Interview with Ted Ollikkala (February 2008)

Hi Damon

Thanks for doing the interview with me.

The article/interview will be targeted for people who are unfamiliar with your work and your family legacy and that they should give you a listen. Of course, it will appeal to folks who are already familiar and bring them up to date. Great angle - fills a double purpose to mark your new release! Would be nice if you could select a photo to be used.

1. What would you like to say about the new album?

Most of what I want to say is contained in the material. I called the album Vultures and Sheep. Like the last album the themes of each song tend to revolve around general observations I’ve made in life. This time I’ve chosen not to write quite so personally and take more of a third party view on each subject.

The opening song ‘How You Want It’ acts as a kind of springboard for the rest of the album in which each song depicts characters or situations that I may have found to be particularly irksome or even endearing. I wanted to write about the kind of environment where unscrupulous or ignoble people prospered and decent hard working people suffer. The subjects on the album vary from delusion, corruption, indolence, ambition, retribution, injustice and vulnerability to good old fashioned love and nostalgia. I’m not suggesting in anyway that I have answers to any of society’s problems in writing this way I’m merely making observations.
I intended the sound of the album to have a certain rawness but I hope there is enough in the arrangements for the listener to be both entertained and in some way emotionally stimulated.
I do find it difficult talking about my music as apart from making me sound pretentious and pompous I often forget my original intent for a composition. I certainly wouldn’t want to mislead anyone. 

2. Names of the instruments you play on the latest album; did you write all of the songs / lyrics and who does vocals. Did you also do the engineering / producing?

DS: Yes, I write the music and lyrics and yes I do the vocals though two of my sons also help out with some backing vocals. The whole album is recorded in my home studio. I call it ‘Room 15’. I’ve done all of the recording and production on my own. After the recording and mixing is done I send the finished pieces to my uncle Ray who polishes the stuff up with some expert mastering. Ray has an excellent ear for sound and is the best reference point for me. My father will often pass his opinions while I’m writing. He’ll sometimes identify highlights in a piece and will tell me that I should be repeating a phrase or using appropriate dynamics. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don’t.   
I love the whole recording process, though it can be frustrating sometimes being on my own, but I’m used to it now and possibly prefer doing it this way at the moment.
The instruments I play on this album are: electric, acoustic 12 and 6 string guitars, bass, keyboards, mandolin, recorder and some drums and percussion. I also used sampled drums which I edited and pieced together. I think that’s everything.

3. What is your motivation for creating and sharing your music?

DS: First of all I’m a musician and I love to play and write music. That may sound a little facile but from my point of view that’s the integral ingredient of wanting or needing to create music. I don’t know why I love music I just do. Maybe because it can touch me in a way that literature and the visual arts don’t, though I do read books, watch films and view paintings with a great deal of enthusiasm.
But the music I love and admire takes me through a myriad of emotions that are so difficult to convey in words and vision alone so, I feel compelled to air my own views in music. The actual motivation is triggered by events either in my life or by what catches my attention in the world around me.
I suppose that’s why I want to share my music. I would like to think that I’m offering up something that will contribute positively to another person’s life. I’d like to think that if someone hears my music it will evoke and provoke thought, joy and entertainment. In conjunction to that I’d like to think I’m writer with integrity, in other words I write to give pleasure rather than to receive adulation for myself.


4. What direction is your music taking?

DS: I don’t think I really have a direction. I’m a straight forward family man who has the same concerns of any other man in my position. So there is no agenda or direction. I will write when I feel compelled to write. Styles and subjects are incidental. When I write it’s just me and my frame of mind at a particular time. I guess I’m a product of many influences so my direction is often dictated by what is having a major influence on me at a particular time.


5. You're also a member of 4WJ (http://www.myspace.com/the4wj ) - what's going on there?

DS: THE 4WJ. Must get the THE in there. It’s a wonderful release for me. For a start I do it with 3 fantastic musicians and more importantly great friends. Tim Didymus, Toby Phillips and Steve Grainger are my band mates. Each has their own style and abilities which together, I think, creates a wonderful sound. There’s no project as such, all I know is that when I’m in their company, playing music, I feel creative and happy. We get together and jam. From the jamming we make a mix of what has happened. Tim puts together some great visuals to our music. I think he’s done some really powerful stuff to enhance the music.
We have different tastes and views on music which makes it all the more interesting, but fundamentally we’re of one mind.
We’ve been doing this for many years now and I think finally we’re getting a little attention.
For anyone who hasn’t heard of it, check it out.


6. What kind of audience do you think you would appeal to? Why should people listen to your music?

DS: I would like to appeal to all kinds of people. I don’t feel that I’m trying to target an audience. That would be sending the wrong message, I think.
My philosophy is, if you like my stuff that’s great, we’ve made a connection. What ever the connection is, it doesn’t really matter.
I don’t take the view that people should listen to my music. I’m not a prophet or a sage or in anyway suggesting that I can change people’s lives by writing songs.
I believe in choice and if people find me and make the choice to listen, I should be happy and more importantly grateful. I apologise if that seems evasive.  


