We spend a lot of time backpacking or hiking and camping. She skis and I snowboard. We also climb. We're climbers.
We spend a lot of time in the trees, and I think that as long as I can keep doing that, that feeds your soul, spending time outside in nature with the person or people that you love.
And when you come back and maybe pick up a guitar, anything that has fed your soul will only maximize your creative output.
I don't know. That's kind of a weird thing to say, but I think that's true. Anything that feeds your soul is feeding your creativity.
Mike Zimmerlich: It makes total sense.
Yeah, no, it makes total sense.
You mentioned before about when you come back, you pick up the guitar.
Are you the kind of person that when that motivation or inspiration hits you, that's when you pick up an instrument and start writing things down, whether it's lyrics or just playing a melody that's coming to mind?
Or are you more the kind of person where, I might come back, but then I need to dedicate a block of time where I'm going to spend being creative?
Emory Duncan: This is a great question. I have opinions on this.
21:00 Creativity as a Daily Practice
Mike Zimmerlich: Okay.
Emory Duncan: I read this book by Steven Pressfield, an author, and I've read it quite a few times.
He has this idea, and I've sort of taken it and ran since high school, about creativity also being like a job.
And so, while I'm here at home, I'm writing or playing every single day. Usually nothing happens.
Usually it's a half-baked idea that I know just ends up as a practice exercise.
And if I do that every single day, it's also not something I have to think about. I don't think, "Oh, it's three o'clock. I should probably sit down, and I'm going to work till 4:00."
Whenever it happens, it happens.
It's sort of a compulsion to pick up the guitar. It just sort of picks me up.
And I think that since I do that every day, you have to sort through a lot in order to get to the good stuff.
I'm sure it works differently for everybody, but that's how it is for me.
Mike Zimmerlich: So when something does come to you, because you mentioned you listen more by ear, do you still write things down?
Once you have the idea, do you go, "Oh, I'm going to go over to Ableton and start recording it"?
Or are you more like, "Okay, I'm going to write down what the chords were, maybe a little bit of the melody, maybe some of the lyrics," and start writing those things down?
When you do find something, what do you do next?
Emory Duncan: The song is always fully written before I start recording it, or at least, that's not true. It's at least 75% written before I start recording it.
I leave a little bit of room, not in the lyrics. I usually have all the lyrics done.
But for structure, with a guitar arrangement, with chords, I leave a little wiggle room for whatever I just do in the moment if I'm recording it.
And so by doing that, I allow these mistakes into existence and let them live and let them be part of the song.
So I guess that's my protest against digital recording, like we were talking about earlier.
And they're not mistakes because the song isn't something that I've listened back to a couple times yet, and that's when it sort of cements itself into a song as a whole.
So if I leave wiggle room and kind of play an extra chorus in the middle, or I go into some random bridge arrangement that I wasn't really planning, or the outro lasts really long or it's cut short, or whatever it is, I'm like, "Okay, I can probably work with this."
And I prefer trying to work with it and letting it take me rather than basing it on a preconceived idea that's not really based in anything.
Mike Zimmerlich: Speaking of being based on anything, I do want to talk about the lyrics.
Where do your lyrics usually come from? Are they just things that pop in your head?
Let's say you were out traveling or maybe going on a hike and then come back and go, "Okay, this came to mind."
I'm just curious where that comes from.
Emory Duncan: I am constantly writing down phrases that I overhear if I'm at a coffee shop or a bar.
I say that as if I go to bars. I don't.
But yeah, I overhear phrases, and usually it's a friend or something says something that they don't really even know how profound it could be, or I'll think of a phrase and write them down.
And so I have a running little notebook of phrases that I like.
And when I sit down with a guitar, usually something will pop out pretty quickly as a lyric.
Maybe it's from the book of phrases or maybe not. There's no rhyme or reason to it, except I do know that if you have a good title, the song writes itself.
A good title is a song that's 75% finished.
Mike Zimmerlich: I love that.
Do you have an example of one of your songs where you had the title already in mind and then the rest came with it?
Emory Duncan: Yeah. I have this song off my old project called "If You Say Goodbye to California."
I just thought that was an incredibly powerful title, and the writing of the song was very brief. I have very little memory of the process.
And I also have another song that is not recorded yet. It's called "All the Whiskey in Texas."
That's a great title, man.
Mike Zimmerlich: I love that title.
Emory Duncan: And the song is really good. You haven't heard it yet, but trust me.
Mike Zimmerlich: I can't wait.
I was curious too, because you mentioned when you're with friends and so forth that you'll pick up phrases from them and write them down, which I thought was really interesting.
Do you consider yourself to be a people person? Do you naturally like to be around others, like an extrovert, if you will? Or do you find you're more of an introverted person?
Emory Duncan: I tire easily.
I do love being around people, but I'm very precious about my time.
