The following is an interview with singer/songwriter Andy Wyatt that was done by Dave Wrong of The Underground Studio blog on July 23rd, 2024, after the release of Andy’s full length album, “uplift”. You can listen to it on Bandcamp and everywhere you stream music!
Dave: How did you settle on the title of your album, “uplift?” And what does it mean to you?
Andy: It was the working title for at least the last year, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be the final title. It ended up just feeling right because it was the overall message or feeling I wanted people to get out of the album. I think my bio on Bandcamp says it best. I think of myself as a cold war kid. I grew up thinking that the world was going to end in a nuclear winter, you know, in the 70s. And that just led me to have this attitude of “live it up while you can”, which is one of the refrains of the second song on the album called “here today.” But at the same time, I tend to be a Pollyanna and I’ll wake up on a new day every day and everything’s great! There’s this contrast in a lot of the songs between “Oh my God, everything is nuts and crazy and I can’t believe how much the world is crumbling right now” and at the same time my wife and my family and my friends make me so happy, and I just love playing music, so let’s just have a good time while we can.
Dave: You have these two opposite extremes of darkness and light that are diametrically opposed to each other and it kind of gives the vitality and tension to the whole album, wouldn’t you say?
Andy: I appreciate that, Dave. Yes, I think so. And if you just look at the first and the last song, in the first one, it’s all crumbling. It was written in 2016 during the presidential election thinking that I’d never seen such doublespeak and craziness with the politics that were happening then. And even that song has two verses with all these problems, with the metaphor of a tree has fallen across my path and how are we gonna get around it. But then, the last verse is “you refill my heart every day”, while our world is crumbling. So, it comes around to the ever-optimistic Andy of “Everything’s going to shit but at least I’ve got you my wife and you make my life worth living.” And the last song is totally about my wife and how wonderful she makes me feel and how wonderful she is and that’s supposed to be a really happy, uplifting ending to the whole thing. So, it takes us from “crumbling” to “wonderful”, with a bunch of ups and downs in between.
Dave: Speaking about your song, “crumbling”, it seems to be a plea for hope in uncertain times. How does it feel to write about this topic and how do you connect with your listeners on this theme?
Andy: I’ve played that song over a hundred times at the Skunk Hollow Open Mic and I’ve gotten universally great feedback on that song in particular. People just say, “I love that song!” And musicians tell me it’s so interesting because there’s an odd timing to it. It’s 4/4, but there’s these patterns of 3 measures at a time where you would expect there to be 4 measures. It keeps it interesting to people who are musicians, which are a lot of people at the Skunk. But still so many people say, “I love your songs! I love the message there!” And that’s what keeps me coming back every week to the Skunk is that I play those songs every week and people give me this feedback.

Dave: Some of the songs in the album appear to be a response to the pandemic. How did the experience of the pandemic inform the making of this album?
Andy: It sort of changed the way it was recorded. I originally really wanted to get a band of 9 or 10 people together in my barn and have that experience of the collaboration that I get at the Skunk with people. I knew all the horn players from bands I’d played in before or that had played in Jim Yeager’s bands. I just had this feeling that it would be so awesome if I could get all these friends that I met at the Skunk together in my barn and do it all live, just to capture that energy of playing together. But the pandemic came around before I was able to get all those songs ready for that. So it changed it in that, instead of having it all be recorded live, I just had my projects, my demos, and then I replaced the fake drums with a real drummer. I sent it out to this guy in Boston that I knew from back in Ithaca. Then I arranged for my recording session at The Underground to replace all my fake horns with the real thing.

