PHANTOM SWAY

    • Phantom Sway Interviews Ernie Mannix on the release of his new album, Flowers and Candy

     

    PS: A little birdie told me you released a new album? What’s it called?

    EM: I love little birdies! I feed them every day! The album is called Flowers and Candy.

    PS: What’s the inspiration behind the name?

    EM: All the lyrics on the album have to do with romance…love found, love lost, happy love, sad love, new love, broken love…and I thought that Flowers and Candy was a nice verbal representation of courtship and romance.

    PS: After listening to the album, I did notice the nuisances of relationships and intimacy is a ongoing theme. You have a lot of personal experience on this subject to pull from? Any personal stories you want to share with us that played into any one specific song?

    EM: Yes, I have a lot of personal experience on the subject, and a lot of perspective…too much f#cking perspective. There is one song on the album that is definitely about someone in particular, but the names were changed to protect the innocent. The rest are pastiches of relationships, memories and dreams, I guess.

    PS: How would you characterize this album? There are a couple Christmassy sounding songs on it. But I wouldn’t say it’s a Christmas album Would you?

    EM: No, I wouldn’t say it’s a Christmas album at all, but there is one title called “Just Another Christmas Day”…a song about lost love and the sadness left behind. No fa-la-las on this one, but on a few of the tracks I do use sleigh bells as  percussive accents, a trick I learned from Brian Wilson.

    PS: The more I listen to this album, the more I appreciate how diverse it is. No two songs are the same. Despite “Girl in the Radio” having no lyrics, it still has a way of taking you on a ride. When creating this song, what feelings did you anticipate evoking in the listener?

    EM: I like that one. I wanted to do some old school soundscaping using analog instruments, right down to real drums. I guess my influence once again is from Brian Wilson, although I’ve been doing that kind of stuff for so long, it has garnered my own flavor. I used some real period outboard gear on that too and got a pretty good 1960s compressed sound…I think anyway. I had fun.

    PS: I also heard that you wrote, recorded and produced the album all by yourself. Are you some sort of masochist?

    EM: Why yes, I have been declared as deranged many times in my professional career and yes, I wrote recorded and produced it by myself. I guess I am a control freak. However, there is one cover on the record, and that is “Caroline, No” by Brian Wilson.

    PS: This is not your first Album. What number is it?

    EM: Technically it is number three, but number two was a album of movie score work. So, this is the third, but my second pop album.

    PS: What was the name of your first album and how long did it take you to record it?

    EM: My first album was called Fast Forward and that took about 4 months to record.  All live musicians.

    PS: How long did it take you to put together this album?

    EM: Funny enough, this one took me about 4 months as well.  Most of the instruments were recorded live.

    PS: What would you say is the biggest difference between your first recording experience and this one?

    EM: With the aid of computers and some new world-class interfaces and effects, we now have reached the era where you can get that old warm analog sound by recording digitally. I take it one step further now and employ the old tried and true methods of analog recording. I call it hybrid recording. I’ll explain — it’s where you use the modern technology to record vintage gear with traditional methods, using mics, classic amps, natural room spaces and such. It helps you create your own sound, a real sound, a human sound. Some rough edges and noise, just like in the old days. The new technology acts just like the tape used to, except we can manipulate it more.

    The biggest difference between my first album and this is the immediacy of the process. I have a studio in my home and can get inspired and just record, whereas in the past, you’d have to wait and book time at an outside venue.

    PS: The fact that you recorded this entire album yourself is amazing to me. I have aspirations of writing, recording, and producing an album, but after hearing this, there is no way! This is serious business. I can imagine this takes years of fine tuning your craft, which you obviously have done.

    EM: Years of passion and an inability to do anything else I guess. It’s like anything else that is mastered over time, I guess.  Stick with what you got, bro; it is golden, trust me. Rock on in your own wonderful way. You are blessed.

    PS: What is your favorite part about putting together a full album?

    EM: Recording it! I love the process and the gear. I love getting unique sounds and pushing the gear to places where it’s not supposed to go. Playing live you have limitations. In the studio, you have a sound canvas and can do whatever and  paint your sound.

    PS: What is your least favorite part about putting together a full album?

    EM: The paperwork and hassle of getting it out! Lots of forms…publishing, writers royalties, copyrights. Then there’s the tech things you need to do to the final files in order to make them playable on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, etc. It’s a whole new world.

    PS: What musician or band would you say was your biggest influence in making this album?

    EM: I would have to say Elton John,  The Beatles, and  Beach Boys.  The Turtles influenced the “Baa-ba-baaah” background vocals on last song on the album, “I’ve Got Your Picture”  as well. All heroes.

    PS: What is your favorite song on this album and why?

    EM: I really like the first track, “Dot On The Map (Then I Saw You)”. It was a journey and has two distinct parts of the song. The vocals have a wide range from rock crunch to deep/large crooner style. I had fun with that one.

    PS: I would have to say that “Dot On The Map” is my favorite song. But “I Got Your Picture” is a very close second. The song I keep coming back to is “Girl in the radio”; I love me a good instrumental. But the song I relate to the most is a 58 second song titled “The Innocence”. It’s amazing how such a short song can evoke so much emotion. Tell me what the thought process was behind creating this song.

    EM: “Dot on the Map” is a special song to me and one which I think contains the best lyrics. “There will be words that she will say, that will return on a summer day.” So glad you like “I’ve Got Your Picture.”  My daughter’s favorite. I wrote that a while ago, and wanted to do it on this album. I think I had the most fun with that one. It went real quick I think I recorded it in three days, all in. The most fun was the backing vocals in the middle and the end. Pure Turtles influence, with some of my own harmony twists.

    “The Innocence”…oh, well, that is an emotional song for me. Thank you. I wrote that many years ago on a train. It just came to me. I wrote just the melody. I never put in any key or arranged it or even put any chords to it. I was reminiscing  about my childhood and early teen years growing up in North Massapequa in a much simpler time. I can still hear the wood shutters in my childhood room knocking against the window sill on a windy fall day. That memory, right there…that was the spark. It’s just memories of youth, of the innocence. I tried several times previously to put it to music, but it failed. This time I set out to do it, and it clicked. But I thought it was perfect poetry that it should end after one verse and a chorus. It definately leaves you hanging, but I think that is part of the magic…part of the poem.

    PS: Was there a moment when you just wanted to throw up your hands and quit working on the project?

    EM: Thankfully, no. However, there were a few times when I knew I needed to take a break and stop. Maturity has given me the sense to not beat things to death when they are frustrating. I knew that if I walked away and took a break for a day or two, that I would come back with a fresh perspective. There was one song I did leave off the album though. A cover of Todd Rundgren’s “Can We Still Be Friends?” I wanted to do one cover on the record and tried that, but I just couldn’t get anywhere near the perfection of Todd.

    PS: Well, congratulations on having loved and lost. Oh, and for putting together such a lovely compilation of songs. What can we expect from you next?

    EM: I would like to do another album right away. I just hope this can be successful enough to ‘sponsor’ another soon. Thanks so much Mark, for your support…more appreciated than you know.

     

    Mark Davis
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