Grant Davidson Interview

0:00 Luke F. Walton Hey everybody and welcome back to Music 101 podcast. I am Scoobert Doobert and I'm joined by a very, very, very special guest, Slow Leaves, aka Grant, coming all the way from Canada, I assume.

0:14 Grant Davidson That's right. I'm in Winnipeg.

0:15 Luke F. Walton Winnipeg! I've been to Winnipeg.

0:17 Grant Davidson Oh, yeah?

0:18 Luke F. Walton Have you heard of the band Royal Canoe? Local band.

0:22 Grant Davidson Yes, I know those guys.

0:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

0:24 Grant Davidson Yeah.

0:24 Luke F. Walton I love that band. I didn't know you were in Winnipeg. How cool.

0:27 Grant Davidson Yeah, very cool band. Yeah, I know those guys pretty

0:30 Luke F. Walton Oh,

0:30 Grant Davidson well.

0:31 Luke F. Walton no way. You're kidding me.

0:32 Grant Davidson Yeah.

0:32 Luke F. Walton So we're going to have a fun little conversation just about music, life, internet, and just kind of jump around fluidly from topic to topic. Kind of the premise of this podcast is inviting both music fans and musicians into other people's process, other people's views on music, and then hopefully expanding their ability not just to make music, but also consume it.

0:53 Luke F. Walton and be a part of that like dialogue with creators and stuff like that so

0:57 Grant Davidson sounds good and it looks like you're coming from Maui or

1:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

1:00 Grant Davidson something where

1:01 Luke F. Walton right.

1:01 Grant Davidson are you oh

1:01 Luke F. Walton I am in San Diego, but also my bedroom. It's not very pretty

1:05 Grant Davidson nice

1:05 Luke F. Walton behind me.

1:07 Grant Davidson so it looks nice looks nice we got about 15 feet of snow outside right now so yeah

1:12 Luke F. Walton 15 feet.

1:13 Grant Davidson it's well I'm exaggerating a little bit but but no but no shit a good like up up to your waist for sure the snow banks on the roads are are easily easily 10 feet it's been an epic uh winter of snow this year we're

1:30 Luke F. Walton amazing

1:31 Grant Davidson waiting for spring still patiently yeah

1:32 Luke F. Walton yes well i will try and send a little san diego your way is

1:37 Grant Davidson you don't know what that's

1:38 Luke F. Walton that

1:38 Grant Davidson like

1:38 Luke F. Walton i don't

1:38 Grant Davidson i know what it's i know what it's like down there my sister lives in san diego i

1:42 Luke F. Walton what

1:42 Grant Davidson know what it's all about

1:43 Luke F. Walton part what part

1:46 Grant Davidson uh well actually she she moved around a bit but more most recently i think uh just a few months ago she she actually moved up to carlsbad

1:53 Luke F. Walton Nice. So that's actually not far from where I'm from. I grew up a little beach town called Encinitas, which is just south of Carlsbad. So plenty of good times in that beautiful, beautiful part of the country. So if you do, if

2:05 Grant Davidson i

2:05 Luke F. Walton you make

2:05 Grant Davidson know

2:05 Luke F. Walton it

2:05 Grant Davidson i

2:05 Luke F. Walton out.

2:05 Grant Davidson know about the weather yeah yeah exactly yeah i know about the weather you're keeping

2:12 Luke F. Walton So speaking of kind of being tucked in by snow and weather and things like that, I'm curious, does seasonality affect your writing process, like writing songs or thinking about music? I always am curious with songwriters, how much of it's outside, how much of it's inside that affects what you make?

2:33 Grant Davidson Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It does. I mean, like, yeah, here in Winnipeg and, you know, in a lot of Canada, like a lot of our year is defined by winter,

2:47 Grant Davidson you know, and we have a really nice summer, but it's like summer is so precious to us, especially like here in Winnipeg is right in the center of the country and it's like prairies and we get a ton of snow, we get a long cold winter.

3:06 Grant Davidson yeah our summers come around and it's nice it's like you know plus 30 i guess that's like i don't know plus 90 fahrenheit or

3:11 Luke F. Walton Cool.

3:12 Grant Davidson something uh 98 or something uh so it gets hot in the summer and uh but people just like it's like a celebration you know people you gotta soak it up because it's so precious and then we we uh we hunker down for these long winters and uh it gets dark right

3:29 Grant Davidson like uh in the in the real thick of it uh it's it it basically gets dark at like 4 30 p.m so you come home it's dark you're making dinner you get up it's dark and uh can i swear a

3:42 Luke F. Walton Of

3:42 Grant Davidson little bit

3:43 Luke F. Walton course.

3:43 Grant Davidson i don't know what your vibe

3:44 Luke F. Walton You're

3:44 Grant Davidson is here

3:44 Luke F. Walton good. You're good. Go for it.

3:46 Grant Davidson i'm not like a sailor or something you're in the sailor territory you got those yeah

3:49 Luke F. Walton Exactly. I'm even kind of wearing like a pirate-y.

3:52 Grant Davidson yeah but uh uh it uh it fucks with you

3:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

3:57 Grant Davidson um

3:58 Luke F. Walton yeah,

3:58 Grant Davidson it really does uh and and yeah so i mean some people are more uh affected by it than others but absolutely i i'm affected by you know the the the amount of light and my mood is affected by that but more so yeah like uh the the lyrically there's just sort of like ideas and themes that just naturally work into my songs that are affected by uh you know i think we're just all

4:22 Grant Davidson uh products of our environment to a certain extent or to a larger extent than we want to maybe uh acknowledge but um yeah like in the winter i have snow and darkness and isolation that stuff just works it into works into my songs and likewise in summer it feels weird to write about you know i don't mention snow in anything either yeah yeah so i don't know yes i guess that's a long way of saying yes

4:47 Luke F. Walton No,

4:47 Grant Davidson it

4:47 Luke F. Walton I like

4:47 Grant Davidson does

4:48 Luke F. Walton that.

