Chris Greenwood photo by Jaime Poulin

Chris Greenwood’s album Igloo was recently released on iTunes and amazon.com. I had the opportunity to work with Chris on the album artwork and during that time did an interview with him. In the interview Chris talks about what it was like to make the album, why he fell in love with making music and what some of his plans are in the future. We also had strange moment in the middle of the interview. Click the read more to get read view the interview.

Bob: Hi Chris, glad to have you here. Thanks for sitting down and doing this interview.
Chris: Thanks Bob
Bob:  So I guess my first question would be. How long have you been making music in general?
Chris: I started playing guitar when I was 13. I started writing music when I was 14.
Bob: What got you interested in music?
Chris: Green Day, Silver Chair and Nirvana. All 90′s bands, inspired me to learn electric guitar.
Bob: It made you want to do that.
Chris: I didn’t do it to vent. I didn’t really have any problems at that age. I just liked it.
Bob: You’ve played with other bands. Do you like playing in a band? How does the style differ from your solo work?
Chris: I do love playing in a band and getting other people’s impute in making music. W/out other minds working with you on a song, you don’t know if something could be made better in it’s place. The style of the band differs in that there’s more power and energy. There are other energies besides your own that you have to take into consideration. It becomes your style added to the style of other people’s and it becomes it’s own unique style. It’s more indie soft rock I guess. The mood is the same as my solo. It’s usually sad and gloomy but sometimes happy. Happiness is hard to come by I guess. [laughs] .
Bob: Igloo is your first complete album. How long did it take you to make it?
Chris: Igloo is my first complete album, but it’s complete in a sense that it has all of my thoughts come together the way I want it to. An album should be what you hear it to be in your head and if it doesn’t come out that way it feels like something is missing. This would be my fifth album if I counted all my past projects, but I’m not counting those. This is the first one that I feel is complete.
Bob: You had a lot of help on Igloo. What were some of the challenges in pulling it all together.
Chris: Ummm huh, finding the right drummer at the right time was the biggest problem I had.
Bob: Because you were looking for a specific style of drummer?
Chris: Most drummers play what they like to listen too. I tried drummers out on some songs and if I liked what I heard we tried and some recording until we got it right. The other hard thing was getting the right string players.
Bob: Anything else about the process that was challenging? Was there something that you didn’t expect?
Chris: I didn’t expect to get rid of so many songs that were originally supposed to be on the album. I expected to have certain songs. Out of 40 songs that I wrote I stuck to 12 of them. I did add a hidden track at the end because I liked it but didn’t know where it fit with the rest of the album. I wrote it for my ex girlfriend as a lullaby that I ended up turning into a song. It’s a simple song. But the penny whistle took me about 20 tries to get it right.

Meg: Come look at this there’s a big bird outside eating a squirrel!

15 minutes later

Bob: That was crazy. I’ll post a picture with the interview. What are some of your favorite bands and musicians?
Chris: I love Paul Simon, Eisley, Iron and Wine, Bell X1. Damian Rice, Fleet Foxes and Gemma Hayes and one more, The Frames.
Bob: Is there a release date for the album?
Chris: No, I do not know. That’s my organizational skills for you. iTunes will put in on whenever they get to it. It takes 2 to 6 weeks. It should be available on iTunes late December.
Bob: Do you have future projects coming up?
Chris: I’m planning on making a six song Christmas album, I’ll start working on it in the summer. Some covers of ones I learned in Catholic school and maybe one that I write. I really like O’ Holy Night. After that I don’t know. I kinda just want to a break. Igloo took a long time because I wanted everything to sound right.
Bob: Any plans to record wit the band you’re in? What is your band’s name?
Chris: Yeah probably. We don’t have a name, not yet
Bob: Thanks again. It’s always great to hang out.
Chris: Thanks it was fun.