Casey Baker on working with Dallas Green, being authentic and seizing the day!
Interview by mindyourmind's ML and Francesca, 17, youth volunteer
ML: When we heard Casey’s song, what screamed out for us, was the issue of alienation. Was that your intention. You never know what the original intent, or motivation or inspiration is, what made you write that song?
Casey: Umm, those lyrics were a portion of a larger writing idea, they were just kind of a rant. Yeah, I think ultimately, I wasn’t thinking of wide-range, like a big scene, such as like alienation, for me it was like a personal thing going on.
ML: Thinking about alienation now…
Casey: Well, it applies perfectly, yeah. It’s like a specific comment, inside a larger domain, yeah, and I think alienation theme or category could be like totally derived out of it.
ML: So how does Dallas (Dallas Green) fit into all of this?
Casey: I’ve been good friends with Dallas for years and years. I met him actually when I was 14 and he was 19. It’s weird when you meet people and you almost immediately get each other and this is long before he was by any means famous or anything. He was talented and he was playing mostly in St. Catharine’s. We hit it off really well, and a couple weeks later, we got in touch and it was almost like I was friends with him or something, he would show me tips and tricks about song writing and I showed him stuff I was working with and a lot of time with art, you feel kinda nervous or reluctant to share ideas because they’re yours, but with him and I it was always like there was never any fear between us about ideas, you know. We grew up, our timelines are very similar, things that happened at certain times in our lives are really identical, which is weird, cause he’s a couple years older than me, we’re like a mirror image of each other, anyway, I showed him the idea, and I’d been writing it and he like immediately popped in with a couple other rhythmic ideas and the song just happened. I at the time, was not really doing anything, we never assumed it would do anything, it was just us in his house jamming and then he called me on my cell phone. I was away, and he was like “I’m in a studio, you gotta come to the studio and record that song that we were playing that time” I was like, “I’m in the middle of the U.S. right now, I can’t do that”, so he recorded it without me and we’d never named it because you know, why we gonna name an idea that’s just an idea? So he just put all the finishing touches together by himself and I think because he would’ve liked for me to be a part of it, on record, but I couldn’t, so he named it ‘Casey’s Song’. And it’s helped me out a lot, that song’s been a great marketing tool, a big advantage for my own projects. Just helps to be associated with anyone whose so well-respected, it’s great.
ML: Casey;s Song is my favourite track on that record. And it’s one of those records that you can listen to from beginning to end and hear every song and love every song. But out of all them, it is my favourite.
Casey: That’s awesome. I appreciate it. I think a lot of people can tell that it stands out, probably because everything else he wrote was entirely by himself. I didn’t do a ton of stuff, I mean lyrically I wrote it, but, I had like the beginnings of the workings of the musical ideas, but he structured it and put it together and added some stuff, but it’s cool, it’s not quite the same as everything else he’s doing.
ML: That’s great. It’s a great story.
Francesca: So, when did you realize that music was what you wanted to do for a living?
Casey: Uh, umm, I was in the 7th grade and I grew up with new music, like my parents were pretty into music, they played a lot of Pink Floyd and Talking Heads and being really young, I can remember my mom playing Phil Collins in the car, on road trips. It’s weird cause kids, people in general, look at Phil Collins as kind of this adult contemporary, but I could always hear like the emotion in his music and it was weird cause since I was young, I could tell the difference between a song that was written to be the background music at a bar and a song that was meant to be great. When I was in the 7th grade I bought a record by Hayden, are you familiar with Hayden? I think he’s a Toronto-based singer/songwriter, just like kinda country, folk singer-guy. I saw it on something like Much Music or whatever, so I went and got the album and I got really obsessed with it and it was the first time I’d gone and bought a CD by myself. We were in school and there was some kinda fun fair day or something like, it’s just one of those days at school where you’re not really doing school work, so we had like a stereo in the classroom and the teacher just said, “Guys, bring in some CD’s”. I had that CD on with me. Track number 3, was kinda poppish, and I thought I’d put that on to start and I left the room for a minute and when I came back, the song after it immediately came on and it is by far the most heart-breaking downer of a song on the album and when the song opens up you can hear like train horns in the background, it’s just like this really moody, terrible, aching songs. And I came into the room and everyone in my class, full of twelve year old kids, were just silent. And that was the first time I really saw multiple people become like the puppets of music, twelve year old kids, you know like sticky palms and zits and you know like pencil cases zipping and no one talked. It was like “Oh my God!”, I always felt like it was powerful, but to actually see it work like that, it was – I’d never really seen that.