4:48 Grant Davidson impact the way i write

4:49 Luke F. Walton No,

4:49 Grant Davidson you

4:49 Luke F. Walton I like that. I also, I mean... Sometimes I feel like there's like a component of, yeah, what you're getting in terms of weather and vibe of like the people around you, but then also just the way that you kind of your brain chemistry is in a given moment. I'm curious with writers, do you feel like the sparks of inspiration where like if you have to table a song and come back to it?

5:13 Luke F. Walton it's a it's like it's not going to be the same song like you all like almost have to there are certain moments you have to like crystallize in order to make like like for example if there's a song that i'm editing over the course of several weeks that it's just going to be there's going to be a fundamentally different flavor to something that it just came in one session

5:31 Grant Davidson Totally.

5:31 Luke F. Walton yeah

5:33 Grant Davidson Yeah. Well, there's work involved no matter what. Right.

5:36 Luke F. Walton totally

5:36 Grant Davidson And I think I agree with what you're saying for me. people i've talked to creative people i think this is pretty common it's like sometimes your your best stuff uh comes without with it feels like the least amount of effort

5:52 Grant Davidson Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. and then uh because you know there's there's some moments where you know lightning strikes or whatever and you just you have that it's like the right time the right frame of mind the right sort of inspiration and things just pour out like some of my what i think some of my best songs are and i could i could you know i could look at them

6:11 Grant Davidson from album to album and all the what I would consider my best songs are generally the ones that came within like a day or two you know just like but for sure like the lightning strikes in a day and I just you know where it's going you just got to put the pieces together and the words come and all that stuff and then there's you know it doesn't some people maybe are like that if you know there's Bob Dylan's out there but

6:34 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

6:35 Grant Davidson uh that doesn't always happen for me um and so a lot of the time it just becomes work

6:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

6:41 Grant Davidson right

6:41 Luke F. Walton totally.

6:42 Grant Davidson it's still you know it's still satisfying work but you get that initial inspiration and you try to sort of carve out where it's going but it doesn't get there so easily and so yeah some songs i have uh there's a whole process and it's sometimes it's frustrating it feels like work you got to force things into shape you know you're like trying to mold it

7:01 Grant Davidson and it takes some effort you get there in the end you get you might get a great song and the listener maybe they don't know anything you know they're they're they

7:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

7:09 Grant Davidson don't detect that but i i there is something there's a balance between the work and the inspiration that if you get it right because it's always work right If you get it right, then it just it feels effortless, but the craft is like well intact,

7:28 Grant Davidson where sometimes if you labor over it, it just feels labored over and it's missing a bit of that, that sort of whimsy that that comes with not overthinking because it's it's coming from, you know, some kind of deep inner inner place that your intellect hasn't interfered with too much. You

7:46 Luke F. Walton know I

7:46 Grant Davidson what I mean?

7:46 Luke F. Walton totally know what you mean. And I'm curious about... like because i i know that some people will hear this concept of work and be like that's where i stop like the you know like they'll they'll be carried by that chord of inspiration and then they'll they'll get discouraged and i know that a Yeah.

8:01 Luke F. Walton lot of people have trouble finishing and and actually being like this song is done or this song is ready to be recorded this song is ready to be released there are traps kind of all along the way to make it so the song never gets birthed into the world do you have any techniques or anything that you could share like if somebody's running into those walls what do you do personally like how do you interpret that work how do you get from that that place where you have the inspiration it's almost there but then you turn it into something real

8:28 Grant Davidson Hmm. my initial thought is i abandon it but

8:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

8:33 Grant Davidson but

8:33 Luke F. Walton that could be

8:34 Grant Davidson no it

8:35 Luke F. Walton appropriate too.

8:35 Grant Davidson there no you're you're i know exactly what you're saying and um there's a there's a gradation right obviously like each each song each each project each kind of piece is different in terms of you know measuring kind of what you need to put in to get what you want out of it

8:54 Grant Davidson and and like i said on one extreme of the scale is like effortless in 20 minutes sometimes you're like oh fuck it just flows out you're like holy shit the gods gifted me a

9:03 Luke F. Walton totally

9:03 Grant Davidson song right

9:04 Luke F. Walton yeah like i didn't write that actually yeah

9:06 Grant Davidson and yeah and i think uh that's a gift you know nobody knows where that comes from and you hear that over and over from creative people that that happens but it's not always the case like you know uh

9:18 Grant Davidson so it's just yeah like there's some songs that I I love it's like there's a seed there that I'm really excited about

9:23 Luke F. Walton Okay.

9:23 Grant Davidson I'm like oh I just gotta hammer through this but sometimes it just it just it it isn't working and I I don't give up though until I feel like I've really you know what happens

9:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

9:36 Grant Davidson i don't actually give up but some other song sort of takes its place

9:39 Luke F. Walton I like

9:39 Grant Davidson and

9:39 Luke F. Walton that.

9:39 Grant Davidson i get excited about that

9:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

9:40 Grant Davidson and then i move on to something so it's a balance i i guess i i have a hard time totally relating to people who say i just never finished it or i couldn't finish it um there's tons of songs that i haven't finished but there's always something else that kind of gets me excited to keep going and then i feel good about that and sometimes i'll go back to things i'll keep you

10:03 Grant Davidson plug in a way when i'm not feeling overly inspired

10:05 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

10:06 Grant Davidson by something i'm excited about because i think you need to keep that element of work in it because it is work there's a bit of a mythology about it like just it's always got to be joy or it's always just going to you're going to feel it well that's not reality like you know like leonard cohen for instance he would he just he saw it purely as work and obviously we're not all Leonard

10:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

10:26 Grant Davidson Cohen's but you know I've read about you know moments he he'd literally be lying on his floor smashing you know banging his forehead against the floor trying to just find the word it's work

10:37 Luke F. Walton yeah.

