Tristan Waterkeyn: 8 Questions for the Press.

Tristan Waterkeyn: 8 Questions for the Press.

1. When did you start creating your own music?

I started playing guitar when I was about 10. My mum used to drag me off to lessons of one sort or another every week. When I was 17 I formed a band with a bunch of school friends in Harare (Zimbabwe) and I started writing songs and lyrics, but I wasn’t brave enough to sing them in public. It’s only been in the last 5 years or so that I’ve started writing in a big way. I think Cape Town has brought a lot of creativity out of me – I finally realised that I had a voice and it might be a good idea to start getting onto stages and singing my songs! Over the last few years I’ve played just about every week at all the local live music venues.

2. Is the album what you envisaged at the start?

I think the album as a whole became richer and more complex than I envisaged at the start but I don’t think it’s lost its simple acoustic flavour. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of South Africa’s most talented musicians and engineers and drawing on their energies and skills has ultimately made for a far superior product. I don’t think I ever imagined this recording project would consume so much energy or time, but it’s been incredibly rewarding to be involved with every stage of the process from the song writing to sound engineering and production, and then to be releasing through Overtone. It’s a great thing to be able accomplish one’s goals, to complete one’s creative projects while still maintaining ownership over every phase of their development process. I think the album is in many ways better than I could have ever anticipated.

3. The music on your CD hasn’t been played in public – the “musician performs until he has enough material to record” process seems to be going backwards. Why?

I have in fact performed all of the tracks at various stages and on numerous occasions since I first wrote the songs. I’m primarily a solo artist so I’ve never really had a fixed band to take on the road. The plan was that once I’d completed the album, I’d put together a band. I’ve never really been short of material to record, and I think if I had the resources I’d spent all my time in the studio. I believe that to access the music industry at a higher level, you need to have a visible product and a way of getting it “out there”. Having launched Overtone I believe it’s the perfect vehicle to give South African artists access to a wider audience as well as to the music industry in general. I plan to extend Overtone’s resources to other South African artists, just as soon as I have tested the entire process on myself…

4. “There’s something of a Jack Johnson sound to your music.” Would you agree with that? Does it have any significant influences?

I heard Jack Johnson for the first time only after receiving comments from friends that I sound a bit like him. I wasn’t influenced directly by him, but I appreciate his easy song writing style and the simplicity of his sound, and I can see how the parallel might be drawn. In terms of influences, I’ve been more affected by some of the brilliant female singer songwriters of the last few years – Tracy Chapman, Fiona Apple, Anni DiFranco, Aimee Mann. I enjoy their sophisticated poetic and lyrical styles. I’m big on lyrical content and its delivery in the context of a song. I love the layers of meaning that result when a skilled songwriter has been at the helm, and I think that generally the ladies do that far better than their male equivalents.

5. Your lyrics seem to hold hidden or alternative messages, in a poetic sense. Some songs seem to make indirect philosophical observations of society. Is this intentional from the start or do other levels appear as you work?

Both. Often at the start you have a core sense of what you want to comment on, and then as you start writing you create more layers of melody and meaning. Often I’ll discover another sub-plot in a song I’ve been writing only after the event and I’ll go back and re-write it to accentuate those newly found characters. I love writing about the human experience and elements of society that seem strange to me. Quite often I’ll find a melody and a theme for a song at the same time, then write the lyric to fit the mood, or to take it somewhere else.

It’s easier to write unhappy songs so I’ve tried to do the opposite, although I’ll often contrast an uplifting light melody with a cynical or cutting lyric and I find the result often takes the impact to another level. I studied a range of social sciences and I’m attracted to themes that pose strange questions or result in what I see as an odd result. I like thinking about society and the way we operate in it. I also like writing about people I know or that I’ve seen somewhere before.

6. You’ve lived in four different African countries and spent years travelling in Asia and Australia, much of it sailing. Have these experiences influenced your music?

Living in different countries has given me an array of experiences to draw on for inspiration in my songs and messages. There are musical influences from a great number of places and I think it’s made my music more interesting. Some of my songs are about people I met while I was on the road. Sailing and travel provided a lot of time for experimenting with new sounds and ideas to sing about. I think my next project will tend towards a more stylistically African sound.

7. There’s a fun, almost theatrical style in the way some of the tracks on the CD have been recorded, which seems quite a novel approach. Do you think this detracts from the “seriousness” of your music?

I like to think of the different instruments in each song as having lives of their own, having their own conversations with my themes. I think it brings a song to life. For me it’s all about people and the way they seem to others. I think having a strong idea of the character that you are singing about is just the start. The recording process was also theatrical on many levels. It was important to get each musician to understand the songs the way I do. I tried to get them to imagine their individual sounds as a part of the overall picture the song would create. The instruments became particular characters in each scene. They each have different roles and are doing different things to create an overall atmosphere in much the same way as the characters in a film do.

8. Why did you call your album “Hay Day”?

There are a number of images that the name “Hay Day” brings up for me. I think the music has a light and happy sound. It makes me think of picnics, fields full of friends, warm weather and freedom. Its definitely “feel good” stuff. I’ve also been told that I sound like “new vintage smooth” and I think that I do create music that puts an older sound into a new context. Then there’s the idea of ones “heyday”, one’s prime. I think I might one day look back on this and think that was mine. What could be better?