My songwriting style depends largely on where I'm at emotionally. If I have something heartfelt to express, I sit down with the acoustic and write the songs before recording them. Often, I come up with melodies and lyrics while I'm driving, as I have an old pickup truck with a terrible radio and tape deck - yes, a tape deck! When I don't have my mp3 player with me, I'll turn off the radio and come up with new songs to keep myself entertained. If I'm writing breakdown or "lamenting" tunes, I keep the guitar parts very bare bones and simple. I've always felt that the most emotionally affecting songs are one singer crooning over a basic chord pattern, after the fashion of Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Johnny Cash and others.
The other way I have of writing songs is doing them piece by piece in Reaper, my recording program of choice. I'm a huge fan of funk music, particularly James Brown and The Meters. I've always loved the way these artists use relatively simple elements that, when layered over one another, create complex compositions. I'll start with a beat, then over-dub simple riffs until I come up with a complete musical score. Then I'll write what are often ridiculous or nonsense lyrics and melodies that fit within the contours of the song. This is a fun way to write music, because as you go along creating more and more tracks, you limit yourself more and more, and must squeeze the next element into whatever you have down. Because none of the elements are preconceived, you never know where a song is going, where it will end up, or how it will sound once you're finished. The result may not be what you expected when you started, but hopefully will always prove interesting.
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