7. Why aren't you famous?

DS: Why should I be? No, I’m not being facetious, I’ve never really pursued fame and doing the stuff I do I’m never likely to encounter it at least not on a large scale. I’m not particularly enchanted by the culture of celebrity anyway. It all seems to be about selfishness and egotism, and essentially I’m a private person who likes to hang out with my family and friends. Apart from that, most really famous people probably deserve their fame. They put in the hours and commitment and I guess reap the rewards for their endeavor. I’ve not made any concerted effort to be famous so, it’s hardly surprising really. 
I suppose it appears contradictory to release albums, but the way I do it is without compromise, it’s solely about the music and not to attain adulation or a public image.

8. You have a 'head start' in the music industry (you don't openly acknowledge it on myspace). How have you used that to your advantage?

DS: I think it’s fairly evident by observing where I am that I have never gained an advantage or had a head start in the music industry. If that’s the perception, there’s nothing I can really do about it. 
But seriously, I only have a head start in that I come from a musical family. There is an advantage, I suppose, from being encouraged by my father to explore my own musical proclivities. In that sense I guess I am privileged. But from the professional view I’ve had no advantage whatsoever. The Shulman family really doesn’t carry that much weight in the music industry apart from may be my uncle, Derek Shulman. It’s true that he has a pedigree in the mainstream of music but, he lives in another country with his own family and has his own priorities. I’m not sure that he has ever really had an interest in assisting me with my endeavors anyway, and why should he. My dad has been out of the music industry a long time and I was virtually a baby when he left Gentle Giant. So, when I started out in the late 1980’s the Gentle Giant name and certainly my dad really didn’t cut any ice with the industry at all.
Anyway, I’m a big boy now doing my own thing and quite honestly my stuff and my image aren’t really commercially viable.  My other uncle, Ray does help me out when I’m recording. He has mastered my recordings, I confess. Anyway, I love Ray and music is good common ground for us to make a connection. But apart from being on gentlegiantmusic.com, I don’t believe I have used my background to my advantage or that it would do any good if I had tried.
I have allowed friends on Myspace to ‘spread the word’ about me by making the connection between me and Gentle Giant but is that really so bad?  


9. Living in the shadow of GG. Is it a curse?

DS: No, it’s not a curse, and I don’t really feel that I’m in their shadow either. If that’s how it looks, again, I can’t really do much about it, but I’m not gonna cry in my beer about it. Gentle Giant were brilliant but got their break at a timely point. The music industry was very different to now and was prepared to put up with experimentation in the mainstream, which was great for the music lover but not so good for the business. If Gentle Giant were starting out today I think they’d find it hard getting on. It’s not as if they got a lot of breaks anyway, certainly not in their own country where they are hardly known at all except by real hard core music fans. 


10. Were you involved in the remastering of the recent GG releases (2005)? Did you know that Jordan Rudess covers 'Just the Same' on his latest album.

DS: No, I have nothing to do with GG projects. That’s their thing. They don’t need an upstart like me in the loop.
I have heard the Jordan Rudess version of ‘Just the same’. It’s a great song and it’s nice to see someone pay homage to it.


11. What's your father doing these days?

DS: My dad has retired, and is enjoying life with his family. We are a very close family. Both he and my mum have been a great influence on my own kids and my whole family live in each others pockets without reservation. After he left GG, dad returned to teaching. He was a teacher before he entered the music business. He then left the UK and worked in the USA with my mum, then came back home after two years away and ran a retail business with my mum for a while and then they both retired.
I’m working on a music project with him at the moment and Kerry Minnear. We have done this before with a piece called ‘Then’ for which I scored the music and my father wrote the prose. It’s about his own childhood living in Glasgow, Scotland.


12. What is your uncle Derek doing nowadays? He's had a successful career discovering new bands (Nickelback, Slipknot)

DS: You probably know more than me. As I said, Derek lives far away from the rest of the family and we maybe see him once a year, though he does call my dad regularly. All I know is that he is in the ‘music business’. What business he does, I can’t really say.


13. Any other members of GG and your family that you are in contact with - Yael, Noah, Gary, Ray, Kerry, John - any collaborations in the works?

DS: Hey, Yael and Noah are my American cousins. No, we don’t really have much contact. Had contact with Yael through Myspace a couple of times but other than that, not much else. It’s kind of difficult to maintain a relationship when you live thousands of miles apart. But, obviously we’ve been in each others company and yes my cousins are lovely people. I’ve viewed their work from afar and I’m impressed. They both make films. Noah seems to be into music video and documentary but Yael is more art house, you know. Good luck to them both. I love them, they’re part of my family.
I really don’t hear too much about Gary or John. The odd story but there’s no contact as such. 
Kerry runs Alucard Publishing along with his wife Lesley. Kerry is a music teacher and does speak with my dad frequently over the phone.     


