Seattle – Noah Gundersen has a lot to be happy about. Not only is he about to kick off his tour in his Pacific Northwest hometown, the singer-songwriter’s debut full-length album Ledges, which came out Tuesday, hit #1 on iTunes’ singer-songwriter chart. The 24-year-old took the time to speak with BestNewBands.com about recording his new album, growing up in a musical family, and what inspires him.
Caitlin Peterkin: What was your first thought when you saw Ledges went to #1 on iTunes’ singer-songwriter chart?
Noah Gundersen: I didn’t expect it. It’s cool, we also reached #13 overall on iTunes — I didn’t see that coming. It felt like Christmas!
CP: You recorded the album in Studio Litho, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard’s studio. How did that lend itself to the recording process or feel of the album?
NG: I love the space. I don’t personally know Stone, but he owns the studio, and it’s managed by a guy that mastered my record actually, Ed Brooks. And the engineer there, this guy named Floyd [Rietsma], we have a really good communication, work really well together, and his input is valuable too. And the space – it’s an open room, lots of natural light. I just felt inspired there. It’s right in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, there are good bars around if you wanna just take a break. I think the environment they created is important, and for me it was an inspiring one.
CP: Did Pearl Jam or other Seattle bands have any influence on you growing up?
NG: Not directly, but it’s cool to live in a town that has such a heritage of musical integrity. And to feel like you’re a part of that in some small way, carrying on that tradition of music coming out of this area, that’s something that I’m proud of. I don’t know if I take direct inspiration from the bands of the area, but just to be a part of that bigger story of music from Seattle is a special thing.
CP: So what artists do you find inspiration from?
NG: Neil Young, Tom Waits, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Jeff Tweedy. I like people that are honest and conduct themselves with integrity. And I like watching people’s careers, like I enjoy watching what Macklemore’s doing right now as an independent artist. That’s super inspiring to me.
CP: Why the title “Ledges”? What was happening in your life that impacted and influenced the story of the album?
NG: The title track “Ledges” is about where I was in the middle of a season of my life, when I was trying to understand my own identity – a man in his mid-20s, and where I stand in the world, where I stand in relation to people around me, where I’ve been and where I want to go. So it’s kind of an existential song. The imagery of standing on a ledge of something, and that being the edge of my future and who I want to be and what I want to do — that’s where the title track came from.
CP: What do you want people to take away from this album?
NG: When I was younger and in my teen years, going through things that I thought I was the only one experiencing, I found artists that were saying the things that I was feeling but didn’t know how to say. Pedro the Lion is a band that I’ve loved forever (and David Bazan is a friend of mine). His music really was saying something that I couldn’t say at that time of my life. So hopefully I can be that for others.
CP: Music has been in your life since a young age. Can you take me through your musical development? What was the Gundersen household like when you were a kid?
NG: We all took piano lessons when we were kids. My dad was a pianist and had a band in college called Loose Change, and he would write songs and record them at home. I was around that for as long as I could remember. I’d sit down at the piano with him, and pick out melodies and improvise things, so music was always around. I grew up in a more conservative home so I wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music until I was in my early teens. We had records like Bob Dylan’s gospel album, Larry Norman and Keith Green, and U2’s Joshua Tree (because it’s a vague enough record I guess). But there was always music growing up around the house, so that was something that was just always a part of my childhood. Then I started teaching myself guitar when I was 13 and simultaneously writing songs that were pretty terrible, but I wrote a lot of them and eventually I think that work paid off.
CP: Keeping along the family track, your sister plays violin with you. How does working with her impact your music and performing?
NG: She’s been with me since the beginning, which has been such a blessing. She’s one of my best friends. We have really great communication. We’ve toured a lot, been in shitty circumstances together, we’ve had our fights, but through all that we’ve learned to communicate. And so being on the road with someone like that, who understands you and understands what you need as far as space is awesome. And then musically our communication is really tight. A lot of times now we don’t really need to rehearse much, we’ve been doing it together for so long. I don’t think I would be what I am without her. She adds a certain spark to my songs, and her playing is kind of a nonverbal lyricism, it’s an extra element to the song. She has this voice with her violin that conveys emotion that words can’t.
CP: How does being a solo artist compare to being in a band? Do you like one more than the other?
NG: I started as a singer-songwriter — that’s always been my foundation. Since then it’s hard to be a singer-songwriter with a band. I think most singer-songwriters get to a certain point where they’re tired of being just a person with a guitar and not having some of those musical dynamics that a band has. So it seems like a natural step to put together a band, but it’s a lot harder to have a band than you think, especially if you’re used to playing by yourself and playing to the beat of your own mental drum as opposed to a literal one. It’s been a really great learning experience playing with a band. Like with The Courage, I thought it would be cooler to be in a democratic group where we all had equal say. And then I realized that I’m kind of too controlling for that, and I have too much of a strong vision of what I want accomplished in music.
For this tour, I’m hiring a band and they’re all incredible players. It’s still my gig, calling the shots. We have good communication. I think being in a band is important for people to understand what their role is, and every good band has a leader, someone who can steer the ship. Most bands break up — there are very few bands that stay together for entire careers, and when they do, it’s a special thing. Like obviously U2 has been around forever, but it’s rare.
I love playing with a band. I love the extra volume, I love being able to have more dynamics with sound. so I’m kind of excited to be playing with a band again, it’s been a while since I’ve toured with a band
CP: What’s your song-writing method? Where do you go to get inspired?
NG: It depends — sometimes desperation, sometimes I feel like the reason I ultimately write songs is because I have to. Some people paint, some people write as a creative outlet, as far as writing short stories or novels, some people make films. For me it’s this it gets to a point where if I haven’t written for a while I just need to write something and it comes out. Other times there’s a few reasons where I’m really intentional about sitting down every day and getting to write, that can yield great things also scary and confusing and frustrating and there’s a potential for failure every time you sit down to write something. It may suck, and you have to be able to brush that off and keep going. Songwriting is such an elusive craft. There are no rules for it, and that to me is really beautiful but also really frustrating. But I do love it.
CP: What’s next for you?
NG: We’re gonna be touring on this record for the next year or two. I already have enough songs for the next record, more than enough songs, so I’m actually kind of itching to get back into the studio and start working on this next record. We’ll probably be touring considerably the next two years on this one, or a year and a half.
I started producing records for other people which has been really fun and inspiring, and teaching me a lot about working in a studio and crafting tones and ideas and listening and creating — working on my sonic creativity more than my lyrical creativity, since I’ve spent so much time doing that. It’s fun to be venturing in to new musical territory.
I want to be involved in other projects. I’ve spent so much of my life being a solo singer-songwriter where it’s about my feelings. It can kind of become narcissistic and I don’t want that to be my life. As much as I love making singer-songwriter music, I also want to be involved in some other projects, so I got a couple things kind of on the backburner. In order to be creative I think you have to have your hands in a couple different things — keeping yourself fresh and keeping ideas coming.
For more about Noah Gundersen, including tour info, head HERE and HERE.
Photo By Daley Hake
Caitlin Peterkin
With degrees in journalism and music, Caitlin’s written for Paste Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and MajoringinMusic.com. She loves cheese, laughing at GIFs of corgis, road trip sing-alongs, and connecting with people over good beer and good music.
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