The new song has been available for two weeks now and since having time to listen and digest it, I wanted to sit down and ask Kevin all of my probing questions. Let's jump right into it. Here, for you, the exclusive in depth interview with Kevin Rosmer on Someone Tried to Help Me.
Interview
Austin Shelley: The title of this song says a lot and gives the listener an immediate sense of what the song might be about. Did you start with the title and then write the song around a theme, or how did it come to be?
Kevin Rosmer: Well actually it really started with the chords, which is an incredibly simple and common chord pattern. Normally I would have immediately discarded the idea because that chord pattern is SO overused. But it's common for a reason, because it's a statement that resonates broadly in the emotional language of music. And I often tend to play whatever I'm feeling in a moment. That's where most of my ideas come from. I'll be feeling something, and I just start playing.
AS: What were you feeling?
KR: Umm... a lonely kind of peace I guess, haha. It sounds like a contradiction, I wouldn't normally associate loneliness to being at peace, but... well for one thing it implies there's probably nobody there bothering you, so I guess that's some kind of peace. But at the same time you're completely by yourself, and with yourself, and in those moments you have to be your own company but you also have to deal with whoever you really are.
AS: That doesn't sound peaceful at all.
[laughs]
KR: Well that's just it, for some that can be daunting, facing your inner demons so to speak.
AS: Do you have a lot of inner demons?
KR: For the most part no, but I think everyone at least has some and I'm no exception. I really thrive off of time spent with myself though, and it's where a lot of songs come from. In fact probably the reason I'm not tormented by it--time spent with myself I mean--is because I have songwriting as a method of fighting those inner demons. Like, if you can use your destructive thoughts to fuel your creative outlets, you can win! Haha, you can win the battle against your demons.
AS: That's fascinating. So that's what you mean when you say you were... peacefully lonely? You were lonely but you were successfully dealing with it?
KR: Yeah basically. I'd say... I was at peace with my loneliness, and there is a lot about that that has to do with the message in this song; the message that there are some things we have to deal with internally and that we have to confront on our own, and nobody can do that work for us. People can certainly be of tremendous help, probably afterward. Like talking to people about your problems and afflictions is great, getting things off your chest, speaking your mind to someone really willing to listen, that stuff is therapeutic. But sometimes people will say "Do you want to talk about it?" and the problem is you don't even know what to say or where to begin. How many people have been there?
AS: I've been there myself.
KR: Exactly, and probably everyone has. That's when you get that response, "I'm not ready to talk about it". There's a whole bunch of lyrics in this song that are variations of that statement. Even though I want your help I can't feel your hand, or... I'd tell you how to find me if I knew where to go, etc. It's saying "I'd like to talk, but I don't know how to and I have to sort out my head before I even know how to have a conversation about what I'm going through". So anyway, the song is about being in that state and trying to navigate through it.
AS: So that's the way you were feeling when you came up with those chords?
KR: Well interestingly enough, no I wasn't really feeling that way when the song came to me. I was more so reflecting on feeling that way, which is probably why I was able to write the song at all, because I'd made my way out of that state. If I hadn't, I'd probably still be sitting here not knowing what to write.
[laughs]
AS: Of course, makes sense. So how did the song take shape from there?
KR: Well it's weird. Writing lyrics is usually like pulling teeth for me. It takes me a long time to figure out how to say what I want to say. With this song they just came out with such ease, and it basically started with the first line. I'll often sort of ramble off a bunch of nonsense when I'm conceiving a song in order to just find a lyrical melody, and then I write the actual words later. When I started singing, the first thing out of my mouth was someone tried to help me but I turned them away. And that was when I knew it was going to turn into something. Often I'll be talking out loud or thinking to myself and just say a phrase and then think, "Oh that would make for a good song title," and make a note of it. In this case as soon as I sang the line I thought, "Someone tried to help me... what a nice title, and a nice concept in general," and I wrote it down. So I built on that over the course of the night and I got a handful of lines written. It was enough to give me a clear idea of what I was singing about, and so over the next few days I wrote down more, moved some around, reworded a bunch. And I gradually started to find the structure.