14. Why do you feature your children on your albums?

DS: Because they’re talented and beautiful. There’s a proud parent for you. But, why not?
I have three beautiful children with their own view of the world so, for me it’s good to get their slant on things in my recordings. Plus it gives them some experience of the creative process and they’re cheap and always available.


15. You have a very pleasant voice for narration (Rats) - was that song done for your children? Would you like to do voiceover work (I'm thinking Ringo Starr in Nilsson's 'The Point' and 'Thomas the Tank Engine'.

DS: The voice on Rats is actually my dad. It’s part of the piece ‘Then’.  ‘Then’ was written by myself and my father and was about his childhood in Glasgow. I may have said that before. Sorry. But I agree, dad has a great voice for narration.
I wish it was me as you’ve been so complimentary about it.

16. Is your back catalogue available?
(we will mention http://www.damonshulman.co.uk/buy.htm)
DS: Yes, I think everything I’ve done on my own is available, through gentlegiantmusic.com and GEP. GEP released the album ‘On the Right Track’ with my band, ‘Different Trains’. The only album you won’t be able to get now is ‘In Pieces’. That was never officially released but, there are copies around but they’re hard to find.   


17. You don't tour (because you haven't got a band). If you did - who would you tour with? And would you play any GG songs (if people asked nicely and of course they might)?

DS: The conditions would have to be pretty damned good to make me tour. There’s a girl band in the UK called ‘Girls Aloud’. I’d probably choose to tour with them. I think they would understand where I’m coming from.
I think it would b a little tawdry for me to play GG songs at a Damon Shulman gig. I can’t see any circumstances where it would be appropriate for me to play their music other than as a specific tribute.

18. How extensively do you use your home studio?

DS: That’s all I use when doing my own stuff. I think it’s all I need.  I play in various studios when doing the 4WJ thing but that’s simply a space issue. No, my studio is great. It’s a simple set up and very comfortable.  


19. What's the latest instrument you learned to play. Latest technology you have experimented with.

DS: That’s a good question. I do play the mandolin on the latest album, but I’m learning to get the best out of it at the moment. Great instrument, at least the sound is great but it’s horrible to play. Listen to Nickel Creek (not Nickelback) for great mandolin playin’. I’ll generally pick up anything and give it a go. Same with technology.


20. Talk about your presence on YouTube and MySpace.

DS: Myspace is great and weird at the same time. I’ve had some great conversations with people I have never seen or met. I’ve have relationships with people I’ve never seen or met. It’s good though. Most the people I’ve communicated with seem really nice. I should particularly mention Jim Trainer. Look him up on Myspace. A great artist and, a good friend to me. He’s been the most supportive person with respect to my music than anyone I've encountered on Myspace. He's helped me out alot as well publicising the new album.
YouTube is OK. My son posted up a couple of my videos. To be honest I don’t pay much attention to it. But, it's a good thing.

21. Any freebies from you?

DS: Are you asking for a freebie? I guess if you want something I can get it to you as you’re so nice. But seriously it’s tough on me to send out freebies. I work on a really tight budget. Ahhhhh, I hear violins. But when people ask for something gratis I sometimes wonder who they think I am. Though, I realize in certain circumstances it’s essential. So, it depends who’s asking really. 

22. Feeling about the state of the music industry and how music is sold / how it affects you.

DS: Really? I guess I do have opinions about the industry but they’re of no consequence. The music industry is what it is. It doesn’t affect me because I’m of no consequence, at least not to the music industry. So, I don’t have an axe to grind. They can do what they want to do and I’ll do my thing.  


23. Favourite songs:

a. Your own : At the moment, ‘Scum’  from Vultures and Sheep

b. GG : Prologue from Three Friends. In fact, everything from Three Friends.

c. other artists :  Once In a Lifetime by Talking Heads and Who Are You by The Who, Maria by Leonard Bernstein, oh the list is too long, I gotta stop.


24. Top people that you respect in the music industry (artists and/or performers)

DS: Always a difficult question, because I have so many influences from so many different artists. The list is huge but it would seem a little trite to mention them all now surely. I suppose, The Who (Pete Townshend as a writer is phenomenal), Gentle Giant (of course), The Band, Talking Heads, Stevie Wonder, Steve Reich and Leonard Bernstein come to mind without hesitation, then I have to start thinking a bit.  There’s plenty more music I love and lots of different styles too but that’ll do for now.


25. Other: Ask and answer your own question ('cos i might miss something you'd like to include)

DS: I’m OK with what we’ve done. Cheers man.


THAT'S IT, DAMON. I WILL SEND YOU A PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE/INTERVIEW BEFORE IT'S PUBLISHED ON http://teducation.com and publicized from my site on myspace.

Thank you for your precious time and I wish you the best success!

Cheers and rock on :-)

Ted Ollikkala
Singapore