10:37 Grant Davidson he would he would sit down with a pen and paper whether he had an idea or not so there's kind of two spectrums right and then you got your Bob Dylan's who are writing a song in a cab ride i guess the idea is it's just always work but the mythology getting back

10:52 Luke F. Walton Mm

10:52 Grant Davidson to it with bob dylan he's on that extreme but but his notes are filled with edits like his songs if you go back into it he's he was always editing always working it's just uh everybody's got to work at it and sometimes some people it comes a little more easily some are not but

11:09 Grant Davidson it's there's a balance i guess right totally it's like you could work as hard as you want and end up with a piece of shit that you're not happy with well then that works wasted so it's a it's sometimes you got to be prepared to walk away is all i'm gonna say i

11:21 Luke F. Walton no

11:21 Grant Davidson guess

11:21 Luke F. Walton it's good that's a good point i i think that that's one of the it's one of the fun things about conversations like this is that fundamentally both extremes end up being true where it's like some days you're going to feel like bob dylan some days you're going to feel like leonard cohen some days you're going to feel like you don't even know how to play music music and

11:35 Grant Davidson Yeah,

11:36 Luke F. Walton yeah

11:36 Grant Davidson there's no one way to do it. That's the thing. There's no rules in this shit,

11:39 Luke F. Walton right

11:39 Grant Davidson right? I think we get bogged down by you see what other people are doing and you think that's the way to do it. And you always think other people are doing it more easily than you.

11:49 Luke F. Walton yes

11:49 Grant Davidson They're doing it better than you. And most of the time they're having the same thoughts, you

11:55 Luke F. Walton yes

11:56 Grant Davidson know?

11:56 Luke F. Walton i

11:57 Grant Davidson We're

11:57 Luke F. Walton i

11:57 Grant Davidson all full of doubts.

11:58 Luke F. Walton want to talk to you about because so personally my my journey i started on acoustic guitar

12:02 Luke F. Walton singer-songwriter writing everything on acoustic guitar with pad of paper and then I have turned into this top liner this computer-based guy that I feel like a lot of my music ends up sounding like that but is still a core of me that is a singer-songwriter every once in a while go back to it can you talk about like your process

12:24 Luke F. Walton like said sitting down writing that song i know you're great with finger style guitar i love the tones you're able to get out of it are do you do you come from that kind of more singer songwriter place

12:37 Luke F. Walton or do you come from it from the computer side or do you kind of meld the two like i i write a lot when i'm recording i kind of i get inspiration hearing where i'm gonna sit if that makes sense Yeah, but

12:49 Grant Davidson yeah, it does make sense. What do you mean by topliner?

12:51 Luke F. Walton top line like like so like if somebody makes a beat and they just send me the beat and then i write on top of it

12:57 Grant Davidson oh i see like right lyrics

12:59 Luke F. Walton yeah or like like right lyrics melody sing basically basically they'll they'll give me an instrumental like a dance groove or something that they produce that has just cool sounds and then they say hey turn this into a song

13:11 Grant Davidson i gotcha i gotcha yeah um and that's a few question um I definitely identify myself more in the sort of like singer-songwriter category

13:20 Luke F. Walton Mm

13:20 Grant Davidson and

13:20 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

13:20 Grant Davidson because my whole life well my whole sort of you know songwriting life was really like you described with a guitar kind of just fiddle around come up with something write a song

13:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:31 Grant Davidson and up until not that long ago that's how I wrote every song no song was finished or even like no no recording was started until I had the song written

13:42 Luke F. Walton Yes.

13:42 Grant Davidson with the lyrics and guitar Yes. and then the production was an after thing but I kind of had a transition with that like you know slowly over time I've sort of built a little studio for myself here which is really the first key to being fully creative with production obviously and

14:05 Grant Davidson and uh you know uh two records ago i put out a record called shelf life and i was kind of a lot of those songs i wrote them on guitar but i experimented with the production myself uh in this room here and um

14:21 Grant Davidson but after that uh i kind of well basically i put that i'd put that album out and it was a really personal album like i put a lot of myself into it i thought a lot of my best songs were on it and then the pandemic hit i had tours canceled basically like a stillbirth album you know it just like what

14:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

14:36 Grant Davidson the fuck uh

14:37 Luke F. Walton yeah.

14:38 Grant Davidson and um it was i was kind of i was devastated in a way only because it was like i you know i was proud of this album i wanted to to get out there

14:47 Luke F. Walton Mm

14:47 Grant Davidson and

14:48 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

14:48 Grant Davidson it couldn't really it was stifled in

14:50 Luke F. Walton Yes.

14:50 Grant Davidson that way so anyway we're all sitting around like everybody was right sitting around and i didn't know i started thinking like shit maybe i just need to find something else i started thinking about becoming an electrician or something i got a friend who's an electrician and um

15:04 Grant Davidson i experimented with that but that you know i was just sitting around i was like fuck i got i got this space in the basement i got tons i always have tons of musical ideas that's one

15:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

15:12 Grant Davidson thing the lyrics are always the thing that

15:14 Luke F. Walton hold yeah,

15:14 Grant Davidson me back um

15:14 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah

15:15 Grant Davidson because i care about the lyrics and they don't always come so easily but i get tons of like melody ideas sort of seeds of songs little bits and pieces and i was thinking i got i got all this stuff like why don't i just i just i was like shit just go down and make music and i

15:30 Grant Davidson it was kind of a process of letting go and the idea was I would just make songs before I had lyrics and that was the first time I really did that so I would I'd have a musical idea like I'd have a lyrical melody with no words attached but I would just build songs around that and I started making productions and then adding the lyrics last and that was a really liberating thing for me because I'd never done that and and now I do a combination of that

15:57 Grant Davidson a lot of the time i build the songs uh and then i'll have you know i won't worry about finishing the lyrics before i start building the

16:06 Luke F. Walton Cool.

