Denison Witmer is a singer/songwriter and woodworking from Lancaster PA and longtime collaborator of Sufjan Stevens, who has been releasing records for 20+ years acclaimed by the likes of NPR and Stereogum, and ran a recording studio in Brooklyn before returning to PA. We talk to Denison about the value of creative documentation, leaving behind the external stimulation of the city (Brooklyn) and how returning to relative quiet (Lancaster) shook up his creativity, embracing imperfection, the parallels and contrasts between woodworking and record making, putting systems in place to be the person/artist you want to be, patience, and a whole lot more.
Denison Witmer is a singer/songwriter and woodworking from Lancaster PA and longtime collaborator of Sufjan Stevens, who has been releasing records for 20+ years acclaimed by the likes of NPR and Stereogum, and ran a recording studio in Brooklyn before returning to PA. We talk to Denison about the value of creative documentation, leaving behind the external stimulation of the city (Brooklyn) and how returning to relative quiet (Lancaster) shook up his creativity, embracing imperfection, the parallels and contrasts between woodworking and record making, putting systems in place to be the person/artist you want to be, patience, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of the Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss,
Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we are on episode 103, and this week we're featuring our conversation with Denison Whitmer.
Aaron: Denison is a singer songwriter woodworker from uh, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
He spent a long time in Brooklyn where he had his own studio and ran a studio there. Also was and has been a longtime collaborator of Ion Stevens touring with him, working with him. Sufian Produce Hiss most recent record, and Denison's been putting out records on Ion's, asthmatic Kitty for the last doing quick math.
17 years.
Michaela: Yeah, we had a really. Beautiful conversation with Denison. As he pointed out and joked, it's one of those where it became a [00:01:00] little bit of a parenting and creativity conversation. So if you're a long time listener, you know, sometimes that happens on this podcast.
Aaron: We made it like a good 35, 40 minutes into the chat though before that came along.
So don't go anywhere.
Michaela: Yeah. And again, we think these can be applied to any other thing that you have going on in your life when you have to tend to anything besides yourself. we talk a lot about having patience with yourself and your creativity, the seasons of your creativity, creating systems to make the space and time for the work, especially when it, you don't have the luxury of just writing all day, every day and how.
The work feels valid as long as you feel that it is valid regardless of any outside reception or validation.
Aaron: Yeah, it's a really grounding conversation on patience on just living a creative life, I will say. But as always, there are parts of this conversation that come from suggestions and questions that were posed by subscribers to our Patreon.
It's because they get advanced notice of who our guests are gonna be. [00:02:00] They also get a bunch of other insider stuff that is ever evolving, ever changing, ever moving as is all of our creative lives. So if that sounds intriguing to you or if you just want to generally support the production of this show, there's a link to our Patreon below in the show notes.
Michaela: Yeah. We really appreciate that. And if you are a visual person, this and all of our past conversations are available on YouTube as well.
Aaron: So without further ado, here is our conversation with Dennis and Whitmer
I'm Mikayla and this is Erin, by the way.
Denison: Nice to meet you both.
Michaela: Great to
Aaron: meet you too.
Denison: Yeah. I feel like music world is so small that I'm sure we have connections somehow.
Um, how, I don't know exactly where are you based? Where?
Aaron: we're in Nashville now. We've been here for about 10 and a half years, but we lived in Brooklyn previously. And we know you've done a lot of work with Sufian and been in, his orbit for a while. But we don't know him personally. We used to live in the same neighborhood, so he was in Ditmus Park.
We lived in Ditmus Park in Brooklyn. So we'd see him at the coffee shop.
Michaela: so were you ever floating around like the [00:03:00] Salt Lands world? Like in Dumbo when everybody had studios at 68 J Street.
Yes.
Aaron: She recorded her first record it was Atlantic Sound. Was there with
Michaela: Deco Shama. Yeah, it
Aaron: was on the fifth floor there, something
Denison: Okay.
Michaela: I was at Salt Lands for a session one time. Don Landis is
Denison: Oh, I know Dawn. Sure. She sings on one of my records.
Michaela: Okay. Did you know Felix McTigue?
Denison: Peripherally, not well, but yeah, Okay.
Aaron: Yeah. You were saying that, you and your wife both work for yourselves. Did we read correctly? You are a woodworker as well as being a,
Denison: I have a carpentry business,
uh, that I started about. I'm really bad with time, but I think it's somewhere around the eight year mark
now,
started doing carpentry full-time.
before that, you know, I was touring and I had a recording studio actually in Dumbo,
uh, with a friend of mine.
