NEW RELEASE: Mana Loop EP by CJ Vickery

What drew you to music in the first place? Was there a defining moment that pushed you to pursue it seriously? 

I think I’ve always been sort of musically curious. My grandfather played and had a band that formed in college, and then went on to perform and recorded a small LP over their lives. It wasn’t until after he passed, however, that I really picked up an instrument. My mom’s old guitar was lying in storage, and I just had a good enough ear that I could begin to pick things out. I think I found guitar right around the time I was moving away from art and illustration because kids were really ruthless in middle school toward someone drawing knights and dragons and DBZ characters at the time.

Guitar seemed like a more socially accepted hobby and form of expression, but naturally I fumbled that too. I was into AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd, which led me to BB King, Son House, and Robert Johnson. From there I wound up in the realm of Holst and Tchaikovsky, and all the way back around to guitar virtuosos like Paul Gilbert and Joe Satriani. I was doing lessons here and there, but I didn’t have any formal training. My dad just had a broad collection of music and an extremely eclectic musical palette, so it came down to access. Instruments were around, music was around, and it was really just that innate curiosity that pulled me in all of these different directions.

Discovering music production was a game changer, though. Finding out that I could record and produce the kind of music I wanted to hear from scratch really exploded my exploration into learning how to compose, program, and perform on multiple instruments or synths or samplers. From there it became this kind of mad science game to capture performances that mirrored the greats on guitar, on vocals, on bass, trying to create these moments of excitement I experienced when discovering all of this different music. Over time that has really evolved into finding ways to compose music that builds to that moment of elation and release. There are simply too many influences to count across all genres at this point, but they’ve all had a huge impact.

You’ve already released multiple tracks and have a new EP, “Mana Loop,” coming up this year. How has your music evolved from your first release to this project?

I started out releasing EPs and LPs on CD as early as like 2006, all home-recorded and reflecting my novice understanding of production. My first tracks ever were recorded on this old BOSS 8-track recorder that saved to these absolutely massive flash cards. They were basically mini floppy disks. But I would record everything into the 8-track with the onboard drum machine and then burn my own CDs at home to hand out.

Now I have studio-quality plugins installed directly on my computer that allow me to emulate Abbey Road in my own room, and these platforms that allow me to release everywhere all at once. Despite that, I think the biggest change in my music comes down to how focused the sound is. Three Days, which was an album I recorded in a three-day weekend and mixed/mastered over the following week is not terribly different from my music now. I had a clarity to the sound I wanted to produce. For the most part, I think that record sounds just as I intended it. 

But now I’m so much more refined in my approach. I have so much more knowledge about what will achieve the sounds I want to convey, and each time I come back to a blank project I can really engage with the nebulous shape of the feeling of the song and know I have the technical chops as a performer and producer to realize it. That has really emboldened me to step out of my comfort zone and create music that is less familiar to me, or even just trusting my skills to carry me through when experimenting.

Does “Mana Loop” have a central theme or story you’re exploring? What can fans expect in terms of mood?

An early working title for this EP was “Wheelhouse,” as in “Out of my Wheelhouse” in reference to how much the music on this EP is a departure from what I have released in the past. The truth is that I just have a lot of unreleased music, and as we were reviewing what tracks could be cool to group together in an EP experience, this theme emerged where this more vibey, electronic music kept popping up, but I never had a strong sense of how to publish them given the musical identity I’ve curated.

What became clear was that I have this distinct mood in my head that I keep returning to, exploring it with different sounds and compositions and instruments--this sort of ambient sound that feels like you’re in a soft, liminal space, not unlike a dream. Sometimes the dream meanders gently, sometimes it becomes more urgent and energetic, and sometimes it reaches a sort of triumphant catharsis, but it’s never fully tangible.

Did you encounter any surprising challenges or breakthroughs during the making of the EP?

Most of the songs were meant to be a sort of gag initially. They were this sort of parody of the lo-fi, vibey kind of music. Throw some comped chords with pseudo-jazz voicings into a loop and build an interesting tapestry of sound textures over top of it and you get pretty close to this stuff that seems to do really well as “Beats to Study and Relax to.”

But as I was making myself laughing building at-home lo-fi anime beats, I started to think about how minimal I could make it. How do you make a song that’s basically just two different two-chord loops feel like it actually moves? That shift turned this into a really compelling composition puzzle. Harmonically, you’re just bouncing back and forth between these very stable cadences and voicings, and so you start getting really creative with how you wind a melody or a more spacey sound texture.

At some point, that turns into a sonic journey that lulls you into its current. The repetition becomes enthralling, rather than predictable, and this magic sort of emerges. It was very satisfying to stumble on this organically. “Nightdreaming” was done so much later than the others and it’s the song that feels like that lesson really settled in; where I found this way to almost forego a melody all together, letting the chord voicings just take us on that journey and sweep us into that comforting, cool space.