16:06 Grant Davidson song the production

16:06 Luke F. Walton Yep.

16:07 Grant Davidson of the song

16:07 Luke F. Walton Yep.

16:07 Grant Davidson and uh it's fun it's more fun to do it that way i don't always end up with like the part of it was letting go of of being so precious about every word uh needing to be some kind of like personal manifesto because i think i've written enough songs for me to have clearly identified sort of what I wanted to say in those songs

16:26 Luke F. Walton Okay.

16:27 Grant Davidson that I felt good about just like you know and not every song has to be chock full of like deep personal meaning sometimes they could be meaningless you know so so yeah that's kind of where I'm at now I'm in like a combination zone where if if if the inspiration strikes and I get a song and I write it and I feel good about it but if not I'll still I'll still start working on a song and

16:51 Grant Davidson see where it goes and it's it's a fun process

16:53 Luke F. Walton that is a fun process and i i resonate with that too because that that was my that was my kind of flow and it opened me up once i stopped feeling the song had to be done before i could move to the next stage once i've started to blur those lines i feel the same thing with mixing now where mixing used to be this distinct like i'm gonna mix i'm gonna make things sound good now and now i just make things sound good when i want them to sound good and then at the end i'll make

17:17 Luke F. Walton it'll make them sound good together but like breaking breaking down the walls of like the arranger the producer all the different hats and just turning them into one hat i felt was liberating and made me create more made me make more

17:33 Grant Davidson Yeah,

17:33 Luke F. Walton stuff right

17:33 Grant Davidson it's just making music at that point,

17:36 Luke F. Walton exactly

17:36 Grant Davidson right?

17:36 Luke F. Walton yeah

17:37 Grant Davidson All

17:37 Luke F. Walton that's

17:37 Grant Davidson those things are pieces of it.

17:38 Luke F. Walton a good way to put it really good way to put it um In terms of fingerstyle guitar, could you talk about kind of your inspirations? I really love some of the stuff that you do with rhythms.

17:54 Luke F. Walton I'm still working on it. I play with a pick 99% of the time. So when you take the pick out of my hands, I kind of feel like I have four or five different individual characters all kind of wanting to do their own thing. Can you talk about like finding different rhythms, playing with that?

18:09 Grant Davidson Experimenting with patterns where you get inspiration. Sure. Like my whole story with guitar is like I have an older brother and I was about 15 and I started like digging into his tapes, you know, and

18:29 Grant Davidson and uh and i a tape that i put in and it literally blew my mind was uh zeppelin uh two

18:36 Grant Davidson Mm. you know and uh and just hearing like jimmy you know i hadn't really listened to much zeppelin i'd heard zeppelin obviously but like just just putting that on in my bedroom and uh heartbreaker came on you know and these riffs like holy shit it just uh

18:52 Grant Davidson I went to my mom and I was just like, I want to play guitar and she took me to the mall and we bought an acoustic guitar.

18:58 Grant Davidson I started taking lessons and so it was just I mean the ironic thing is like I wanted to be like Jimmy Page but I was like I was like mom I want lessons or I want to learn guitar and she's like well I'll get you lessons so she just signed me up for some lessons and the lessons just happened to be a classical guitar lesson so I'd go there and I'd you know I'd have my foot on a stool and like play with the guitar on my left knee you

19:23 Grant Davidson Right, right. know like Totally elevated. kind of formal and uh and i did that for two years and um and then eventually you know it's like i was learning to read music and stuff but that's not really what i wanted i was already starting to write songs

19:38 Grant Davidson Mm and -hmm. and i was just like uh i'm good i'm good now but um i just went from there but but i guess like the what i'm grateful for is uh is And accidentally, I was given that sort of skill base

19:53 Grant Davidson Mm. of like learning to use all my fingers. Well, You're not the pinky, right. but the three,

19:58 Grant Davidson Yeah. you know, now I mostly use the two. I'll throw the three and the third and once in a while. But I learned to do that and that became the basis from which I just experimented with guitar. And so I started as a finger picker and I never used a pick and for years and years.

20:15 Grant Davidson I would never use a pick and a pick felt really foreign to me and it's only been in the last several years that I've started using a pick just to more so when I'm when I'm producing songs,

20:28 Grant Davidson Yeah. you know, because for a part, Right. but I'm still not totally comfortable with it. It's a whole art form in itself. And on stage, I've never once used a pick.

20:37 Grant Davidson Really? So yeah, How cool. I just I just strum with my fingers and my I thumb. love it.

20:42 Grant Davidson and i often i'll do a combination of like finger picking and strumming for you know different moments or whatever but um but yeah i just uh the language that i use with the guitar is my fingers and that's what feels right for me the pick still feels foreign i'm getting better at it as i as i go along but i know that you know i have friends who are great guitar players and they're you know the pick they can

21:04 Grant Davidson Yeah, totally. do whatever um but that's sort of like i said it's kind of an accidental accidental gift i was given to learn that because you know there's lots of great i'm i'm good at i'm pretty good at guitar like the sort of style that i've developed um but i'm limited you know

21:23 Grant Davidson Mm but -hmm. people but but you know i've had enough people kind of come up to me and compliment me on it i'm like hey maybe i'm a pretty good finger picker but i guess the reality is a lot of people don't do that that much And as far as like inspirations Yeah. go, like, I mean, you know, I listen to a lot of like John Fahey and stuff like that.

