John David Schrader is a singer, songwriter, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. In Part One (Issue 234) he spoke about his early influences, how his diagnosis of cancer at age 21 significantly changed his life, his inspirations for writing songs, and a lot more. The interview concludes here.
On Being a Multi-Instrumentalist, Producer, and Engineer
Joe Caplan: You wrote every song, played every instrument, sang every vocal, and engineered the entire 21 Summers album yourself. What drives that need for total creative control – is it trust, or is it something deeper about ownership of the work
John David Schrader: Initially it was for convenience, if a musician couldn’t make it to my studio to lay tracks down. I thought to myself, “you went to college to play all these instruments, so just do it.” as time wore on, that notion changed for me. Not only do I like to own my masters, obviously, but I feel that writing such personal songs about my life and my struggles and my losses and my wins would lose a little something if I had anyone else help write it. That’s why I write by myself always. I’m never closed off. If at 2 o’clock in the morning I wanna get up and walk into my studio, I can do so and lay tracks down without having to rely on anyone else.
JC: Does playing every instrument yourself change the music – does it make it more unified, or does something get lost without the creative friction of other musicians
JDS: It just feels more personal for me when I hear the end result, but you bring up a good point, and there could be some creative friction that could bring something else out in the music and I’m certainly not closed off to that idea.
JC: You play drums, vibes, piano, guitar, saxophone, violin. Is there one instrument that is most essentially you – the one you'd keep if you had to give up all the others?
JDS: Wow…like Sophie’s Choice with musical instruments LOL. Each instrument has its own timbre and mood that brings different things out in the songwriting process, but if I had to choose one…gosh…the guitar is the easiest thing to pick up and start creating [with] because it’s right there in a case, but if a grand piano was also in the same room, I love sitting down at the keys as well. I think that’s the best I can do with the Sophie’s Choice of musical instruments.
JC: You own your own studio, your own publishing company, your own label. In an era when the music industry has never been more accessible or more difficult at the same time, what does creative independence mean to you?
JDS: I control how and when I write and create my music. I own all of my masters, so therefore, I have a lot of bargaining power when it comes to publisher share versus writer share, etc. when selling or having my music used in media. Radio royalties are 100 percent mine as writer and publisher. Master and sync fees are something different but overall, I like to own my masters via copyright.
JC: You're a six-time ASCAP Award winner and a Grammy Recording Academy member. How do you feel about industry recognition – does it matter to you, or is it separate from what the music actually is?
JDS: Recognition is always a good thing in this industry. It’s something we all strive for. But as I’ve gotten older, I have more comfort in the fact that I create music, that I record music and get it out for people to listen to. I always have correspondence coming into me from wonderful people all over the globe and that’s wonderful, but I never lose sight of why I do it and where I think it comes from. The simple craft of humming a melody while I’m playing an instrument that becomes a full song down the road is a gift I never take for granted.
The industry is [in] a bit of a mess right now and has changed so much over the years. The biggest change that I see is that there’s no more long-term development in record companies. They pump so much similar stuff out that they’re concerned with quarterly profits rather than long-term talent, development and commitment. I believe that’s been very detrimental to the music industry.
John David Schrader.
On the John Schrader Band and Collaboration
JC: You work both as a solo artist, doing everything yourself, and as a bandleader with the John Scrhader Band. Are those two different people, or two modes of the same person?
JDS: Same person. With a band, I bring completed songs into rehearsals and I say, here’s the song, guys. Let’s learn them and if you have anything to add to it that brings it higher, I’m all in.
JC: You've shared stages with musicians connected to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Miles Evans, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, and dozens more. What do you take from those encounters – is it technique, attitude, or something harder to name?
JDS: I’ve always been excited to share the stage with larger artists. It’s always an honor, so I have a lot of fun with it. I’ve yet to come across anyone with a real sh*tty attitude, so that’s a good thing. And I’m a humble guy…there’s no attitude with me. So much so that compliments embarrass the hell out of me.
JC: Is there a musician you've played alongside of who changed something fundamental about how you approach your own music?
JDS: I honestly don’t think so. I’ve developed into the writer and player that I am by listening to so many different types of music and playing with so many levels of musicianship [with other people]. I’ve taken a little something from everyone who has crossed my path and I’m thankful for their influence.
