Michael Lyon On the Making Of ‘What Could Be’
What was the creative process like for this particular ‘What Could Be?’
This album of 14 songs - from the 25 or 30 recorded - turned out to be about 3 years in the making. By the way, quite a few of these songs were written during the pandemic - a time when it felt (justifiably) like you were risking your life to be spending many hours in the enclosed indoor space of a studio. (Nothing quite like the taste of danger to help you "be in the moment?!")
Most of the songs began their lives while I was sitting on the edge of the bed - often in the evening - strumming a guitar and jotting down potential lyrics on the nearest piece of paper.
Whenever it seemed like there was "something there" worth building upon, I tried not to get too impatient and force things. As a result, most of the songs took weeks to grow into the songs they "wanted to be." That included many return trips to the edge of the bed as each song began taking form, LOTS of rewrites (the title track, "What Could Be," had 24 drafts) and numerous sessions working with the great recording engineer, Paul Horabin at ReadyMixMusic in Van Nuys, California, over a period of weeks & sometimes months for each song. Once a song reached a fairly developed stage, I'd often share the latest recorded version with good friend (and Santa Monica guitar teaching legend) Kit Alderson, for any suggestions he might have about moving lyrics, vocals, instrumentation... up to the "next level."
Which song do you like the best and why?
There's the old and true saying of course that you can't play favorites with your (in this case, "musical") children, but if you're looking for just one, I'd say, "Love" - song #3 on the album. "Love" had a special feeling about it while it was being recorded - working on the vocals, for example, "going for that "Lennon/McCartney" vibe... when listening to the final version I've always liked the energy it has, and perhaps most of all, it reflects what I believe in: whatever success we have in the world really IS based on how much we're able to love each other.
How do you feel ‘What Could Be’ represents your artistic identity?
As with my first three albums, PICTURES, WAKING UP, and CURIOSITY, I think the new one, though influenced by many singer-songwriters who have blazed the trail in previous decades, remains uniquely me. Individually, and as an ebbing/flowing whole, the songs on WHAT COULD BE are true to how I personally view the world: with a mixture of concern, hope, and celebration.
Can you share a bit about your musical background and the journey that led you to where you are today?
From the time my parents woke up the children for school by blasting Broadway show tunes at the crack of dawn on their record player... until admitting to myself that while there are many far-fetched dreams out there, my becoming a songwriter is actually one of those that's actually possible (along with summoning enough self-belief that, "I can really DO this")... and with that, proceeding to start writing and recording songs on a regular basis 12 years ago... to the point that, today, lo and behold, here we go with the release of my fourth album. I can hardly believe it. But if you'd asked me if I'd be able to: get tickets for 9 out of 10 acoustic shows Neil Young played at a 150-seat club in San Francisco... be cast in one of the lead roles in a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance having no prior experience... or take up the violin as an adult (and in the process become lifelong friends with Mozart, Beethoven & Haydn - at least in spirit) I might also at one time have said, "it will never happen - you're crazy." Crazy or not, music has always been, and always will be for me, THE closest thing to the kind of magic that makes life well worth jumping up and down about.
Where do you find inspiration for your songs or musical ideas?
Anywhere and everywhere, high and low - the good, and sometimes the bad and the ugly. When Covid had me laid up in the summer of 2022 - actually, laying down for the most part - on a mattress in the computer room with the TV tuned to the Congressional hearings about the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, I was grateful to have a keyboard next to the TV that allowed me to start picking out the right-hand melody/left-hand accompaniment for the song, "Justice Day," which became track #5 on the WHAT COULD BE album - peaking of Covid, while there are no words to adequately express the pain and horror at watching how many have suffered and died from that disease, the song, "How Long It Takes" (track #4 on the new album) has been a way of channeling my frustration over how Covid wrecked life as we knew it for a good while, hopefully into something that could provide at least a few minutes of comfort.