21:43 Grant Davidson I don't play anything like, I don't know if you're familiar with John Fahey, but really experimental, kind of a weirdo who just played. amazing guitar

21:51 Grant Davidson Sweet. pieces that don't sound like anything I else and must check it like Leo Kottke and you know these sort of like guitar wizards and I was never one of those but I loved that kind of style and I loved listening to Bert Jansch like he was one of my early influences I don't know if you know him he's a British psych folk

22:09 Grant Davidson You're dropping some cool people guitar player yeah for me to check out after this pod. I'm excited.

22:13 Grant Davidson well well you know what what happened was I had a real coming of age with music where I moved into a house with a buddy of mine.

22:21 Grant Davidson Mm-hmm. He bought a house, you know, in like a central part of town and, you know, I was in my early 20s and it was the first time moving out and we moved in together and then a third friend of mine that I went to high school with and we were like really good buddies back then, but we sort of, you know.

22:37 Grant Davidson fell apart not because of any reason reason just sort of drifted apart is a better

22:41 Grant Davidson Mm word -hmm. um but then reconnected and he was getting into records and he was big into music like buying cds records and he got me into records and uh i started going down to the record store and uh just collecting records finding records that sounded cool look the cover looked cool i'd check them out and went down all these rabbit holes and it was a total music awakening for me

23:03 Grant Davidson where i discovered all sorts of music that got me excited it didn't matter what the genre was but just something that sounded interesting and through that i got into all sorts of stuff but um but yeah bert bert yanch was one of them he he's he uh well i guess just to give a bit of context like um

23:22 Grant Davidson he uh he's been around since the 60s he's dead now but a really influential uh acoustic guitar player uh really great with his fingers used weird tunings but really like pulled on the strings like snapped them

23:34 Grant Davidson Hmm. in a way that he felt like he was uh had control of the guitar in a way that i hadn't really heard and then i remember reading this quote that uh neil young had said something like something to the effect of like bert yanch did for the acoustic guitar what hendrix did for the electric electric

23:50 Grant Davidson Hmm. and I mean that might be a bit you know hyperbole but there's no question you listen to this guy play and like he he really you know nobody sounded like him and so he was a big influence on me as well and yeah and then just basic stuff like Bob Dylan doing you know he's a finger

24:06 Grant Davidson For picker sure. too right and I was I was big into Bob Dylan in my formative years I mean I still am he's Bob Dylan but But just stuff like that.

24:16 Grant Davidson Yeah. I was a folk musician and a lot of folk stuff was finger picked. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that's what ultimately draws me to it so much is that it unlocks a part of the instrument that I still struggle with. And I feel like a pretty capable guitarist, but it's fun to... it's like it's like brushing your teeth through your left hand kind of kind of feeling a little bit

24:38 Grant Davidson yeah well it's a lifelong journey you know you can keep learning like uh i'm trying to learn the piano right now you know it's hard

24:45 Grant Davidson it's it's hard man yeah hard but but that's the beauty of it like you keep You never, you never, there's no point where you're like, okay, I've learned guitar.

24:52 Grant Davidson Yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, that's done. I've learned music now.

24:57 Grant Davidson Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Time to do puzzles and And retire. And listen back on my greatness. Yes, exactly.

25:06 Grant Davidson Yeah, exactly. Wait for the accolades to be showered upon me, deservedly, much deservedly.

25:14 Grant Davidson One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was. is obviously your TikTok and your reels and the kind of kind of content side of what you're doing getting your music out there getting your personality out there but I

25:28 Grant Davidson Mm-hmm. know that there's like the typical questions about that the thing that I want to talk to you about most about it is

25:34 Grant Davidson you have personal conversations with yourself and I feel like that is so songwriter of you because that's fundamentally what I feel like when I'm writing a song or something I'm singing something back to myself gut checking it you know going going back this dialectic that you have between between yourself how does that feel I've never done that before how does it feel doing it how do you come up with those ideas is it like songwriting where you're like you have this little nugget and you go okay I'm going to follow that idea

26:00 Luke F. Walton That idea or, you know, how does that process work?

26:06 Grant Davidson Yeah, good question. Well, I mean, the whole social media thing is just a nightmare for me. I don't, I don't like it. I don't like anything about it. You know, it just like, and it's been around for so long that I, it's just, you can't be in the game and not participate in Totally. that side of it. So I've, so generally I've really struggled to like find my place in like how to use that in a way that feels good. um

26:32 Grant Davidson Mm-hmm. and tiktok is the first app that came along where i was like okay this kind of can make sense this makes sense to me more than anything else like instagram facebook was the worst twitter

26:44 Grant Davidson Yeah. not good Yeah. um I agree. Facebook was the worst. but uh but yeah like i love i love film i love movies i love the idea of like making

26:55 Grant Davidson little little films and stuff and um and so i experimented a lot with tiktok and it was just kind of

27:00 Grant Davidson Yeah, fun i yeah like that none of it went anywhere right i'd make these little what i'd consider masterpieces these little like mini these these little like little films with like a poetic uh narration

27:14 Grant Davidson Mm and -hmm. they they just wouldn't go anywhere right it's like holy fuck what's going on this app's broken but uh but slowly over time i i tried all sorts of stuff and i i certainly you know so i i basically started doing those dialogues um and they haven't taken off by any means like i am small time tiktok but the dialogues started resonating pretty clearly with like a small subset Mm of

27:39 Grant Davidson -hmm, musicians who mm-hmm, mm who at least think like me and and -hmm. I think there's a there's something relatable that all of us who are trying to like you know communicate something through music or through art it's not just Mm music um

27:52 Grant Davidson -hmm. something personal and something special but are continually faced with the fact that most people don't give a shit you know the internet is like the ocean and you're you know you're like spitting into a wave like it's just most people don't give a shit and so um uh that that felt good to keep doing that because of the feedback i

28:14 Grant Davidson Mm was -hmm. getting and that i continue to get of just people who are like saying like you know you've kind of you've put into words what i think and i think there's power in that it's that's encouraging but as far as like where it comes from uh i think about this shit all the time all the time ever you know i ever since i i quit my job to be like i do music full time And with that choice is the...

