Interviews with artists, entreprenuers, creators, & more from the Nobody Cares News Letter. You can sign up for the monthly newsletter here.
FT: Can you explain your path to your instrument (Saxophone), & how do you think it has helped shape the man that you are in your career in 2024?
CC: I spent the majority of my infant years playing the Recorder and Drums from 7-13. I was learning baroque music and smooth jazz things on recorder and I would learn some grooves on drum set and I also played classical snare drum. My dad bought me a saxophone just for my 13th birthday and the rest is history. I never looked back. I was always into groove based music. Jazz, Hip-Hop, Motown, RnB, and Pop music, but when I got into college at Youngstown State University, I really learned the value of Classical music. I would say I developed a love for that music. I use the skills I have developed in classical music to enhance the things I naturally tend to gravitate towards (all american creative music and world music) to develop my sound as a composer and improviser.
Taken at the Oberlin Conservatory with Chris Coles students after a performance
FT: Alongside your career in music, you have attained multiple degrees as well as currently holding faculty positions at Oberlin Conservatory & The University of Akron. With all of this experience in the educational space, what is one thing you would change for the betterment of students in our American educational system?
CC: I've been asking my self this question for the past 5 years hahaha!!!! There are many answers to this question but the one I want to focus on is equity for musicians coming out of ear based traditions in state schools. We really value the students that can read in the western tradition. I think that we often overlook the value of musicians coming out of a more ear based tradition (I.E. Musicians that have their primary training in churches. Black Churches in particular or musicians coming from a wold music based approach). I think if we find a better balance of those types of musicians then the level of musicianship would rise in state schools.
Photo credit unknown, if this is your photo, please email flocotorres@gmail.com
FT: Alright, let's have some fun with this one: You're a big anime fan, if you were suggesting a starting point for someone who knows nothing about anime, what show would you suggest they start watching? And why?
CC: Naruto! Point Blank. It's an easy story. It's funny. And there is a character or a situation most people can relate to. Some people will think I'm wack for that but I'm spitting straight facts. There is a shit ton on filler though. That part is a drag for sure.
Photos by Blaak Media, during inCOPnegro rehearsals
FT: Lastly, can you give me one thing that you would love for your music to leave behind once our time on earth is up? It can be a feeling, a thought, a joke, anything at all.
CC: Everyone poops. Struggle is inevitable and the fact you made it through your mom's womb from that portal of existence to the land of the living.... Is enough. So live!!!!
Photo by LSquared Photography, taken at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland OH
Interviews with artists, entreprenuers, creators, & more from the Nobody Cares News Letter. You can sign up for the monthly newsletter here.
FT: You released four solo albums in 2024. FOUR. If you could float outside of yourself & watch that process closely from creation to release, what would admire about what you're seeing?
DR: On January 1st of 2023, I made a few New Year's resolutions (like I always do) and almost all of them were centered on rebooting my creative process and habits from the ground up. They were:
Make something new every day (doesn't matter what - collage, drum beat, chord progression, lyrics, song title, anything)
Finish every song you start and record it
Do not worry about how any of it will be perceived
Do not confuse the business of selling art with the process of making it
So if I'm proud of anything, it would be sticking to those for the whole year, to the point where my whole creative process and every day habits are completely different. By the end of 365 days I had written 110 songs, recorded and released 40 of them, and made 37 multi-media collages, mostly without my family even noticing. I have no if anyone cares besides me, and I'm fine with that.
FT: One of my favorite songs from this output of music from you is "Subtle Aims" off the Strategic Laments + Baseball album. I have my thoughts on what the song might be addressing, but can you explain what it means to you, or what you wanted people to feel when they heard that song?
DR: Most of my lyrics tend to combine multiple feelings/ideas. That's not a brag, it's just that when I sit down to write lyrics, I tend to stay away from sticking to one overarching theme with them. That's not always the case, but usually I record a song about 3 or so months after it's written, and I enjoy not really remembering what I wrote about. Sometimes the lyrics surprise me when I go back to them to record them, and I like that. Maybe they meant something different when I wrote them, but in singing them I feel them in a different way.
If I go back to a song to record it and it's about a single theme all the way through, it usually feels too on-the-nose and dated. I had a song that was clearly about student loans and the wreckage they've cause, but when I sang them it felt really forced, so I ended up re-writing them. So I sort of broke my third NYE resolution there, in that I didn't want to sound too preachy to the listener, but I'm proud of the fact that when it comes to art I don't listen to anyone, including myself.
I did grow up on a cul-de-sac, though, so the line "I never knew what to do with all these hands but push things away, became the pushing champ of my whole cul-de-sac" I think means that I am pretty nervous in social situations, whcih led to me smoking cigs for a lot of years just so I would have something to do with my hands. And I pushed lots of people away to avoid opening up to them. Or something like that. I'm looking the lyrics now and it seems like every line is about something different, so hopefully if people listen they can make it about themselves.
Photo by Andrew Wells
FT: You're a father of two & a husband. How do you balance your musical ambitions, while also showing up for your family?
DR: It's tricky. I'm very lucky that for the past few years I have been able to work my day job from home. What that allows me to do is pick up a guitar whenever I feel inspired and noodle around. I tend to write in tiny fragments. I'll grab a guitar, write something in 5 or 7 minutes, usually a chord progression and melody, record it to my phone, and then come back to it later and turn it into a song. I do my recording in the early morning or at night when the family is in bed. If I'm tired from the creative process, I try never to let that affect my Dad performance. I keep live gigs to a minimum, usually 1 or 2 per month on average. I'm a better person when I am creatively excited/focused, and being a Dad makes my minimal spare time very precious. I look back to the time in my life when I didn't have kids, and I am infuriated with what I would do with my spare time back then! Now, I have to use my free time to be productive and focused. I make far more art now at the age of 42 with a family and day job than I did as a 25-year-old with a part time gig and no commitments. I guess I'm creative late bloomer. I'm also healthier physically and mentally now than I ever was in my 20's, and I'm sure that it a major factor, too.
But - having kids is the wildest shit ever. I can't really say anything about it that doesn't sound cliched, but my family comes first, always. I try to have music be a self-funding project, so I don't put personal money into it, which can be tough sometimes. Sometimes I think maybe I am a bit too distant mentally, because there's always a melody or rhyme scheme or chord progression rattling arounf in my head that I am trying to "solve," and I could be more present in the moment if I gave it up or slowed down on art, but the reality is that I would probably be grumpy and frustrated if I didn't always have a project to work on in the backgrounf. My wife will let me know when I'm "being a space case," which usually means it's time to stop running a song-in-progress in my head and engage with the humans around me, haha.
FT: Lastly, can you give me one thing that you would love for your music to leave behind once our time on earth is up? It can be a feeling, a thought, a joke, anything at all.
DR: Realistically, I just want to prove that just because you don't have a record deal, or a marketing team and booking agent, you can still make art that affects people. I'm a firm believer that if you make things with honest intent and release them out into the world, they will find the people that need them. You may never know about it, you may never get rich from it, your ego might not be fed from it, but someone out the will hear a song or see a show that changes their life in some way (hopefully positively). I think making honest art is about 2 things: 1) trying to connect with the world around you, and 2) proving somehow that you were here on Earth for a littlw while. Hopefully I can achieve both of those.
Also, once I'm goin, if someone wants to put one of my songas in a car commercial to get my kids some money, that would be pretty cool, too.
Interviews with artists, entreprenuers, creators, & more from the Nobody Cares News Letter. You can sign up for the monthly newsletter here.