And I had stacks of 10 Andys singing background vocals and I got 4 other guys to come in and replace some of those so there’d be more voices and more richness to that. Then I had the steel pans come in. So, sort of layered instead of altogether. And so, I think it could have lost a little bit of the interaction that might have happened if we’d done it all live together. But I still think we managed. But the pandemic really changed the process that I had envisioned to be more isolated and more piecemeal. And it even screwed up some of my dates, because I got COVID in early January and had to reschedule a couple of sessions there. And John Snyder was not able to make one because he had it. And there were basically 4 songs that were all in a row that were all on the album that goes from “comes to mind”, “let’s hear it for your skin”, “truth be told”, to “back in the garden again”. But those were all written during the pandemic in a slightly different phase of the thing. I really intentionally tried to avoid being too specific and say “COVID” so they’ll be just as relevant when we get our next pandemic. And they’re still just about the feeling of isolation and wanting to escape off to a beach and “let me get away from this crap. I want to make this all feel better for you.” But then “truth be told” is the one song that some of my bandmates are like “That’s the one song on this album that’s not very uplifting!” That was June 2020 on an airplane. I had to go down to Mississippi with my wife. Her mom was not in very good health and eventually died that summer. And I had to come home. I stayed for one week and she stayed for 2 weeks. I came back home because I had to get back to work. I was on a plane, and I fell asleep and woke up with that song in my head. Most of the words were written and the tune, so I wrote it all down. But it is kind of dark. But again, the verses are these sort of weird, dark chords, talking about “people are suffering”. But then the chorus is this huge gospel choir singing “Truth be told, we all need more LOVE!” And I’m trying to do that same contrast with “back in the garden again” where ‘Everything sucks, but everything’s great!” or, you know, “Love is the answer!”
Dave: It kind of points you in the direction of where we need to aim our energies, right?
Andy: Yeah exactly! We need to understand each other. Right to today’s election. We need to be understanding of the other side. We don’t just call the other side assholes and enemies. These are all people trying to do the best for our children, for our careers, whatever. There’s a lot more that we all have in common than we have differences. And the media and the politicians all make it out to be a much bigger chasm than it really is.
Dave: Your song, “your phone” has very interesting, poignant and, if I’m not misinterpreting it, somewhat sarcastic lyrics. What message were you hoping to convey with that song?
Andy: Hmm. I don’t know Haha… I guess that’s one of the songs I finished most recently and it was originally called “her phone”. And it was kind of about how I was looking at my wife sitting on the couch playing video games and I was feeling a little left out and wanted to talk a little more. Not in a blaming kinda way. But just that sort of feeling like “Oh you’re paying attention to your phone.” And I thought about it in more of an abstract way when I’m looking around the bar when I’m playing at the Skunk, and some attractive woman is sitting at the bar looking at her phone. So, I imagine some protagonist, not necessarily me, projecting and going “gee I wish she was swiping left and right on my screen.” And I got a little afraid that it was getting a little of a sexual innuendo and maybe getting a little bit creepy when I said I wish I were ‘her phone’ and I played around the words and decided that saying , “your phone” involved the listener more and made them the object of my desire for attention. And then the final twist that you may or may not have caught in the end is the last verse says, “It’s an hour past dinner time and I wish I could crawl up in your lap and purr. Meow!” So, there’s this twist at the end that all along this was about a cat wishing she would be getting the attention of my wife.
Dave : That’s a great device, if I should use that word.
Andy: That’s exactly what it is!
Dave: A device about a device.
Dave: What was it like working on this album at The Underground Recording Studio?
Andy: It was awesome! I had never been in a professional studio before, and Vincent was recommended to me by Jim Yeager. He recorded his “Identity Crisis” album there. And Jim and I go way back from The Skunk. The most memorable part was walking down into that studio the first time and the horn section was already warming up and they’re playing my music, and I was like “Wow!” He [Vincent] was not overbearing, he was really gentle and really pleasant to work with. It just went great! And we’ve had really good communication ever since, through all the emails and the end stages, you know, mixing and mastering. And then he showed up for my (release) gig! He postponed or canceled one of his things to come and that really meant a lot to me.

Dave: So, what’s next for Andy Wyatt?
Andy: I don’t know. I’m not planning a big album at the moment. I retired from my job last summer and I want to spend more time with my wife and my grandkids. And my mom back in Ithaca is getting on in years. So, I don’t really have any professional music ambitions. I really feel like I’ve got this out of my system in a way. I want to keep on playing at the open mic and occasionally fill in on bass for Pete Meijers’ band. I’m going to go on camping trips at state parks and go hiking and biking and kayaking with my family.
Dave: And you have this album for posterity!
Andy: I will spend some time trying to make some music videos, trying to get some more plays but I was never in it to make money. I always just wanted to get these songs out of my head and get them into people’s ears as best as I could with the best band that I could and I’ve already done that in a lot of ways. A hundred of these CDs have gone out now and it’s on all the streaming services. But I have this brand new song I just started working on. I will be recording more on my own in my spare time. It will probably just be me and my acoustic guitar in my studio. But we’ll see what comes out in a couple of years.

Listen to the album on Bandcamp and your favorite streaming app!
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