28:45 Grant Davidson uh comes the the puzzle of trying to justify that choice Yeah. over and over because you're you're surrounded by people who uh you can easily perceive as being more successful than you in life because they have nicer houses they have nicer cars they make more money they can do more things right and uh it's really easy to feel like a failure and a loser in

29:11 Grant Davidson Not just music, but like I said, like any artistic form, because you make yourself so vulnerable and

29:16 Grant Davidson Yeah. your worth is generally made through that vulnerability. And so when it doesn't... uh succeed uh in the according to the metrics that every every other success in life is measured by when you look out your window right

29:36 Grant Davidson Yeah. uh it's really easy to feel like like a loser like you're failing and so i've struggled with those uh those thoughts all the way along and i'm always thinking i like philosophy too you know like i i i'm a i'm a thinker

29:49 Grant Davidson uh well you know i don't mean i don't want to sound pretentious by that other than the simple fact that i spend a lot of my time thinking that's what i mean by

29:57 Grant Davidson Well, i think i that's what philosophy means, don't think that's love of wisdom and thinking. So it's not,

30:02 Grant Davidson yeah yeah. yeah i won't say i'm smarter than anybody i'm smarter than a few people but there's lots of people smarter than me anyway i'm just trying to you know give a give a little context before uh people think i'm some pompous ass but i do enjoy reading

30:15 Grant Davidson thinking philosophy and thinking about these things i'm always thinking about life like what goes into a meaningful life what do i want out of my life and that's why i'm doing music

30:23 Grant Davidson Yeah. because ultimately that's what i want to do and it feels meaningful to me in in the real way um so that stuff just goes into those dialogues it's i get that feedback from other people but also kind of it's cathartic for me to work that stuff through in words and um and i like exploring that stuff i like writing i like

30:44 Grant Davidson I like the idea of like writing the dialogues and so it's kind of been a nice little pocket of social media that feels good for me where like I said everything else mostly feels uncomfortable and inauthentic to me.

30:58 Grant Davidson I like that a lot. And I like that you've carved that. I feel like I'm still trying to carve that. This podcast has been the closest thing for me because I get to have real conversations with people that I am just curious about the way they think and the way they create. some

31:14 Grant Davidson yeah you i get that know you that makes sense i know but i i hear you especially i don't even have a facebook i it was the worst i i've had past musical lives and there's part of the reason why i wear the mask is um because

31:27 Grant Davidson thought it's you were like a great a burn i victim know totally i proved it to you i showed you my face i'm just kidding oh

31:31 Grant Davidson i'm just kidding you're very handsome very handsome handsome.

31:33 Luke F. Walton thank you, sir. The lighting is terrible. But yeah, I mean, one of the interesting things about like vulnerability or wearing a mask or whatever, you know, literally.

31:45 Luke F. Walton is you you cut off some of those like creative flows when you think too much when you not think too much about it when you wallow too much in it at least i did um like putting on the mask was liberating to me because then it's like okay now i'm pouring myself my truest self into this entity this bucket and people can judge the bucket but it's not me but it is me you know it created this like

32:15 Luke F. Walton ironic double think that opened me up creatively.

32:21 Grant Davidson I get it. I get it because it's, you know, your creative side is your identity, but it's also not like, it's good to decouple that creative identity from this identity that you have built from.

32:40 Grant Davidson thinking about how other people see Mm you and -hmm. I think I to me that makes sense that wearing a mask puts a slight layer between that between what what you're trying to do internally and what you can be sort of caught up in

32:58 Grant Davidson Mm assuming -hmm. what people are seeing from the external and trying to make sense of that. I mean, that's the real web of consciousness really of

33:06 Grant Davidson Yeah, yeah. any existence is like trying to tease apart the inside and the outside and make sense of it all. So that makes sense to me is purely from a creative side. I mean, you know, not quite the same thing, but...

33:19 Grant Davidson a similar logic sort of went into my decision to use a moniker like Slow Leaves instead of my own name

33:27 Grant Davidson Yeah, was that's a good point. was a similar kind of process of just having some kind of some kind of layer that I could you know I mean ironically I've sort of like I'm you know I'm more myself than ever under the Slow Leaves things and so and so I sometimes I feel a little bit like why don't I just use my own name

33:48 Grant Davidson but uh but there is some kind of like some comfort in um in having that sort of like building that house in which i can live a certain way but

33:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:59 Grant Davidson it doesn't have to be everything

34:01 Luke F. Walton Yep. Exactly.

34:02 Grant Davidson if that makes

34:03 Luke F. Walton It

34:03 Grant Davidson if that makes

34:03 Luke F. Walton does.

34:04 Grant Davidson sense

34:04 Luke F. Walton There's a certain baggage that comes with your own personal identity. that obviously you're drawing from creatively but like i have a certain sense that i want my parents or my sister to look at me and think of me in a certain way and that doesn't always sus with the kind of music that i want to make and the kind of music videos that i want to make like I want to be able to be stupid and free and

34:33 Grant Davidson Yeah.

34:33 Luke F. Walton chaotic,

34:34 Grant Davidson Yeah.

34:34 Luke F. Walton you know, and I don't want people to necessarily think like, oh, he's actually insane. Maybe just a little bit, but like that decoupling, I think was pretty.

34:45 Grant Davidson Yeah, I get it. I totally get it.

34:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I want to talk one more thing about fitting it in your life. I saw that in, I think it was in one of your videos about.

34:59 Luke F. Walton you you you obviously you you had a great video about choice and whether or not you were led to make the decision to focus on music full-time or if that decision was just fundamental something that was going to happen beyond

35:12 Grant Davidson Mm-hmm.