AS: Which is what I wanted to talk to you about next, because it is sort of a unique structure for anyone who pays attention. You don't really have a verse/chorus/bridge like a typical song. It's just sort of these consecutive verses with little instrumental breaks.
KR: Yeah, well when I came up with it and it was just those four chords repeating themselves I actually intended to make it a really short and sweet song. I thought it would just be like a super simple recording I could put out there, guitar and vocal, record it in a couple days, and throw it out there as a piece of content. There is a little known Coldplay song called Solid Ground which is just vocal and piano, and it's maybe one or two minutes long at most. I don't even think it's an official song really. But I thought I would make this something like that. As I started writing the lyrics though it kind of carved itself out. I didn't really even have to think about it. It just became what it was. And then the only thing I did intentionally--where I consciously said, "Okay, this needs something else"--was adding in that last bit, which you might call the outro.
AS: The "I hold hope" bit?
KR: Yeah that. I just found the song was too repetitive as it was and wanted to give it a little more dimension; you know, so that it actually goes somewhere, some payoff I guess for the listener. And then thematically I also wanted the song to have... a little bit of optimism haha, just a tiny bit... because mostly it's about being stuck in this bad place mentally, but I was trying to say something more than that. I wanted to say that, while it's frustrating being there, you can get out of it and you will find a way.
AS: I see, yeah it does end it on more of an uplifting note. You were saying a moment ago that you thought it would just be a guitar and vocal track, but obviously that idea got expanded upon. Do you want to talk a bit about that?
KR: Yeah sure. So of course the song is built mainly around the guitar part and the vocal, that's really what stands out the most. I think as I was recording it the song just felt a bit weak on its own. I felt like there was some magic in there that could be brought out with the assistance of a few other instrumental parts. Also supporting vocals is something I've been exploring a lot more lately and I've been realizing the potential. The voice is a marvelous instrument and I've been finding sometimes what I would have done with an ambient pad I can do instead with a supporting vocal and it actually has a better effect. Anyway, bottom line is I felt quite strongly that it was the sort of song that could benefit from some additional support. That isn't always the case by the way. Some songs could be totally ruined by ummm... overcrowding them and destroying the simplicity I guess. Every song calls for something different. This song I originally thought was demanding that simplicity, but as I built on it I was starting to hear other parts in my head. It mainly started with the intro though because I thought that intro part needed something musical underneath it to set up the listener's expectation; some kind of a chord to prepare them for what key it was going to be in.
AS: You mean underneath the audio feedback and the voices talking and all that?
KR: Yes that bit. It didn't sound right without anything musical going on. So I layerd in a nice bit of dull ambience and that sort of sets the tone and then the guitar comes in quite naturally. And at first I had that sound fade out as the guitar starts to take over but I found myself missing the ambience. The track was becoming a disappointment as we got into it, you know? You ever listen to a song where the intro starts out great and it's really setting you up for something fantastic, but then it shifts into something very mediocre?
AS: I hate that, it sucks! I can think of at least a handful.
[laughs]
KR: It's incredibly disappointing! And that's what was happening. I try to avoid that like the plague. So I just decided to have that ambience linger on under the guitar, keep the emotion alive, and then change it up as the song goes on. Because the other problem that can arise is the song becomes stagnant. So each verse needed something a bit new. It gets a little more powerful each verse, eventually we get an organ coming in there and the bass becomes more powerful--especially in that middle climactic interlude--and then we tone it down again for the third verse. It's a song with a fair bit of dynamic range, and I used the backing instruments mostly to control that.
AS: So in the end how many instruments are we actually hearing?
KR: Let's see... guitar, an electric keyboard, organ, two or three different atmospheric pads, there's like a funk electric piano in there--that's the soft twinkling sound you hear in various places--and then there is a deeper pad I used to fill out the bass in select spots. Aside from that there is the lead vocal and a couple backing vocal tracks. Oh! And there's a synth sound that I used in the first verse, sort of like a whistling, it just rocks back and forth on two notes. And that was just something that I was hearing in my head and felt I needed to add to it. It comes up quite randomly and you never hear it again, but it was just an idea that popped into my head and instinctively sounded right.