On Music, Illness, and Healing
JC: There is growing scientific evidence that music, both listening to it and playing it, has measurable effects on pain, anxiety, immune function, and mood. Did you feel any of that in your body during your cancer battle, or was it more psychological and spiritual?
JDS: I do believe in the healing power of music because after all, it’s actual vibrations, carrying through the air that hits you physically. I think more than anything for me, when I was sick, was the psychological and spiritual healing that it helped me with. But I can’t say that it didn’t help me physically…I’m sure it did in some way.
JC: Did you write or play during treatment itself, or was there a period where music had to wait – where you were too sick, too exhausted, too scared?
JDS: [There was] definitely a period where music had to wait for the reasons you spoke about: fear and sickness.
JC: Is there a difference between music that heals and music that helps you survive? Do you think those are the same thing?
JDS: I feel that they are the same thing, because surviving is also healing. We all feel music differently and we all respond to it differently. I believe there are times that it helps and sometimes that it heals and sometimes where it helps you survive. At times it does all of the above at the same time.
JC: Some cancer survivors talk about the disease as a gift in disguise, bringing clarity, perspective, reprioritization. Do you feel that way about it, or does that kind of framing minimize what you actually went through?
JDS: I do feel exactly that way. I don’t think those feelings minimize what I went through, but as I said earlier, it spun me around. It made me look at life differently. In an instant, I realized what’s truly important in life, and that is your friends and your family. Your relationships. When you leave this Earth, you will take two things with you and only two things: how you loved people and how they loved you. If at your wake, [all] you have [are] people talking about the car you drove, the house you lived in or your bank accounts, you had some real asshole friends. And maybe you didn’t leave the impression you wanted to!
JC: If you could play one song for someone who had just received a serious diagnosis – someone sitting alone with that news – what would it be and why?
JDS: I would play “Coming Around Again” because it gives validity to the feelings of despair, weakness, fear, and the ability to not carry on…because that’s how people feel when they first get these diagnoses. I’m a firm believer about not ignoring the negative feelings in life and only trying to harp on the positive. If you do that, you’re simply burying the negative down inside and it will come to the surface when you least want it. I say live those feelings until you’re sick of them, and then you’ll be done with them and you can move forward. That’s what that song is about.
JC: You've now outlived the five-year survival window they gave you by decades. Does every year feel differently because of that early countdown, or has life normalized again?
JDS: Life never “normalizes” after a diagnosis. It changes. It becomes different. It becomes new. You live knowing what’s truly important in life. You live with gratitude for each day that you have and you spread that to those around you. I try to make hope contagious.
On Music as a Local and Universal Language
JC: Kingston, New York has a rich musical history and a strong arts community. Has the city supported you, or have you had to fight for recognition closer to home?
JDS: I’ve been fairly lucky with local recognition. I’ve had radio stations play my music and have me on live to play or to be interviewed. We’ve always had people come out to see the shows. I’ve been featured in local newspapers and magazines so I’m thankful for local support as well.
JC: You've received airplay and press across the US and overseas. Is there a particular place in the world where your music has connected in a way that surprised you?
JDS: [I’m] not surprised over any one particular place, but I’ve been surprised in general by all the places that I’ve been played around the globe and all the kind words that have come to me from those areas. Remember, I was that little boy who was told he wouldn’t amount to sh*t, so to have my music played around the world and to have people recognize it and write to me with kind words is a wonderful feeling and I’m very blessed to have that.
JC: Your music is rooted in very specific personal experience – streets in Kingston, specific losses, specific people. How does something that personal become universal enough for a stranger in another country to feel it?
JDS: Like I spoke of earlier, I tend to write my lyrics enigmatically, and as a result, I feel they can be applicable to everyone who listens and they can take something from it that means something to them, but doesn’t necessarily have that meaning to me. Does that make sense?
JC: Rock, adult album alternative, singer/songwriter – you can be labeled with multiple genres. Do those labels fit, or do they miss something essential about what you actually do?
JDS: I think they fit pretty well because they’re all kind of intertwined together. They all have the same roots and the same branches. Although, I try not to fit into any specific genre as I just write what I write, and it comes out like it does.
On the Craft of Songwriting
JC: What comes first for you – the melody, the lyric, the chord progression, or the emotion you're trying to capture?