So if I don't want to go do something or I don't want to be somewhere, maybe it's the only child in me, I have a very easy time saying no. I'm very good at saying no to people.
And I do love being in social situations, but it also doesn't fill me up.
The only thing that can really do that is being by myself or with my wife. It doesn't take anything to be with myself or with her, and I guess that's because I love the both of us.
Probably an introvert, even though I can talk quite a bit. Don't say anything.
Mike Zimmerlich: I understand that. I'm naturally the same way as well.
I'm naturally an introvert, so I'm the same way where my time, I feel my time is precious.
At the same token, I obviously love to talk to people, but in general I do find myself that outside of the podcast, I'm actually usually relatively reserved.
I guess it also depends upon the people that I'm around too.
Emory Duncan: Do you know the Enneagram?
Mike Zimmerlich: Yes.
Emory Duncan: Do you know what you are?
Mike Zimmerlich: I took it a long time ago. I don't remember. What are you?
Emory Duncan: A four.
Mike Zimmerlich: You're a four?
Emory Duncan: I don't really remember what that is either, except it's someone who's emotional.
Mike Zimmerlich: There's the other one too, and I'm trying to remember the name of it.
If anybody knows, please comment on this and let us know.
There's a couple of them that are like that out there that kind of help put you into different types of categories.
I always find that even the category that I find myself in, I'm like, "Yeah, that's maybe 70% to 80% true," but I also have a little bit of myself elsewhere in these other areas too.
I like to put it this way. I think this is always the litmus test, the ultimate test.
If I asked you right now, "Hey, Emory, would you like to go out right now?" and give you the option, you can go out right now and be with a crowd of people, or stay at home watching TV or listening to music.
What would your gut reaction be?
Emory Duncan: Yeah, I would be at home.
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah. See?
I think if you put it down to that, pure A or B, what's your option? I think that usually tells you what you're leaning towards.
Same with me too. I'm an introvert. If I had the option, I would just be chilling at home.
Emory Duncan: My wife will go out with friends, not necessarily go out or anything, but just do something socially, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday every weekend, and I have the energy for one of those.
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah. No, I totally get that.
It's interesting. We all have what's called the social battery, and everyone has a different size of battery, right?
Some have very large batteries, and they can go every single day hanging out with people and conversing.
And some people, it takes every little ounce of energy in them to get out the door, even just once a week or once every two weeks, to go and do something.
That's what makes life interesting though, right?
I think that's where we all have these tendencies of what we tolerate, what we get excited about, what makes us feel comfortable, what makes us feel uncomfortable.
And I think that makes things so much more interesting, that we're all different in that way.
Emory Duncan: Yeah, of course.
Couldn't agree more with that. What good would be a world of talking to yourself? You don't get any new perspectives. You never hear anything challenging.
So yeah, couldn't agree more.
Mike Zimmerlich: I did want to mention, because you're in this log cabin and so forth, the work that you do.
One of the things I did find interesting is also the fact that you mentioned how you love the outdoors and spend a lot of time outdoors in your activities, and that you also work at a winery.
To me, it's that setting of, I'm in a log cabin, I'm playing music, but my day job is also working at a winery.
Emory Duncan: Right. It does sound quite nice.
I enjoy what I do because it allows me the brain space to focus on the thing that I need.
Making wine is, I think, a beautiful process because it's creating something. And just that act alone, I think, puts it in a different category of jobs.
Anyone who's making something, I think, is doing a lot of good in the world.
And I do enjoy it for that, but mostly it's blue collar, right? It's not very brain-intensive work.
So I can pretty much go through my tasks that are usually manual labor, and I enjoy that a lot of it is outside and tending to the vineyards.
It's in agriculture, so it does coincide with my lifestyle.
I'm much happier doing that than sitting in front of a screen or doing something corporate. I think that would kill me.
So I'm grateful for it because it's close. It's also close to my house because we live in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
It does fit for the time being, although I've never seen it as a long-term thing.
I've never seen any of my day jobs as long-term things.
I slung coffee for a long time. I bartended in Los Angeles. I've waited tables.
And each of them was only a means to be able to fund my next song.
Mike Zimmerlich: So I would say that being an artist is your long-term play and your long-term profession.
Emory Duncan: Yeah. Yes.
34:00 Recording the EP in a Log Cabin
Mike Zimmerlich: I want to talk about your EP that just got released, which, congratulations by the way on releasing the EP.
So tell me more about Semicircles and Half Written Songs. Tell me more about this EP.
Emory Duncan: It was recorded here in this cabin over the course of about eight-ish days, maybe a little over a week, with a producer who I've been listening to his work for quite a while, and I've always admired and respected it.
I was lucky enough that he drove out in his van, brought a little mobile studio with him, and we set up here in the living room.
It was him, myself, and two other friends and the dog. So we just sort of locked in for a week or so.