 

Are there any standout tracks on the EP that have a special story or meaning for you? Further, how much of your music is personal storytelling vs. fictional or abstract ideas? Do you have a favorite track on your new EP, and why?

“Cloud Nine” is a really interesting track for me. As a filmmaker and musician, I tend to develop my stories from their musical identity as much as I explore the story itself, so when a potential story idea grabs me, it is frequently accompanied by something like a musical genre, composition, or instrumentation that complement the tone of the story. This song was an idea for a film I had while on heavy medication from getting my wisdom teeth pulled, making it very atmospheric and liminal in many ways. The specifics are less important now, but the key elements were that there was this post-apocalyptic Earth where hostile creatures forced humanity to floating fortresses called “Clouds.” Striking a balance between this bleak, futuristic setting and the awe that these floating cities would inspire led to an exploration into more traditional orchestral instrumentation alongside very electronic elements.

On almost the opposite end of this spectrum is “Nightdreaming,” which for a long time only existed as a title for a song I couldn’t crack. I had already finished “Streetlight Lullaby” and “Dreams in Mercury,” so I knew that I was interested in finding some way to compose another track that would complement their sound and vibe, but I really didn’t have any concrete story or sound associated with it. All I really knew was that I wanted to sort of invert the concept of daydreaming with sound, finding a way to invoke that sort of semi-lucid state of free association and exploration of your subconscious, but over the backdrop of a dimly starlit sky. What resulted was this sort of enchanting, undulating cycle of a progression that feels influenced by the likes of Nobuo Uematsu from Final Fantasy. As much as I love rock music and heavier stuff, those early videogame and music scores were some of my first loves, and so this felt like returning home in a very cool way.

Your sound has a unique vibe. How would you describe your musical style, and who or what are your biggest influences?

So much of it comes back to listening really broadly, and then producing our playing on tracks that have this wide range of styles and conventions. All that different stuff has a way of worming itself into the DNA of the musical choices you make, the way your ear works things out, the way your body naturally approaches a performance.
But like, that’s a really technical answer. If you know, you know, but for everyone else I think they just recognize I’m the guy that does really heavy stuff. I definitely get a kick out of that and it’s fun to produce to that kind of extreme level, but I wouldn’t say it’s my style. I name dropped a few influences before. A lot of 70s rock and prog-rock, a lot of early blues, a lot of 80s virtuoso guitar stuff, and certainly 90s/00s alternative and grunge. Soundgarden and Foo Fighters are really huge influences on my sound.

But I think my favorite way I’ve heard my style described was by this Irish band I opened for back in college. I was playing these songs I was writing at the time with a power trio, just me, a bass player, and a drummer. The band was killer and we were just making this wall of sound out of only three guys, and this guitar player from the Irish group is talking to a friend who came out to the show about our performance. He goes “Yeah, their music just makes you wanna kick shit, doesn’t it?”

I thought that was so killer. Even when we weren’t playing super heavy stuff, it was this energy that we were chasing. So yeah, I think that’s kinda the defining trait of my music most of the time. It’s this totally unleashed energy. It could be slow or fast, distorted or clean, or any other kind of sound you can imagine, but bringing that completely untamed energy where the lid is just blown off. That’s the sound I like.

How do you approach songwriting and production? Walk us through your typical creative process.

I don’t have a terribly structured approach so much as there are patterns to the way that music sort of happens for me. Over time it’s just become clear that lyrics never happen first, and I generally start by getting stuck on a riff or progression or a sound that has some hook to it. If it’s enticing enough for me to return to it over and over again, I feel like it’s got enough juice to start building a real song around it.

From there, it’s all about building the composition so that whatever is special about that hook or that main harmonic/melodic idea is really emphasized. If that first core idea is what got me excited, I need to make sure that the rest of the song tells everyone from the first listen “This is the cool part, get hyped!” That usually means that I’m sitting with an instrumental arrangement of any of my songs for a good long while before I know what I want to do with vocals. I try to determine the melody first so I know what shape the lyrics need to fit into and then I really agonize over writing something meaningful that matches the mood of the song.

Of course a lot of the coolest creative moments come out of breaking patterns like this, so sometimes I will start with a lyric or a vocal melody and write around that. Or sometimes it’s just not getting bored with yourself and deciding that you need to do something slower after you’ve written a lot of fast songs, or you need to get into a completely different time signature.

No matter what I start with, though, as I’ve matured and gotten better at each step of the writing/performing/production process, the main thing is knowing the feel of a song. Is it hopeful, or wistful, or angsty? That’s the anchor you keep coming back to when you need to decide what goes into the song next and if it fits. There’s obviously tons of technical and performance stuff that goes into being able to make those sounds work the way you want, but the goal is to get good enough that the technique and the skill fades into the background and you just focus on the experience.

