Name: Applied Communications
Nationality: American
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer
Current Release: Applied Communications' new album applied communications bites the big one is out September 25th via Rare Noodles/Bar-None.  
Recommendations for DC: The Florida Avenue Diner is a really great very old school diner. It evokes an older DC that’s largely been pushed out.
Things I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: The behind-the-scenes business machinations of Hollywood. I listen to several podcasts on this topic. In our era of inescapable, ostensibly benevolent corporate hegemony, it can be refreshing  to hear business reporters and lawyers talk about something as sacred as storytelling in cold, cynical terms.

If you enjoyed this Applied Communications interview and would like to find out more about his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and bandcamp. 



Do you think some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics? How and when did you start writing?

The first record I ever really connected with was Odelay. I got totally obsessed; I lived on the Beck message board and ran an online radio station dedicated to his music and his collaborators’ other projects.



Somehow the abstract hodgepodge in his lyrics struck me as more true to life than the more grounded, straightforwardly emotional lyrics in other music.

Also, since I was so young, I had never really encountered anything as out-there as Beck’s work yet, and I got really excited about the notion that the rules around self-expression, songwriting, etc were more slippery and malleable than I had assumed.

I started making music in middle school. I was in a goofy rap group called the Imported Cheeses. I then made a series of unhinged solo records that I gave to friends before making the first Applied Communications record in 2003.

Escapism and entering new worlds have always been a strong pull. What are you drawn to most when it comes to writing?

My experience is sort of the opposite! I more often use writing to burrow into my own feelings and experiences. Even when my lyrics don’t make sense to other people, I’m pulling on images that evoke a real feeling or experience.

This also applies to reading, for me. I have a hard time latching onto fantasy, for example, unless it’s clear that the author is unpacking something visceral for themself.

What are artists and albums that inspired you early on purely for their lyrics? What moves you in other people's lyrics?

Aside from Odelay and Midnite Vultures, I’d say Silver Jews, Kool Keith, Fiona Apple, Andre 3000, Eleanor Friedberger, Stereolab, Smog, Daniel Johnston, and Lou Barlow have all helped me figure out how to say whatever it is I’m trying to say.

While I love abstract, hyper-specific lyrics, I also love lyrics that state things plainly in really surprising ways.

Have song lyrics ever changed aspects of your life?

I almost always have a specific phrase from a song stuck in my head, repeating like a kind of mantra.

If I was still in school, these are the lyrics that’d be on the cover of my notebook. I don’t know that they change my life in a grand way, but they give shape to my routines and sense of self and movement through the year .

Off the top of my head, this has included “True Hardcore” by Sebadoh, …



... “Crest” by Stereolab, “Liquid Swords” by GZA, “Virginia Reel Around the Fountain” by the Halo Benders, …



... “Randy Described Eternity” by Built to Spill, “Millionaire” by Kelis and Andre 3000, “Runner’s High” by MUNA, …



… “Hello” by Erykah Badu … so many!!

All giving me a driving sense of purpose for like 10 days.

"Music begins where words end." What do you make of that?

I think I get the sentiment, but I feel like all art forms probably have their own weird feelings and ideas they’re uniquely capable of capturing and expressing.

Music as poetry — where do you see similarities, and what can music express that poetry can't?

I guess both forms get saddled with a lot of rules and expectations and traditions that you can play like an instrument – following a sonnet pattern or rhyme scheme then suddenly breaking it, introducing something that seems to be a chorus that you never actually repeat, etc.

But lyrics get to sit within (and trigger) a wider spectrum of feelings while poems probably have a more limited emotional palette and a deeper potential to break through since they exist alone on the page.

I’ve never written poetry as an intentional art practice, but I really admire it.

How far can music take your writing it wouldn't have gone?

I also write comics. In that world, I collaborate with artists. Their work is much more challenging and also often more consequential. If you don’t like the art, it’s hard to make it through a comic.

While it feels like the music analogy should be that a script is to lyrics as artwork is to music, I actually think the dynamic is flipped. If I hear a really cool, exciting track but it has corny or otherwise lame lyrics, I just can’t get into it. Maybe lyrics offer a more direct “in” to the song’s psyche? I don’t know!

I mostly listen to instrumental music these days and I can’t imagine how ruined most of these songs would be with words.

What are themes you keep returning to?

Re-remembering my childhood through an evolving lens, being anxious, gender, feeling generally weird, my pets, and unhealthy fixations.

Take a piece off applied communications bites the big one and tell me how the lyrics grew into their final form.

Some lyrics come out all at once and never change.

For “return of jafar”, I took a walk and listened to a beat I had made until – not going back home until I had all the lyrics worked out in my head.



But it’s usually a much more iterative process. “donna deegan”, for example, probably went through 5 or 6 pretty distinct versions – but all working out the same theme in the same tone with the same bank of imagery.



Do you start with the first line, the chorus, a random point?

It can be any of those, but more often than not, regardless of whether words or music are first, I’ll start with a title as a kind of short hand for the general vibe and feeling I’m noodling on.

A lot of times, the title will change, but it’s a helpful little mission statement to work from.

Do you sense a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel right to sing certain words?

I think so? A lot of people are turned off from my music because of my voice, so I wish it felt like a less important part of this project!

But I don’t think I’d ever put my lyrics out as writing in isolation. They are designed to live in the context of me yelp-rap-scream-puke-speaking them, for better or worse.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

When I was younger, Pitchfork said some mean stuff about my record Uhhh Sort Of. I tried to take it in stride and it’s now sort of a funny badge of honor, but it really tripped me up at the time.

But over the years, that criticism (and other criticism like it) helped me understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it and who I’m doing it for. And it’s decidedly not for the 30 year old indie rockers whose approval I wanted so badly as an 18 year old.

And that’s OK! This just is the music I make, and it feels like an incredible miracle that any people connect with it at all.