I would wake up in the morning at like 9:00 AM and come out of the room, and Jamie would already be plugged in, got the headphones on, looking at the screen.
And he would just turn around and be like, "How do you feel about playing some flute?" Any random instrument, glockenspiel, theremin.
I really thought that that process was a little slice of magic, and it was beautiful and pure.
You could really feel that everyone was comfortable and having a good time and enjoying themselves.
The album became this product of that, and it has this sonic stamp.
They all sound like they were recorded in the same time and place, which they were.
You can hear the cabin in the recordings. It doesn't sound like it was recorded in a studio.
It sounds rough and raw and full of personality and mistakes, and I love that about it. I think it sounds awesome.
Mike Zimmerlich: I want to bring up something that we were talking about just before the interview, about how you actually had a film camera that you were using.
We were talking before about the beauty of tape and so forth, but here's one of those situations where something could go wrong, and something happened with the film camera afterwards.
Emory Duncan: Yeah, I thought that was a great story.
I was shooting on my old Minolta film camera the whole time, trying to document this in an analog way.
And after I went to get it, they said that it was all messed up. There was nothing to develop.
Everything was black, and there was some issue with the film. I have no idea what happened. Maybe it was just severely expired.
There are very few photos of that or any documentation, and I think that makes it also a little bit magical, that we have a couple iPhone photos but not much more than that.
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah. I think that's the beauty in analog, and the beauty in mistakes, I would say too, right?
Emory Duncan: It doesn't last.
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah.
Emory Duncan: Doesn't last, and neither does perfection.
In these small moments, we want to try to capture and bottle it and make it last forever, but they're only in the tiny, tiny fleeting moments is where those things live.
And so in the cabin when we were recording it, it was just there, and then it was gone.
That's what makes it beautiful and human.
Mike Zimmerlich: Now there are a few songs already out on the EP that came out before the full EP was released.
Can you talk about why you decided to have this collection of songs be part of the EP?
Emory Duncan: Yeah. Let me adjust this. There's light coming in hot on my face.
That's not any better.
Mike Zimmerlich: You're fine, unless you're squinting. If it bothers you, then go ahead and adjust.
Emory Duncan: Okay, yeah. It was just in my face. Okay, what was the question?
39:00 Choosing Songs and Embracing Imperfection
Mike Zimmerlich: Talk about the EP, because you had released a couple songs before the full EP was released.
Can you talk about specifically why you chose these songs to be part of the collection, to be part of this EP?
Emory Duncan: Good question.
I had about nine, maybe, that were sort of in the running.
And I think that these were the ones that I felt pulled towards by my gut.
A good litmus test for me is when I'm listening back to a demo, or when I'm writing it or playing it live, and I start to tear up or get choked up because I can't even finish it, like a sad sap in my own song.
But that's how I know that it's good and it's based in something real, lived in, and those all got me there at some point.
Which is interesting though, because the title track, "Semicircles," almost didn't make it on the record.
I was between that and a different song, and I played it for the producer and I played it for my friend, and they both were like, "Yeah, that one needs to go on the record."
They sort of made that decision for me because it wasn't really that finished.
I think that was the one that was more of a rough idea because it was pretty quick.
And interestingly about that, not to go off on a tangent, but if you have a second, I'm going to.
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah, tangent away.
Emory Duncan: We did a take of that in the bathroom.
I sat on the toilet, we set up three mics, and it was the fifth song we recorded, the last one.
We were like, "Let's do something different. Let's make it pretty stripped."
We had thrown the whole kitchen sink at every other song, and they're so packed full of instrumentation.
So I did like two takes in the bathroom, and we got something really cool.
It happened very quickly, and it sounded rough and raw and sounded very much like me because I was the only one on it.
And Jamie, the producer, was like, "Well, maybe we try just doing a hi-fi version as well, since usually when we do a little one-take thing it takes a little longer than that."
But we had gotten my one take. I was fine with all the mistakes in it, and I was like, "That sounds good to me."
So then we did a hi-fi version, and we tried to A/B it and see which one we liked.
And pretty unanimously, the hi-fi version was better.
So for all that I've said about leaving the mistakes in and trying to do it analog in one take and bottling a little bit of lightning, we layered it and took our time with it. It was better.
Mike Zimmerlich: I think both can be equally true.
Sometimes the mistakes and that beauty, that's what makes it real.
But I also think, at the same token, putting the time and effort into something and putting the work behind it, there's also a beauty in that as well.
So I think it really just depends on ultimately how you want to express yourself.
But I feel like just in general, there's beauty in both of those things.
There's beauty in, I won't necessarily say perfection, but I'll say hard work.
I think there's beauty in hard work just as much as there's beauty in mistakes and little blemishes here and there.
Emory Duncan: Yeah, and that's the beauty of what we do as musicians.
