Adam Cross Talks About Sirens

Interviewing  AdamCross was like interviewing an old friend; he has an easy-going personality, and a great sense of humor. We often went off on tangents, and talked things that won’t make it to The Lobes. The subject matter jumped from relationships, to Meat Loaf (the singer, not the food) to the scary mental image of Adam with Tina Turner’s legs. At one point, Adam actually interviewed me, which totally caught me off guard.

In this interview, we  discuss  what made him drop out of law school to play music, and everything that went into the making of his new album, Sirens.

Faith W: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.

Adam: Thanks for taking the time to interview me.

FW: It’s my pleasure. So, like I was telling you on Twitter, I was checking out your music and it’s really good.

Adam: I’m glad you liked it.

FW: It’s better than me saying, “I was listening to your music, and it gave me a stomachache…” (laughing)

Adam: “…and I kind of wanted to kill myself.” (laughs)

FW: Seriously, I like your songwriting. Tell me about yourself, and how long you’ve been doing this.

Adam: I started performing live right out of college. I had originally planned to go to law school but, I’d gotten into a car wreck, and I got some insurance money from it. I was like, “I can either get another car, or I could buy a clunker and live out of my car and make music.” Oddly enough, I went with that.

In the beginning  I was sleeping out of my car and on couches, but eventually, because I had that little bit of money I put it into a demo. Things picked up when I started making money in music, and I started training under the vocal coaching of JanSmith. She’s really great; she took my vocal dexterity to another level.

FW: Did you produce everything yourself?

Adam: The guy I worked with in engineering, Shaun Guess, runs a website called thedigitalgod.com and I just can’t say enough good things about him because he’s a hidden gem. His mind works on this weird grid of a matrix, so I don’t understand how he thinks, but he’s fantastic in getting the right sounds in what we’re going for. It’s one of those opportunities where I listen to the record now and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s exactly how I wanted it to sound.”

FW: I was impressed with the sound.

Adam: Thank you very much.  Shaun additionally got me hooked up with Tom Baker, who does mastering in California; he took it to the next level where everything congealed together.

FW: Excellent. What musicians influence you?

Adam: Josh Ritter. I think he’s just a brilliant lyricist/songwriter. I really like Amos Lee. I like weird stuff like MGMT, Death Cab for Cutie.

 But, on this record, the sound that I was going for was a more mainstream, kind of a One Republic kind of sound. I think that what probably influenced this record was that kind of pop sensibility, with upward arching kind of choruses. As an artist, to me these things seem fairly timeless instead of like a fad that comes and goes. There is a consistency in solid, big, strong choruses, a nice bridge, so I tried to write in that vein to have more of a mass appeal.

FW: When I was listening to your music, I was thinking, “This is something that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear on the radio.”

Adam: And that’s kind of the goal. I have a lot of indie artists who are my friends and they talk about people who sold out. When I really stop and think about it, I think, “Have you ever lived out of your car? Do you know what that’s like? Have you ever just wanted something so bad that it defines you as a human? It will literally crush any relationship that stands in its way.”

FW: I know the feeling.

Adam:  And after you go through that, you learn what’s most important to you. Then, as a writer you say, “I’m going to express my emotions, but  how do I present it in a way that makes me happy, and also appeals to a broader audience?”

FW: That’s very important.

Adam: Definitely. And it’s difficult to support yourself solely out of music, but it’s people like you that actually keep us going, who interview us and tell us, “That was good”. It’s like fuel. Whenever  you applaud for us, it gives us an extra gas tank to keep going.

FW: I’m glad. In your bio, you said that when you write something you feel it’s true.  Have you ever looked back and said, “Wow, I was way off the mark with this?”

Adam: That’s an interesting question. I was explaining to a friend of mine that songs are unique because they take on different meanings as you play them. If I’ve written a song three years ago and I really feel like it was about a relationship that had taken a bad turn, and I look back on it, it’s therapeutic to look at it through a different lens, to say, “Wow, I wrote this song when I was hurting. Now I kind of sing it with a happy, glass half-full mentality. This is where I’ve gone, and it’s because of those things that hurt me.”

And then a lot of times you write about something and it changes as you play it.  You may have written it about a  bad relationship, and then it turns into a bad feeling that you had about music, or kind of where you’re going, or a new outlook on life. I think songs evolve.

FW: Are you currently working on something?

Adam: I go in the studio and I record acoustic tracks just to give away to my fans for free. I go into the studio once every two weeks, and I sit down for around three hours, and we just run through something fast, so that people say, “He’s still giving us stuff. He’s not expecting us to live off these ten tracks.”

 I have this version of “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” That’s the next one that we’re going to record and send out. It doesn’t sound much like the original, but it’s got the original hook in it.

FW: That sounds interesting…

Adam: Yeah, and the reaction we get whenever we play it live is the reason that I’m going to record it. When we first start playing, people are like, “Oh, this is Radiohead.” It’s kind of slow, and pushing along. Then you get to the chorus and everyone turns, and they’re looking at you and singing it with you. Like it or not, Tina Turner was a great artist…

FW: Yeah, she really was! Except I don’t think she’s dead, though…

Adam: (laughs) Okay, then she is a great artist. I’m really hoping to tease my hair and get it to look like that one day…and if I had those legs… (laughs)

FW: (laughs) …and that is a mental image that I know is going to pop into my head at the most inopportune time…

And once again, we digress.

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