Last week I reviewed The Goldberg Sisters‘ eponymous debut album, the recent musical venture of actor and filmmaker Adam Goldberg (for the full BestNewBands.com review please click here). The album was well-produced, creative, and accurately delivered on the project’s Facebook page promise to “put a wiggle in your step and a Prozac in your coffee”. I meant to ask Adam about that when we spoke on the phone last week, but I never really got around to it. Turns out, he was just as quick, charming, and self-deprecating as the album itself, and he was quick to wax enthusiastic about all sorts of things related to the project:

Laurel Kathleen: I’ve known you from films and TV shows, but how long have you been dabbling in music?

Adam Goldberg: I had been recording music on tape machines since the early 90’s, and made a demo here and there and had… kind of a band in the 90’s every once in awhile. But mainly I just enjoyed recording. I was never one who fancied performing per se; being the proverbial rockstar or anything like that. Except maybe when I was a really little kid. When I was really little, I wanted attention and performed for people to get a response. As time went on, I wanted to capture images and sounds and tell a story and express myself.

LK: In either film or music, is there a specific part of either creative process that you enjoy above all else?

AG: I think that they are completely different art forms, but I think there’s a certain amount of overlap. There’s a certain amount of editorializing that goes into both things, but I liken it much more to making films, which is something where you’re more or less in control (as much as anyone is in control of their own art) you’re in control of the final product and dealing a lot with material, you’re editing the material as you’re going. As an actor, you’re a vessel for the writers and you should be, for someone else’s vision. Oftentimes you incorporate a certain amount of your personality, and of your experiences. But I think of them as very different: like acting in a film versus doing a play, which I haven’t done in a million years. I live in abject terror of performing live without being able to redo it. But that thrill is in the spontenaiety of it, and there are certain things I enjoy about performing live. I think that’s why initially when I became an actor, acting became more of a way to use one component of that world to my advantage to have a life and a career and that sort of thing. The other things are much more…sort of personal experience.

LK: Tell me a little bit about the making of this record. Who did most of the writing, arranging, performing, etc?

AG: Well I wrote it, and they’re all my songs. For the most part, I arranged it. But it was definitely a collaboration with the other performers and Aaron Espinoza in the studio. He had worked on my other records, which were compilations of many years of several recordings that I took to his studio, and he worked on some overdubs and started new songs. This was a ground-up thing that he helped me with. They were all songs I demoed, then brought to the studio. Like with strings on “The Difference Between” I’d sing a ling for them to play, or play a line on the piano, and then the violins would play the line, then play a harmony. And Aaron and I both liked this idea of using real analog with natural players, Merritt and Roxanne playing violins then pitching them up and down, now it sounds like a harmonium or something else. So you’re creating this cross between real strings and some sort of processed strings but not using a synthesizer to do it. To me, writing songs and recording music were concurrent issues and occurred at the same time in my life. I work on a guitar and a four track at the same time, there was never a delineation between the songwriting process and recording process. That’s why you have a very “studio as instrument” feeling to the sound. Who does what at any given moment, it’s hard to say because it’s a collaborative process at any moment To be honest, I don’t know what I would think if I were listening to it, or what my exact role was. I’m more arrangement-oriented and can tell you what most things on most songs are. “Shush” is one I think of as one where I can play the demo of that, and that demo is me just playing piano and drum machine, and some acoustic guitar.

LK: Do you think it’s easier or harder to “make it” in the music world once you’ve become successful in another creative sphere?

AG: Two things happen, and I think they cancel each other out. It’s funny, I was just having this exact conversation with the PR person on the record, and another conversation about it with a fellow musician. We were talking about what a nightmare it is to get your voice heard, and how difficult that is now. I find that here especially, it’s very difficult. I just came from Europe, where it didn’t seem as difficult. Honestly what they know me from is Friends, because they’re so fucking Friends-obsessed in Europe, it’s frightening. For one, you’ve got access to a lot of press, which can be a bad thing if you don’t have a solid working band. It’s going to be slightly easier to get something because of that, I guess, but people aren’t necessarily writing about records and bands when there’s no band that’s ever really played. It could be argued that that attention is bought, to a certain degree. But there’s also so much really stunningly, hateful shit that’s been laced through some extremely positive reviews of this record. Last time I released stuff, not as many people said anything. It was harder to argue with the first record, maybe because some elements were more homespun. But now, there’ll be some pretty nice reviews of the record but then they’ll throw something in that’s pretty nasty. It’s not like I don’t get it. But I don’t feel like I’m famous enough where I should have to bear the burden of this kind of vitriol (laughs). If I’m not doing something that they should know me for, I should be richer and more successful in order not be hindered by that (laughs). And ultimately, I think that people are only going to like something if they like it. It’s had a little bit of a thing in Europe where “Shush ” is a song that’s on the radio and no one really knows why. I have a record label in Europe that picked up the record, and I have no idea why. My whole thing is that I don’t have a band, not that that one thing is more valuable than the other. But I’ve recorded music, and I’ve had a ton of music on hard drives where I just kept putting it out. But this time around, I did it from the ground-up and they picked it up and signed me. Again, I’ve never have had that kind of recognition or been a drummer in another band. I get that it’s difficult for people who know you from a certain thing, and music is so personal: it’s in your car, your headphones. It’s hard for people to have their own experience with the music without thinking of you in your other part. I get how that can be annoying, actually. I get it. But I would say that 85%-if you could quantify it- of how I think of myself is making stuff. Writing, making music, films. I don’t act enough to get everything I could emotionally or creatively out of it. Even if that was my only mode in which I could express myself. On a sheerly practical level, it became imperative that I follow other passions.

The Goldberg Sisters‘ eponymous debut is now available on iTunes. There may be an upcoming performance in the LA area soon, so be sure to follow The Goldberg Sisters on Facebook or Twitter for more information.

Update: The Goldberg Sisters will be performing Thursday, May 12th at The Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles. Advance tickets are $10 and can be purchased here, and you must be 21 years of age or older to attend. Doors open at 8:00pm.