You're creating and building and living in a world where there are no wrong answers.
There's also no formula.
You can do it however you want, however you're pulled to do it, and sometimes it's going to be better one way, and sometimes it's going to be better the other way.
Sometimes the song that you wrote in 10 minutes is gonna be better than a song you wrote in three years.
But sometimes the song that you wrote in three years is gonna be a lot better than anything you wrote in a day.
So it's to each their own, the songs at least.
Mike Zimmerlich: We can start wrapping things up here. I do have a couple of fun questions for you.
Emory Duncan: Right.
Mike Zimmerlich: First question...
Emory Duncan: Having fun.
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah, so I guess you're having fun, right? Everything else was not fun, but this is gonna be the fun part.
Fun question. What was the very first concert that you ever went to?
Emory Duncan: Oh, that is a good question.
It was Robert Plant and the Band of Joy because I was hoping that they would play some Zeppelin songs, which they didn't really play.
They might have played one or two.
But that was, yeah, I was in intermediate school, I think.
My parents took myself and a friend.
I asked my friend, I was like, "You want to go see Robert Plant?"
He was like, "Dude, hell yeah."
And I'm pretty sure he had no idea who that was.
Mike Zimmerlich: That's a good one.
Do you have a go-to artist that you're listening to right now?
Emory Duncan: A go-to that I'm listening to right now? Who am I listening to right now?
Not especially.
I feel like when I'm in a writing phase, it comes in waves.
Sometimes you can write for six months and nothing really happens, and you're really frustrated and you're like, "Wow, I'm not even a songwriter."
Then sometimes a wave of ideas starts coming.
And when that's happening, I'm mostly listening to my voice memos and trying to get little quick demos, and sort of living in that space and playing around with them.
So I haven't really been listening to anything too heavily at the moment.
But I will say I really love Nathaniel Rateliff's newer album.
I can always go back to anything by him. I think it's called South of Here. It's fantastic, and I think it's his best work yet. It's so interesting.
I have nothing but respect for someone who's put out their best work after they were massively successful.
I think it's usually the other way around, or it's very easy for it to not go that direction.
What are you listening to right now?
Mike Zimmerlich: I had a feeling you were going to ask me that question. I don't know why.
I'm really into the alternative emo stuff. That's what I like.
There's this band called South Arcade that is from the UK that I'm really liking right now. I really like them a lot.
But I've also really liked this band called Stand Atlantic. I've been a huge fan of them for many years.
LØLØ is another one.
I would say outside of that, more artists outside of that genre, I love the Chili Peppers.
Emory Duncan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Zimmerlich: I dig the Chili Peppers. Jimmy Eat World is big. Linkin Park is another big one.
But also, I love Cake and The New Pornographers as well.
My taste is a wide range, but they're all in that rock circle. It's either indie rock, rock, punk rock, emo rock. It's all kind of in that realm for the most part.
Emory Duncan: Sweet.
Yeah, I saw that Bowling for Soup, not sure if it's a poster or vinyl.
Mike Zimmerlich: Yeah, that's the vinyl back there.
It's like their best songs, and actually I love the title.
It's one of their compilation albums, and the compilation album is titled Songs People Actually Liked.
Emory Duncan: That's funny. They always had a nice sardonic sense of humor.
Mike Zimmerlich: Oh, they do. Yeah. The sweetest guys in the world too. They're super cool.
All right, last question for you.
If you were only able to give one piece of advice, what would that one piece of advice be?
49:00 Trusting Yourself
Emory Duncan: That is a great question.
I think that if you have a little voice in your head that's telling you to do something or to not do something, whatever it be, you should listen to that.
And I'm not sure, I guess some people call that God or the universe.
I personally think it's maybe just your own pull, and I don't know where it comes from, but I think that everyone has that little voice in their head that guides them.
And I think listening to that is very important.
I think that if you do, you will never wonder, "What if?" in any situation.
You won't look back and regret anything, I think, because you will have made decisions based on how you feel at the time.
I think that's really important.
Even if you look back and say, "Well, in hindsight, maybe that was a mistake," or, "I could have done that better," you can't blame yourself or fault yourself at all if it's how you felt at the time.
And we don't have vision other than what's in front of us and what we can gather right there.
So yeah, I guess trusting yourself maybe is a nice, succinct way to put it.
Mike Zimmerlich: Couldn't agree more.
Well, thank you so much, Emory, for being on the show. Really do appreciate it.
Again, congratulations on the EP.
We'll make sure that we have links in the show notes where everyone can take a listen to it.
Thank you so much again. This was such a pleasure.
Emory Duncan: Right on. Thank you so much for having me, Michael.
Mike Zimmerlich: My pleasure.
Emory Duncan: All right, see ya.
Mike Zimmerlich: Cool. Awesome. Great job.