Paul Bibbins On the Making Of ‘Disenchantment at a Distance’
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind 'Disenchantment at a Distance' and the story it tells?
Well, that question requires a two-headed answer…..
As it pertains to my 4-song 'Disenchantment at a Distance' EP as a whole, the four songs on the EP don’t tell any collective story. And my inspiration for doing the EP was simply that I felt that it was time for me to release more of my original songs. It had been two years since my last album release of original songs in 2021. I’d planned on releasing a full album, but I settled for the 4-song EP because it takes me a long time to record my songs…and I got impatient.
Pertaining to the title song “Disenchantment at a Distance (in need of a good song)”, my inspiration for the song was that I wanted a melodic song in the vein of Jimi Hendrix’s classic song “Bold as Love”. I feel that I succeeded somewhat in that respect. I wrote the song way back in 1974; but it took me until this year to finally get around to recording it.
“Disenchantment at a Distance (in need of a good song)” is really two songs in one. The lyrics in the first part of the song are ethereal in nature, and don’t have any real meaning. The lyrics in the second part of the song are my snarky dig at what I feel (rightly or wrongly so) is the lack of quality in the majority of songs being written & released today. For me personally, the best era of songwriting was the period from the mid-1960’s to the end of the 1970’s.
Were there any challenges or breakthrough moments during the songwriting process for 'Disenchantment at a Distance?'
There weren’t any breakthrough moments; but the challenges to getting the EP done were many. And that is because I did everything myself. I wrote the songs (music & lyrics), performed and recorded the music, sang the vocals, produced and engineered the tracks, and mixed & mastered the songs myself. This is always a very challenging way of doing music…and takes a lot of time. But it is the way that I’ve always done it. I love that feeling of total control over the music that I release out into the wild.
What is your personal favorite song from 'Disenchantment at a Distance' and why?
Wow…that’s a tough question for me. But I’m gonna have to say that my favorite track on the EP is the instrumental called “Thrill Walk”. And the reason is that I feel that I put some real fire under the guitar solos in “Thrill Walk”. The other three tracks on the EP all have guitar solos…but the guitar solos in “Thrill Walk” reach higher!
What is your songwriting process like? How do you usually start crafting a new song?
My songs have always begun as simple guitar riffs. I’ll be noodling around on my guitar, and out of nowhere a new riff will flow from my fingertips. I’ll immediately record that new riff so that it won’t be forgotten. Then I’ll work on that new riff for however long it takes (days, weeks, whatever) until I whip it into a full song. And then I’ll write some lyrics for the song.
But my instrumental song “Vista Valley Drift”, which is song #4 on the EP, deviated from that pattern of song creation. “Vista Valley Drift” is a full song that I wrote on keyboards years ago. But I don’t put in much practice time on keyboards, so I’m not very good at it. I therefore, could NOT see myself recording “Vista Valley Drift” as a keyboard song. So I did the next best thing, and taught myself how to play the song on guitar…and then ran with it.
How has your music evolved since you started as a singer-songwriter? What have been some key milestones in your artistic journey?
The style of music I play today is basically the same style of music I played at the beginning. My motto is: if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.
I will say that for the first dozen years that I played guitar, I saw guitar solos as superfluous (unnecessary)…at least for me. So during that dozen-year period I rarely ever played guitar solos. Now though, I basically wouldn’t be caught dead without a guitar solo in my songs!