JDS: I’ll pick up a guitar or sit behind a piano and just start playing either chords or riffs and humming something along or singing gibberish over it. Then, like magic, a line will come to me. Then, based on what I’m feeling or going through at the time, the song starts writing itself.
JC: You've been writing songs for decades. Has the process changed? Does it get easier, harder, or just different?
JDS: I’ve always been prolific as a songwriter, and I’m thankful for that. I’ve never truly struggled. They just kind of come out of me. The few times in all these years that I may have struggled over a song tells me that the song is garbage, and I throw it all out.
JC: Is there a song you've written that still surprises you – that you listen back to and think, “I'm not sure I could do that again?”
JDS: Hmmm…not as far as writing the song…but maybe with a drum fill or a solo lick on the guitar that may have actually been a mistake but sounded so good that it got kept. That’s when I think, I probably couldn’t do that again!
JC: Is there a song you wish you could go back and rewrite – something that was close but didn't quite get there?
JDS: I often think about rewriting some of my earlier songs that are of bad quality just because of [the recording] technology and [because] I was [just] starting out, etc. But I’d like to take the ones that I think have promise, rewrite some of the lyrics, and re-record them for a new record. But because new songs always pop in my head, that makes it difficult to choose which to do…go back backward or go forward?
JC: You write about very personal things – loss, cancer, grief, struggle. Is there a line you won't cross, something too private to put in a song? Or is everything available?
JDS: I’d like to think that there’s nothing I would hold back on from writing, [although] nobody would necessarily know exactly what I mean, but I would. I do have a tendency to hold back on writing anything that may hurt somebody else. [If] something was done to me or happened to me and others were involved and it would be blatantly obvious, I’m not [going to] punish nor hurt somebody in the public forum.
JC: What makes a great song great? After all these years, all these genres absorbed, all these stages played, what's the thing that makes you stop and say, “that's it?”
JDS: One simple word…the hook. If your song doesn’t have it, no one‘s going to connect with it.
On Legacy and What Comes Next
JC: You're working on your fifth self-produced album. Does each album feel like a new chapter, or is it all one long continuous piece of work?
JDS: Each record is a slice of a portion of my life, so each one is new in its own way, but my life has been linear, as everyone’s is, so they do kind of tell one long story.
JC: You score music for film and TV alongside your personal work. Is that a different creative muscle, or does it feed the same part of you?
JDS: I believe it feeds a part of me that I don’t have to necessarily think too much about. When you look at a daily from a shoot or you do a spotting session with a director, you’re not thinking about your own pains and suffering, etc. you’re thinking about one thing: what’s going to move this scene forward or what is going to support this scene. So it’s a different way to create for me.
JC: You have an open invitation to play in Nashville. What's held you back, and what would it mean to finally go?
JDS: Nothing really has held me back other than the motivation to pack things up and go down to play, but I’m sure it will happen.
JC: If someone discovers your music for the first time 20 years from now, what do you want them to feel?
JDS: I want them to feel what they feel and to take from it what they take from it, not what I meant by it. That to me is the beauty of music.
JC: You've survived cancer, lost both parents to cancer, built a career entirely on your own terms in a brutal industry, and kept making music through all of it. What keeps you going – is it still the same thing that hooked you when you saw Elvis on TV?
JDS: Yup… it’s that same feeling. The newness of a song that I’m writing or the newness of a stage I’m on. That excitement keeps me going. I’ve never looked at it as a job. I don’t think I could stop if someone held a gun to my head…which I hope never happens!
Wild Cards
JC: If you could go back and play one song for your nine-year-old self – the kid who just lost his father – what would it be?
JDS: “Hey Jude.” “Take a sad song and make it better.”
JC: Is there a song by someone else that you wish you had written, something that felt so close to your own truth it almost hurt?
JDS: “Hey Jude.” it has transcended time.
JC: You've said music needed to be your voice. But is there something you've never been able to say in a song, something that still hasn't found its form?
JDS: Not that I’m aware of. There may be something [still] inside. I’ll [be] unaware of that [until it] will come out one day.
JC: If the music stopped tomorrow – if you could never write or play again – what would you do with everything that's still inside you?
JDS: Oh God…I shudder to think…I would continue writing words, to get them out. Either lyric form or poetry or something like that. I couldn’t just keep it bottled up.
JC: What does music sound like when everything is finally OK?
JDS: I hope one day to let you know.
All images courtesy of the artist.
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