We were lucky to catch up with Andy Hanson recently and have shared our conversation below.
Andy, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
As a songwriter and musician, I try to walk a fine line between writing songs based on my life and writing songs based on things I witness. I feel that the best songs come from lived experiences where actual emotions can drive the creative process. I can write songs about things or situations I haven’t lived, however those songs tend to be easier to let go of. So of these situations are life-long experiences, while others are fleeting moments that are normally gone before you realize what they were. I try to write on those small, quick moments, that otherwise might go unnoticed and forgotten.
One example of this came when I was chatting with a musician friend and they complimented one of my songs already finished and released into the world. They listed off so many great things about that song but completely spaced on the title. They called the song a completely different title. I corrected them but that mistaken title led me to write one of the most clear and expressive songs I have ever written. All I did was noticing a mistake in a brief moment and in turn made it into one of the songs I am proud of most.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I mainly write and perform original songs that tend to fall into a folk-inspired category. I try to not stick my music into a box, but being folk-forward seems to be the most adequate designator. I feel my music is more real, raw, and direct than a lot of music being released today. I would say my music is a celebration of life as a whole. Not just the good and light times, but also the bad and heavy times. Combining both in my music creates a complete picture that would otherwise be one-sided and lacking in honesty.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
As a self-taught musician my number one quality would have to be my lack of understanding of what others might consider a “proper” or “perfect” song. Not being tied to one specific way of creating music has led me to be a bit more open to going with how the song wants to be written. This helps me let go of having to define a song by someone else’s definitions or rubrics. Don’t give up your voice.
The second quality is to be open to collaborating. I find that working with others usually requires to be more honest to time management and steps towards completion of a project. If you find the right collaborators you should be able to put ideas out there in front of them that otherwise might stay buried beneath your fear that the idea might be no good.
The final quality that has helped me is recording my music in both professional studios and at home. I learn things while in the studio that I can use and translate into my home studio and therefor helps me think about songwriting and recording a bit differently.
Finally, I would encourage everyone, whether you are a musician, baker, painter, etc. to find what you are gravitating towards and make a lot of it. You may find a skill or a direction that doesn’t really work and therefor you can focus your energies elsewhere. You may also find a more specific direction that is even more satisfying. Above all else, don’t stop creating.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I would love to create some sort of songwriting-in-the round style of collaboration. This would be somewhat similar to an open mic night or another type of music-in-the-round style of sharing. Instead of focusing on complete ideas we would focus on snippets of songs or incomplete ideas that might have legs. They may only have legs via working with others to flesh the idea out. I feel that it would open up more musicians to different ways of songwriting that they can marry with their own style of songwriting. Best spot to reach me at is my email: andyhansonmusic@gmail.com for those that might be interested.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://andyhansonmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andyhansonmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndyHansonMusic
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@andyhansonmusic?si=Se8q7bwifn2OIIjS
