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Name: Steve Louw

Nationality: South African
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, guitarist
Current release: Steve Louw's Thunder and Rain is out via BFD / The Orchard.

If you enjoyed this interview with Steve Louw and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, twitter, and Facebook.  

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration, like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc., play?    

It’s what I love to do; it’s the beauty of creating something out of nothing. It’s an unconscious process, channelling what you’ve seen, heard, and felt and reflecting it back to others differently.

It's like being a sounding board for spirits.

For you to start, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualization' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I always try to let the song find me rather than looking for the song, so no, I am down on the chance side of the scale.

If something good comes in, a riff or a phrase, I will zone in on that and try to build it.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way? For example, do you need to do research or create early versions?

I like to be around my own space, with a couple of instruments lying around, maybe different guitars with different tunings. Fretting and playing around in a new tuning or a different key using a capo can create strange chords which can get you to another place or lead you onto a new path. It can make a song take on a whole new feel.

On the song “Train Don’t Run”, off my last album, Headlight Dreams, that happened.



I was in Vancouver without a guitar, so I bought a small travel-size guitar with a unique voice. When I returned to my hotel room, I put a capo on it and played high up on the neck; it led me to the riff and chorus of that song.

Do you have specific rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?   

I love coffee anywhere, anytime, and I love walking! But as far as writing songs goes, it’s great to have a space to work in and have an instrument around. I have identified interesting phrases or lyrics while walking and then noted them on my phone.

I love making a voice note of a melody idea or a beat. It’s like being able to make an artist’s sketch. Switching between different guitars also helps. On “Mother, Don't Go”, I got a sixties Epiphone Casino from a friend. It's the most beautiful sounding and looking guitar.



The first time I took that guitar out of its case, I wrote the riff for “Mother, Don't Go” and the intro riff and verse for “Take Me Down”. It was like those songs were inside the guitar, waiting to be born.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

I like to jam around on the guitar, playing anything, singing anything, and then to follow a riff or phrase that catches my ear. On “I'll Be Back”, I wrote the riff on my wife’s old nylon string Spanish guitar.



It has a wide neck and very little tension in the strings, so I could slam the riff out, snapping the strings. Once I had the riff and the” I’ll Be Back” hook, I could write the story.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music, or can they emerge from a place of their own?       

It's great to have the music, and the lyrics work together. I first wrote the chorus of “Waiting for the Dawn” on my 12-string guitar, strumming the chorus riff and that one line.



Once I had that, I left the song and wrote the lyrics the day before going into the studio to record it.

I think you subconsciously work on lyrics without doing any writing. I have written riffs and chord changes with choruses, verses, and random scat singing. Later I took lyrics and used them with the song. I've only done that once or twice, and I prefer to write the music and lyrics together.

I did use lyrics that I had lying around with the riff and chords on “I’m Coming Home”, the last song on Thunder and Rain, and it worked well, but I usually don't do it that way.



What makes lyrics good, in your opinion? What are your ambitions and challenges in this regard?


You are telling a story or communicating an idea or a concept to a listener who may be distracted by their environment, driving in a car, shopping in a supermarket, or travelling on a train.

So, what you are saying needs to be unique and exciting and say everything you want in three minutes. You need to do this powerfully, in a voice which is immediately relatable in a way which is a “I know what you’re talking about” response.

In a song like “Standing in the Rain”, you want the listener to feel love and loss, to think about solitude, freedom, and self-realization, but all unconsciously as the song plays.
 


Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?   


On “Thunder and Rain”, I wrote most of the verses almost as a narrative of a person's life through the verses, and then I tied in the chorus.



Usually, though, I look for a critical riff or phrase and work forwards or backward from that. There are different ways that writing a song happens. Usually, it’s as it happens while absentmindedly playing and singing anything that comes to mind.

Many writers have claimed that certain narrative aspects are out of their hands as soon as they enter the process. Do you like to keep strict control over the process, or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?   

The best songs appear on their own, out of the blue, as if they’ve been beamed down to Earth!

“My Stony Bed” was like that.



I adlibbed the song as I was playing it for the first time, recording it as a voice note on my phone. It's great when that happens, and it always amazes me!

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for yourself? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?  

Playing and singing and letting the song come to you works for me. It always feels like a magical process, a piece beaming its way in, looking for a home.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?   

Writing a song and recording it are two different things. I write songs, and then I record them. In the recording studio, the tempo or the key or the arrangement may change, but the music, in its essence, remains the same.

I like to have a song ready and then record it with a band in a couple of hours in a studio. Then it's done.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later? How much improvement and refinement do you allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practice?

I will often write a hook or a melodic phrase and then leave it for a while. I like to take an oblique unconscious approach, sometimes changing lyrics until the last minute. Every song is different.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you? How involved do you get in this?  

Production is critically important to making a record, and I like to put my faith in people who know what they are doing.

Making a record is a collaboration between the musicians, the producer, and the recording, mix and mastering engineers. My focus is on the song and the performance of the song.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?  

Once a record is done, I like to continue writing and let the record take its course in the world.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel writing a piece of music inherently differs from making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?  

Making music and writing songs is like a magic trick where you pull something out of thin air. It's great fun and always amazes me!