AS: It became quite a lot more than just vocal and guitar, didn't it.
KR: Yeah, you know every song demands something different. I tend to aim for the simplest arrangement possible without depriving it of anything. There's the philosophy that says "Perfection is achieved when everything unnecessary has been stripped away," and so that's what I try to do. You really can clutter a song quite easily, so it's a matter of making sure that everything in there is actually contributing something that makes the song better.
AS: Do you feel you achieved that? Like, I'm always curious how much an artist actually enjoys their own work and how they feel about it. So if you were to evaluate yourself...
KR: I like to think about that too, and I often wonder. I heard an interview with John Williams one time where he was asked what he felt was his greatest musical achievement; the one he was most proud of. I was glad they asked him because I was curious myself. He said it was the score for E.T. because he felt like he just got everything right with that one.
AS: It's a fantastic score!
KR: Yeah it was a good choice! I was satisfied by the answer. You know, there are others that I do prefer over E.T. but I think from his body of work it is undoubtedly up there. But I'd really love to hear him talk more about his own feelings on his scores, find out if there are any he didn't like or felt like he dropped the ball on.
AS: Yeah, like I wonder what his least favorite would be.
KR: I know, that would in many ways be a more interesting question to ask I think. But yeah, so to answer your question... This song turned out to be much more than I'd intended it to be, so I really surpassed the expectations I had for it. The expectations were fairly low to be honest haha, but it turned into a real complete song. It isn't just a casual piece of filler now. I'd place it amongst the ranks of any of my official songs. I did a song about the pandemic called Staying Home Tonight which is an example of a song that I don't really consider an official song. It was just for fun. Originally I thought Someone Tried to Help Me would be a song like that; B-side material or whatever. But I actually am really happy with it and I don't feel any desire to change much about it. And you know, when you've worked on something continuously it can be hard to judge it immediately. So I've spent some time away from it now and then listened to it afterward and I still think it's pretty good. I actually probably like it more than I thought, because all the little flaws I was obsessing over didn't bug me anymore. They just went right over my head. I heard it just as a listener with a fresh set of ears. So yeah, I'm pretty happy with how this song turned out. On the contrary, when I listen back to In Spite of You there actually are things that I would like to go back and fix.
AS: Oh really? Like what?
KR: Well, the most obvious flaw that jumps out at me is I think the piano gets really buried. I can hardly hear it, and the guitar dominates too much. Actually that does make me think of a problem with this song too. I think the intro relative to when the singing starts is too quiet. The voices and the audio feedback and all that, the inhale that starts the song, that stuff is all too quiet relative to the volume of the main portion of the song. So that's something I would change.
AS: That's fascinating. I think these are the sorts of things that most listeners won't really pick up on though. They'll just hear it for what it is.
KR: Yeah and that's one of the reasons I don't bother to go back and fix it. Like, for one thing you have to eventually just cut the cord and be done with it, move on and do better the next time around. But the other thing is it's not going to matter enough to most people, and it doesn't matter enough to me. I'm well aware that perfectionism can hold me back and I can obsess over details like these endlessly. So once it's out, it out. And I'm not going to revisit it. I just let it be a reflection of the best I was capable of at the time when I did it.
AS: Absolutely true. On the note of cutting things off, it's probably about time to cut off this interview. Thank you for the chat Kevin, it's been very interesting hearing all about this stuff!
KR: So long, bitch.
AS: Hey how come you called me bitch?
KR: I just thought it would be a funny way to end this, since I know it's going to end up in a transcription on our website.
[laughs]
AS: Alright, well so long bitch to you too!
Check out the original demo recording below for Someone Tried to Help Me. This is the original recording taken when the song was conceived, just to get the idea down. Recorded by candle light in a dark bedroom on January 30th, 2021.
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