As a fairly new musical artist, how are you navigating the music industry? Any lessons learned or advice for others starting out? 

I suppose my “revival” is relatively new, and it’s true that the music industry has changed so fundamentally in the time since I’ve been active in it that it feels like starting over, but I’ve been releasing music and playing live for almost 20 years at this point. Ironically, it feels like despite all that change, the best way to build an audience really is the same way it worked when I was starting out as a teenager playing dives with friends. There are a ton of platforms now with discovery algorithms that can just drop new music into your lap out of nowhere that you didn’t even know you were looking for, and it can make you believe that if you just publish your stuff, you’ll be the one getting magically dropped into someone’s discovery queue.

The problem is that these discovery algorithms aren’t altruistic. They’re meant to benefit the platform by serving up songs or videos or podcasts that will keep people on the platform longer. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t publish your music; you have to publish your music if you want to seriously start building an audience. But what it does mean is when your numbers are zero, you need to focus on getting one to five, not one million. And the irony is that the closer you get to doing your music or promoting it in-person, the easier it is to invite one to five people to check out your stuff.

When it comes down to it though, find the stuff that excites you, and do the best version of that you can. That’s not my advice for “hacking” the music industry or getting streams or breaking out as an indie, I just think that’s what the world needs more of. There are plenty of people making music as optimized for discovery as possible and sanding all the rough edges off to appeal to the broadest audience. 

If you do that with music you don’t really care about (or even worse, you hate) then the absolute best case scenario is that you have to slog through making more music you don’t like to keep that audience--a prison of your own making. The most rewarding musical experiences I’ve had, whether it’s bigger shows or playing for a single person, is that moment where someone else who likes the same stuff you do can pick out a reference or an influence. When someone really sees the craft and the work you’ve put into something, when they see the same quality in your work that you both see in your idols, that’s the best moment you can get.

How do you want your music to impact your audience or the culture at large?

I think that I really care about musicianship and craftsmanship being represented in the media diet. My music may not always be the thing everyone is in the mood for, and it may be a little more niche, but I do care about it feeling enriching, like you’re listening to something that makes you feel like you spent your time well.

I think, beyond that, is that I mostly want my music to make people to feel like there are no limits. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s all uplifting. Some of my songs are aggressive, angry, or somber. I do think that regardless of the tone or mood of the song, I want it to feel expansive and make people feel like they can take a deep breath in and cry havoc at the world. There are a lot of ways to make people feel formidable, and that’s something I think my songs really do, like they’re a part of something epic.

How do you stay motivated during tough times or creative blocks?

“Push on the open doors.”

I have a ton of interests and different things I do at a pretty high level, so there’s never a shortage of projects to jump between. When music feels stuck, I don’t push on the locked door, I jump over to film, drawing, writing, or animation. It’s not the most efficient way of creating things I can publish, but it is the best way to ensure I don’t burn myself out.

While it takes longer to make stuff, it lets me sit with it for a long time and really decide what it means to me. Usually I get to experience it through a wide variety of life events and see how it changes, if it holds up. But if there’s something where I really can’t afford to slow-roll it and wait for things to move freely, it comes down to two things:

First, you just get really f*ckin’ good at your craft. When you have a toolbox full of techniques and weird solutions to problems, there just aren’t as many things that can block you from realizing what you want. As long as you know what you’re after, you can always find a different way to approach it and get unstuck.

Second, and much more difficult, is you just gotta make sure you’re always doing something with your heart in it. That doesn’t work for business and so many other things in life, but in your art, if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no. If your heart is in it, you can always come back to the self-knowledge of what you want out of a project and let that lead you out of whatever has you stuck for now.

Do you have any pre-show rituals or routines to get ready for performances?

Over time, I think the biggest thing that I have learned about prepping for performances is to just keep it loose. Nerves, tension, anxiety, these are things that are a natural response to needing to bring your best, but are exactly the opposite of what you want. I just focus on keeping my head clear and enjoying the show.

I also really like to keep it funny and lighthearted in my sets. I’ve worn nothing but a kilt, Chuck Taylors, and a bike helmet to a show. I frequently make jokes on stage to cut the tension. I think anything that creates distance between you and your audience gets in the way of the fun. There are artists who do such a great job curating a sense of mystique around their persona and performance, and I love folks who can make art that way. But I want to feel that raw energy of the crowd. I want them to feel me having a blast, and just circulate that feeling back and forth the whole time.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any spicy superstitions that go into my prep. I just try not to psyche myself out and remember that the whole point is for everyone to have a good time.