JPG: I mentioned “Gentle Mandolin,” earlier. That song was influenced by the birth of your son. It has a very lullaby feel to it and you cover “Over the Rainbow.” “Akaka Falls” is another ballad that is almost a lullaby. Were those consciously or subconsciously influenced by your son?
JS: Maybe. I never think about it that way but you could possibly be right ‘cause after my son was born I felt like a different person. When I got married, my wife and I we still felt a little same. Of course it was special but when we had our son, I feel like a dad now. I feel like a parent. (slight laugh) It’s very odd. It’s definitely changed in the way I feel about things and the way I do things.
Even musically, my interpretation of songs, I definitely hear a difference. I phrase certain things differently. The dynamic of songs that I have been playing for years have changed tremendously; where I think the peak of the song a few years ago versus today is so different. Places that I would normally be really aggressive and build it up, I kind of do the opposite now. I take it down and I bring it up somewhere else, which is something I’ve never done before. I feel like there’s been a tremendous change in me. So, I’m sure that influences my song choices, even the music I listen to.
You should hear what we play in the house now. It’s all kid songs, right? (slight laugh). We have this CD that my mom got for my son. Basically, they insert his name throughout the CD. For example they’re singing a song about counting and it would be like, “One, two, three, Chase come with me.” All these silly kid songs but it’s neat ‘cause I guess they just insert the child’s name in the CD. So, we listen to these songs over and over and over. He’s only three months old now. Maybe in another three months, it will start driving me crazy. (laughs) “I can’t listen to this anymore!” But it’s funny because, sometimes, I’ll be sitting with my ukulele with him and I’ll start strumming those songs for him. I’ll start playing those tunes for him and singing it to him.
I don’t know how to explain it but I do feel different I play and I don’t know if it’s better or worse. It’s just different. Certain songs that were where I played it a little bit more consistent dynamically from beginning to end there tends to be a lot more peaks and valleys now.
JPG: Can you give me an example of one that’s changed?
JS: One song, for example, is a piece called “Orange World.” That’s a bluegrass influenced piece. I did play it that night that you were there. It was the last song that I played right before “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
That song up until a year ago or up until recently, I should say. If you listen to my other recordings of that, for example my live album which I did two years ago, it’s just hard-hitting, aggressive from top to bottom. Now, it never occurred to me that there could be a lot of these low points to the song where you can lay the tempo back a little bit. Bring it way down dynamically. I have a lot more fun with it. I’m sure it has a lot to do with maturity (slight laugh) and you don’t have to play everything so fast and loud but it’s really about the contrast and what’s right for that particular piece.
In the past, I could have probably sat down and charted it out and thought, “Okay. Let’s bring this section down. Let’s do this here. Let’s do that here.” But I think it’s different when it starts to evolve naturally, organically, as you’re playing it, and then all of a sudden you feel, “Oh, let’s bring this section down.” and you just do it spontaneously. Then you’re like, “Oh wow! It brings a whole different dimension to the piece.”
That’s always interesting. I love discovering things like that. As much as I’ve played “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” there are still nights where I’ll come across something. I’ll be “Ahhh! That was kind of cool.” It was just something that was very spontaneous, just something that I felt at that moment and you just go for it and you’re like, “Oh yeah, that was cool.” Then it becomes part of the arrangement and you do it all the time after that. That’s just the evolution of the songs that you play. Sometimes, things happen once or twice and then they never happen again.
JPG: Yeah, according to whether or not it works or sounds right to you, which is what it’s all about.
JS: Yeah.
*JPG: Well, who knows, maybe that could be your next album, a lullaby album. *
JS: (laughs) Yeah, it’s funny because I did a Disney Record ( Ukulele Disney ). All Disney songs. There were pieces from Little Mermaid, some of the modern ones like Pirates of the Caribbean, Winnie the Pooh …. I think there were like 14 Disney songs. Like Across the Universe, it was only released in Japan. (slight laugh) It was funny because when that project came in, my wife was pregnant. So, it was like the perfect time because I was thinking about the baby. We were buying baby things. We were dressing up his room, the nursery room. It was the perfect time to do a Disney kids album.
JPG: Listening to you is amazing because you’ve rewired people’s thinking about the ukulele, about what’s possible, about what it can sound like because maybe it’s a mainland thing where there’s that traditional type of playing…Is that something that people bring up to you all the time, and you just shrug it off at this point or do you see it as a great happy accident that this is happening?
JS: It’s funny when people tell me things like, “Oh, I didn’t know the ukulele could do that or sound like that,” I totally understand. I totally get it because for me too, I was in the same boat. When I was a kid, I never thought I would be doing the things that I am doing today. I feel like when they have those little epiphanies, “Oh my gosh! The ukulele could sound like that or like this.’ I remember feeling the same way when I would hit a wrong chord voicing and thought, ‘Oh, that sounds like a koto,” (slight laugh) or play a little lick and be like, “Hey, that reminds me of a banjo thing,” or trying to figure out new ways to strum the instrument and then think to myself, “That reminds me of like a flamenco guitar strum.” I have those epiphanies all the time.
It’s great because I never know what that new idea is going to be until it happens. Some things you think about it from the beginning. “Oh yeah, I’m looking for a new sound. What am I going to do?” For some people it’s like maybe buying a new effect pedal or a new DI (direct input) or microphone or something to alter the sound that they already have. For some people it may just be “I have an idea for a new finger technique where I can alternate these two fingers on this string and the thumb to play eighth notes here.” It could be anything. A lot of the things that I do that are unique, a lot of ‘em I stumbled on by accident or trying to mimic something but didn’t really know how. (slight laugh) It’s almost like being a baby and just sounding out things in the beginning and then all of a sudden you can say your first words.
That’s how my approach has always been with the ukulele from the time I was a kid because when I first started playing the ukulele everything was by ear. I didn’t understand what a G7 chord meant or if I would see like a C7th suspended 4th chord, what is that? All I knew was okay, I put my finger here and press down here and then strum the strings. That was how I learned how to play. So, everything was just by ear. I would listen to something and, “That doesn’t sound right. Okay, that sounds close but…ah, but okay that sounds right. That’s what I’m looking for.” It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I got into reading music and music theory and all that kind of stuff. Once I dug into that, being introduced to music theory made everything so much easier. I would actually catch up to the concepts a lot easier because I already knew what they sounded like and I was already doing them. I was like, “Oh, okay. Now I understand why I do that or why I do this.”
So, I really think that when you come across these cool moments, it’s really just by experimenting, trying it. And I tell you, man, 9,999 times out of 10,000 (laughs) it doesn’t sound so good but you have that one moment that becomes you’re breakthrough moment and that lightbulb goes off. That’s a big part of it, too. When you’re playing and you’re just going for it, you have to be able to recognize that that is something useful. Sometimes I’ll come up with something — there may be a little chord voicing or a progression or a lick — and I can’t figure out why it sounds the way it does but it sounds cool and I like it. Then, I’ll store it in the back of my mind and, maybe, six months down the road, I’ll be arranging something and I’ll look at the chords and I’ll think, “You know what? That voicing that I used, that I came up with a few months ago, that works right here.” Then, you use it. That’s what I’m talking about when the change becomes the point or that unique, specific moment in the song that makes the arrangement special.
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