I’d always liked art, you see paintings and people like them and appreciate them and you see like pop artists or musicals or recitals and people go, “Oh, it’s beautiful, I respect it”, but that was the first time I ever saw human beings, like a group of them, completely overtaken by it, and I think that’s the first time I got really involved in it.
Francesca: What’s the one thing you have to have on the road with you?
Casey: Umm, I feel terrible, I slept on a floor in London last night and didn’t shower today, and I’m rainy and it’s just greasy out and so hot…umm…what’s one thing I have to have on the road with me? I think that differs with the projects I’m in, like this, what I’ve been playing lately, the Casey Baker stuff is uh, the shows aren’t quite as intense, like physically so I don’t…it used to be towels I think, and deodorant, but now it’s definitely baby wipes. Baby wipes are the new toilet paper. They’re a big deal, and I hear, it’s like kinda embarrassed to bring it up with people, but then you find out like the toughest guys and the meanest like metal bands are like, “Bro, can I, can I borrow a baby wipe?”
(laughter)
ML: I love it, yeah, I have baby wipes as well, but I have kids. (laughter)
Francesca: What’s the most important thing you’ve done to develop a melody?
Casey: Sometimes I think you can be in a room and you say something in melody, something you couldn’t even say in a conversation with someone. The first time I played any solo Casey Baker songs was opening for Dallas in Windsor, which was a sold out, 750 people crowd, and I’m coming from a rock band where it’s loud and there are other guys on stage and if I make a goofy note, I can hide, it’s turned down a little bit, but here I was naked and alone on stage, just with a guitar and playing songs that I’d recorded about a month earlier but hadn’t played yet and I was like “Oh my God, what am I gonna do? I think I bit off more than I can chew” and on top of that, it was like, I’m about to say things that like I don’t even discuss with my mom, it’s like the heaviest stuff I could possibly say and it’s like bold opinions about it too. I think that’s been a big deal for a foundation because people hear it, people hear that truth and that’s what’s supposed to separate me from like a lot of Indie Artists in Southern Ontario or Canada, like this guy is not afraid to say things that…you know, and you can’t really ignore it, like they’re just lines that, I remember one of the first times playing some of those songs so my mom could hear me…well, I prepped her before, like “you know, some of those songs are gonna say stuff and have issues and you know I talk about being a guy and doing things that aren’t always respectable but I think talking about it is supposed to redeem them or you know, not pretending to be perfect and admitting who I, what I’ve done wrong, or whether or not admitting that I do something that everyone else thinks is wrong but I don’t, so Fuck it, I’m just gonna…I’m a firm believer in like “Seize the Day”.
ML: You probably just answered the last question…what are your words to live by…
Casey: Oh is that the question? I’d say Seize the Day. You ever seen Dead Poets Society? Life’s too short to be careful for something that might happen. If I die tomorrow, the last recordings I did were completely honest. You know people can be doing this for years and years and never actually confront themselves. We listen to The Rolling Stones, or The Beatles, they were epic, huge, influential bands, but how often did they say something in a band that’s like, “Oh my God” you know, it’s like that’s cool, they did their thing, but I think that in this day and age, especially with young bands and kids under 21 that are in rock bands, everyone’s in this fuckin competition to be heartbroken or as angst as they can be, you know, that’s just in style now, so it’s hard to …if that is who you are and who you’re about, then it’s hard to like get a legitimate respect.