35:14 Luke F. Walton that i want to talk like i'm thinking of the like the you know people people that are making music listening to this podcast How do they find the time to fit it in their life? How do they make the right, how do they make the choices? Or are those things that it's kind of like you have excuses or you have action? I just kind of wanted to unpack that conversation a little bit with you.

35:37 Luke F. Walton I know that there's no real answer, but I just figured that would be fun

35:39 Grant Davidson Yeah,

35:39 Luke F. Walton to talk

35:40 Grant Davidson man,

35:40 Luke F. Walton about to close out the show here.

35:43 Grant Davidson you know, I don't know, like. it's controversial and that's kind of what i i enjoyed about that that particular uh dialogue was that some people not a lot but some people kind of came at me not not in an aggressive way but just in a you know wanted to have the discussion uh because there is a lot to unpack there and i guess i guess in this in this most simple way i could put it it's like If you have another choice,

36:16 Grant Davidson you're probably going to choose that path. Mm-hmm. Because spending your life... in a creative realm like trying to make your living in a creative realm for the same for the reasons that i already itemized

36:34 Grant Davidson Yeah. like making yourself vulnerable as the primary purpose of your occupation and then with that coming the cost of having to like pick yourself up scrape your self-esteem off the floor time and time again reassemble yourself to do it over and over to be more vulnerable you

36:54 Grant Davidson um is really difficult and so few people really make meaningful success out of that in terms of like again what the typical markers of success in life are so it's really hard but of course there's a whole nother side like

37:12 Grant Davidson Mm it's -hmm. it's an incredible privilege of course to even have that option like i mean you know if you if you were in a in you know destitute poverty you

37:22 Grant Davidson Yeah. might not have a choice you just have to get a job and and whatever you're not going to you know spend i'm just going to write some poems you know

37:29 Grant Davidson like Yeah, yeah. i get it so there is that that other side to it but i think within the context of anybody's life If there's something stirring in you that needs to create, I think it's going to find a way.

37:48 Grant Davidson to to come out you're going to find a way to to do it it doesn't mean that you have to make it your job

37:53 Grant Davidson Mm-hmm. but if you have a job that is occupying all your time and there's something eating away at you saying oh i wish i could i wish i had a bit more time to paint not that i want to be a painter and i'm going to make my life as a painter but but you're going to find a way to carve that out if

38:09 Grant Davidson Yeah. it matters enough you're going to find another job that can still pay your bills

38:14 Grant Davidson but allows you some time to paint it might be a small sacrifice but you're gaining access to that part of you that was eating away and so i think there's different context in everybody's life where that fits in what the right balance is but i think that's what i meant by you don't have a choice and so some people are like oh i wish i could do that or i want to do that if you

38:40 Grant Davidson If you're not going to do it, then I don't think that I really feel like it's probably not burning strong enough that it's a strong enough need in your life. It's not going to override your want to like have a nice house and be able to like go to parties and feel like you are part of the gang and stuff like that. those are the choices and I guess what I was exploring and within that

39:06 Grant Davidson Yeah. is like how much of a choice is it really for me and I can only again I can only talk about my own experience really and then try to draw universal conclusions but um but for me like I worked I worked jobs like I started doing music for real uh when I was about 33 I think 34 maybe and and like I said I started playing guitar at 15 and I went to university. I went into a job.

39:35 Grant Davidson But I never gave myself into any kind of career. I float around with different jobs because I always wanted to play

39:41 Grant Davidson Yeah. music. Yeah. I always had this like door open to play music. And so as a result, I didn't commit to anything. I didn't commit to music certainly, but I didn't commit to a career either. And so I wasn't achieving anything and it was, it was eating away at me and I got married, I have a kid and.

39:57 Grant Davidson my wife was just watching me like my you know I felt like I was dying on the inside I was just slowly because of that core piece of me I wasn't uh I wasn't giving it the attention I knew that it needed and so eventually you know at 33 after just like floating around with certain jobs

40:16 Grant Davidson talking about you know the millionth time that i was like oh i wish why am i even writing songs what's the point you know all

40:21 Grant Davidson Yeah, this stuff and my wife said to me at dinner one time we just you know we went out we had a babysitter and we had that conversation and said well why don't you just quit your job we'll figure you know we'll figure it out and it was literally the first time that it really seemed like a real option and i was kind of struck by it like wow like could i actually do that and so that's what we did and um

40:46 Grant Davidson And I haven't looked back. It hasn't been easy. There's no question. But I don't regret that moment for an instant. I think it was the best thing I did. Because I know if I stayed in that job and I kept doing it, I would have been miserable.

41:00 Luke F. Walton I like that. And I like the way that you phrased it because people phrase it like, listen to your heart. But I like the idea of competing wants and seeing which one overrides the other.

41:11 Grant Davidson yeah exactly i mean choice is such a such a flimsy uh vague concept and everybody's you know i mean we live in this time of like a lot of people want to manifest things and like uh time like gratitude is a big thing like i think ultimately uh there's no answers to any of this we're all so confused um and all of those things are just they're great mechanisms for

41:37 Grant Davidson giving us the belief that we have some agency over our lives. When I firmly believe the reality is we don't. We have very little agency. I don't believe in free will, for instance. But...

41:50 Grant Davidson but that's a powerful idea to think that you can control those things and that's where i think this idea of like choice like everybody chooses and that's what you get these people who like you know i'm a self-made millionaire or whatever i just made the choice to pull up my bootstraps and work and then you know people who don't succeed it's it's nobody's fault but their

42:11 Grant Davidson Yeah own i think that's a totally false narrative um i think so much of it is like uh is I don't know about pre-built into us, but there are certain things that you're exactly right. It's about measuring wants and within the circumstance, the limitations of what your life can allow.