But then when, my family relocated to Lancaster 10 years ago I did music for the first couple years, but then I needed to pivot into something else just because I wasn't touring as [00:04:00] much. And I also just needed a little break from touring I needed something else to do. I can work with my hands.
It's a fun way to be creative without a lot of emotional lift,
you know? So it's like I'm one of those weird people that like really enjoys doing the dishes or just like doing things around the house where it's like a of accomplishment. Like, Oh, I've just, moved this thing from point A to point B, and I've, changed it in some way, and
carpentry is this great way of it's problem solving, you know, it's like take a stack of wood and turn it into something that a designer wanted to be made, you know? and it's a
nice sense of accomplishment.
Aaron: Absolutely. Yeah. My dad is a carpenter and woodworker and, you know, he's retired in that about two years before he retired, closed his business, all of that. He bought a lathe. And so now anything that can be circular and made out of wood, it's hundreds
Michaela: of bowls, hundred
Aaron: hundreds of bowls.
And my dad and I, actually built this studio together.
Denison: that's great. Yeah. That's a good feeling. Building your own space, like you're [00:05:00] intimately attached to it, you know, you kind of know how everything functions and so you can fix it if it goes wrong or any of that kind. I
Aaron: yeah, yeah. And what you were saying about, like the tangible transformation, sure, you can like see that and feel that when you're building a song, when you're writing a song. But when you're talking about something like carpentry or woodworking, like you see it, I had my pile of mahogany here and now I have this chest over here.
You know, And it's, it is very fulfilling.
Denison: it is for sure. I mean, where those two paths kind of diverge for me though, is that with carpentry, like I obviously have an aesthetic, I have a furniture aesthetic, I have a life aesthetic that I gravitate toward. And so if I need to design things for myself, which I do, that's not super complicated. I kind of have something in mind that I'm making and I can make it. I don't often design the things that I build. I actually enjoy having other people design for me. And I just like the problem solving of figuring out how to build it. so there's already a destination in mind.
It's like, this is the piece of furniture, this is how it has to [00:06:00] appear, this is the wood species, this is the finish. You know, Like everything is predetermined. And so you're starting with a final product that's either like a rendering or 2D drawing or something, and then you're making that thing.
And music is not like that for me at all. You know, Music is very ethereal and I've made enough records now that I've, done it so many different ways where I have had that idea in mind, like what I'm
making, that was mostly like early days when I had limited studio resources and I had a budget and I had to figure out how to cram everything I wanted to make on a record into like 10 studio days, you know?
So it was a lot of prearranging and figuring that stuff out. But then once I got my studio and as home recording, things got easier and I'm, I'm sure you experienced this with your own studio, there's a lot more experimentation. The process from point A to point B is just a lot more nebulous and it's like, okay, well I'm gonna record most of my songs start with an acoustic guitar.
But, I really don't get attached to outcomes anymore because every time I think I know how a [00:07:00] song is gonna sound from start to finish, something changes drastically.
And that, that's Because I'm not really a producer. I'm not an arranger.
I definitely Have ideas in my mind of like counter melodies, things that I want to be in my songs.
But I really rely on other musicians to kind of help my records come to life. and you know how it is, like people have good days, people have bad days, people have great ideas, people have ideas that are actually great but don't work in the song. And it's like, so you're just
constantly adding and subtracting until you get to that final thing where you're like, this is as done as it's gonna get this time. And I need to just say, okay, this is the song, this is the record. I gotta put it out now. Move on to something else.
Aaron: Yeah. What have you, found to be your marker or your sign that the recording is done.
Denison: Oh, that's also a bit of a moving target too. I mean, Sometimes it just feels right and you
know, it, you know,
you're just like, this doesn't need anything else. It's finished other [00:08:00] times you know, there'll be like a little thing that just bothers me about it and I have to go back and fix it, you know,
Aaron: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Denison: If I'm being really, really picky,
but yeah, the marker that it's finished, that's hard. I've also been in a situation where you just get diminishing returns. You know, you think You
can do something better and. I found that time is maybe the best, helper is studio aid. I often like, wanna rush to push things out because I'm just like, I'm done.
It sounds great. I'm so excited. I mean, That creative mindset. And I have this song that's finished and I'm like, we should just get it out. You know, Just finish it up and get it out. Maybe there's a time and a place for that. But on my last record, there were so many like fits and starts and time in between recording that I had so much time to just listen to the material and be objective about it
rather than just like, be emotional about it.
And
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah.
Denison: I'm sure you get that. you're hired to be the objective person in the room, which is a whole different challenge too, you know,
Aaron: It,
It is for sure, and it, really is constantly shifting your point of [00:09:00] focus. For me it's like I need to be that reference and be that feedback, but then also be able to turn that off so that I can get in the sandbox too, and throw paint at the wall and turn off that internal critic that I have as well.