42:32 Grant Davidson Mm-hmm. if you need if you have such a dying need to create there's some people who are in abject poverty and the dying the need to to paint or to write poetry or whatever it is to fucking you know design puzzles i don't know it's so strong Yes. they'll almost starve to

42:49 Grant Davidson Yes. do it right Right. there's extremes and so that's what i'm getting at that's not just a choice right that's that's that's something that's deep in you that's a drive it's driving you just like you would be driven to

43:00 Grant Davidson to find food if you were starving so there's a whole spectrum we all fall along some line in that but I think if you're somewhere along the line where you're like I just gonna follow my heart it's my dream to be a musician and you want to give it a shot or something it's probably not going to work out

43:18 Grant Davidson yeah you might get lucky but uh but the the the heart of it um is really i don't think there is a choice i guess i don't know now i'm now

43:27 Luke F. Walton no

43:27 Grant Davidson i'm rambling

43:27 Luke F. Walton it's

43:27 Grant Davidson i've

43:27 Luke F. Walton good yeah

43:28 Grant Davidson been rambling this whole time but

43:29 Luke F. Walton i i

43:29 Grant Davidson um

43:30 Luke F. Walton really i really enjoyed it

43:30 Grant Davidson now i'm acknowledging it

43:32 Luke F. Walton no i really i really enjoyed it because i mean just just as like how i'm digesting this at least is i'm i'm resonating with with it in the sense of there are certain things in music that you can't stop me from doing i'm going to

43:47 Luke F. Walton produce write and record songs everything else is is i don't have an insatiable need to release them

43:57 Grant Davidson Yeah.

43:57 Luke F. Walton I don't

43:57 Grant Davidson Well,

43:58 Luke F. Walton have it essentially

43:58 Grant Davidson and hey, look,

43:59 Luke F. Walton market

43:59 Grant Davidson hey, look,

43:59 Luke F. Walton them.

44:00 Grant Davidson the

44:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:00 Grant Davidson fact is music is fun. It feels good.

44:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:03 Grant Davidson People like it. You don't have to have that burning need to like music. Like people can just play music, like find a little slice in your life, get together with your buddies, sit in your basement, whatever. It's a joy. It's like reading, you know, like make time for it if it's something that brings you joy. It doesn't have to be this like burning creative statement.

44:21 Luke F. Walton Yes.

44:22 Grant Davidson So

44:22 Luke F. Walton And that

44:22 Grant Davidson that's

44:23 Luke F. Walton is an an important

44:23 Grant Davidson important distinction to

44:24 Luke F. Walton distinction.

44:24 Grant Davidson make.

44:24 Luke F. Walton I think that's an important distinction. that's an important caveat of like i i personally feel my the best way that you can be a better music fan is to learn a little bit of music like just a little bit like interact with it in some way to make it personal and like feel like what does it feel like to play an instrument that you really like and and write a little bit like like write a simple melody like those kind of things then you can i feel like it just unlocks worlds of in the same way like you cook so i think it's easier

44:52 Luke F. Walton To appreciate a great chef because you cook like people

44:55 Grant Davidson absolutely

44:55 Luke F. Walton that play soccer can appreciate the pros that play soccer. I didn't play soccer. I don't get it. I play basketball And so I love watching basketball because I get it like they're incredible because I know how hard it is just to dribble, you know

45:07 Grant Davidson exactly you can appreciate the what goes into the people who do it really well

45:12 Luke F. Walton Exactly the people that took it almost extremist like To get

45:18 Grant Davidson Yeah.

45:18 Luke F. Walton that good at any of those things that we talked about, even being a Michelin star chef, you have to sacrifice to a point of near insanity to be able to accomplish those things that ultimately get accolades, but there's no guarantee and there's a lot of traps along the way. So I think

45:37 Grant Davidson Yeah,

45:37 Luke F. Walton there's a lot of analogs

45:37 Grant Davidson yeah, yeah.

45:38 Luke F. Walton there.

45:39 Grant Davidson Absolutely.

45:40 Luke F. Walton Very fun. Well, this is a super fun conversation.

45:42 Grant Davidson I am hoping Yeah, that our listeners I enjoy like this too. talking about this shit,

45:46 Grant Davidson It's great. right? I love this kind of stuff. It's great. So I appreciate the invite.

45:50 Grant Davidson Absolutely. I have a musician that I've collaborated with. His name's Eric. He goes by the crazy band name Oku Doxish, and he is like an alternative folk artist. I would love to connect the two of you because just based on this conversation, it's so similar to some of the things that he and I have talked about, but very different in specific ways. I would love to hear a song that you guys.

46:12 Grant Davidson could make together so sorry Interesting. to make that proposition publicly but I kind of want to make that happen just as a music fan I want to hear what

46:20 Luke F. Walton What would be the fruit of that?

46:21 Grant Davidson Hey, I'm always open to new I'll things.

46:23 Luke F. Walton send you some of this stuff after this episode. Thank you so much, Grant,

46:26 Grant Davidson Sounds

46:26 Luke F. Walton for joining

46:26 Grant Davidson good.

46:26 Luke F. Walton all of us, everybody listening, and myself. If you guys want, I have links at scoobertdoobert.pizza. You can find all of my stuff. Grant, what would be the best place for people to get in contact with you, ask any questions, hear your tunes? Obviously, you slow leaves on Spotify.

46:46 Grant Davidson and wherever but Yeah, yeah I'd say the internet. the internet join me on the internet on your browser

46:52 Grant Davidson Yeah, I'm easy to find. cool There's not too many gatekeepers between me and anybody that wants to communicate with me.

47:00 Grant Davidson well perfect i'll put i'll put a link in the uh in the bio as well so thanks again for uh for joining and i hope you have a wonderful night in winnipeg

47:11 Grant Davidson Thanks a lot. You too. Enjoy San Diego. Looks beautiful behind you. Thanks, man. It's noon here.

47:17 Grant Davidson Another sunny day. Take it easy.