And I love asking that question of like when do you know when it's done? Because. To me, like time for sure. I love to bake in time when I'm working on whether it's a song or a record or somebody to, to just put it down, take your hands off the, brushes in the canvas for a minute and step away and then come back But the thing that I, try to remember is that like, you said, creating art, creating music is such a nebulous. There are so many, arguably infinite end of points, really. And so when you get to a point, it's like, yes, this is done. We can change all of these things. It might not necessarily be better, but it'll definitely be different.
And you can chase that for literally decades if you want.
Denison: Sure. My voice sounds a little different on every day
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Denison: you know,
My, guitar playing ability relies on whether or not I've had too much caffeine or not. Like there's so many
little things that are factors that when you're recording, it [00:10:00] just feels different every day, you
know?
So, yeah.
Michaela: I'm really curious about our relationship to our work and time. Like you mentioned the like feeling of you make it and you wanna get it out there right away. that always comes up for artists of like finishing a record and then especially when the business comes in, into play of waiting to release it and it feels so frustrating to make a record and sit on it for a year or two years.
But you always hear these stories of people who waited five years or like Lucinda Williams waited so long to finally finish and put out Car wheels on a gravel road and then look what happened. what are your thoughts about our kind of like feeling of the relationship of urgency between making and sharing and like the patience of letting things sit and still having, maintaining that excitement for that work, even though time has passed.
Denison: that's a great question because I think it's different. Almost every project that I make, I found [00:11:00] that, in a lot of ways the project always has its kind of own timeline. And anytime I think that I'm setting out to do something on a schedule, it never really goes that way. You
know, sometimes it goes A lot faster, sometimes it doesn't.
Um, with this album in particular, you know, when I turned into the record label, they came back to me and they said, yeah, we can release this in 13 months. And I was like, oh man, what? Like, That is just so brutal.
Like I, and I, I actually said that to them. I had a moment where I was like, maybe I just need to self-release this just to get this off my chest, but I had a few conversations with some other friends of mine, one of them, my friend Lisa, who manages Ion you know, I called her and I was like, timeline's really long on this. And she's like, you just have to remember that it's only because they wanna do a good job. They want As many people as possible to hear this record.
And you know, there's gonna be a lot of deadlines between now and then that you actually act, to hit as well.
And You've got a busy life with kids and all kinds of things. And like, all of these [00:12:00] things have to happen,
you know,
in order for this record to come out on this date and everybody wants to do a good job.
So I just took that to heart and I said, okay, now it's, punchless time. It's like go through, you know, writing a bio, getting photos, you know, making sure that the masters sound good, you know, all these things that aren't always super fun for me anyway.
but are so necessary when it comes to putting money, behind a publicist and different things like that.
But that's also not always the case, back in 2020 when I released my last record, American Foursquare, you know, it was already scheduled to be released. I think it came out in, April or May of 2020. And also like we could see the lockdown coming, but there was no way to change the release date of the album.
Like, and it Just was I'm at the mercy of the world right now. You know, You just kind of have to accept it. It is what it is.
But then again, I also made another record under a side project name. I have a little side project that I call Uncle Denny, which is a nickname that Ion gave me on tour, like in 2004 or something?
And [00:13:00] that one is just single microphone recordings live. I had to write a song a day for the whole month of January and record it, give myself like three takes. Whichever one was best. That's the one I kept. And I didn't really know I was making a record. I was just doing it as a songwriting exercise.
But then when I finished it, I was like, there's some stuff on here that I actually feel good sharing. You know, There's some stuff that is not great too, but in terms of like what it is for the project, it felt good. And I could just put it on band camp,
the next month and it was out. It's in the world.
There was no Pressure to do anything. And that was also very freeing. So I find if I can do both things at the same time, that's really good for me.
Aaron: I've been thinking about that a lot recently. Maybe it's having newborn, maybe it's just the season of the world at the moment, but like, um.Trying to put too much responsibility on one thing your project under your name.
to be able to release music recordings of your songs that are like, you know, capture them in the best of their ability and release it frequently and release it quickly. And like all of this like, what is it? [00:14:00] Fast, cheap, and high quality. Like, You gotta pick two of
Denison: Yeah. Yeah. I've never heard That before, but I should write that down and just keep it on my
Aaron: yeah. You know, You could pick two of them, you know. And so, in having multiple projects or multiple outlets, you have more of an opportunity to meet these needs or scratch these. Its, or these desires that make up this very delicious pie as a whole, rather than trying to like milk everything out of this one thing and have all these requirements and responsibilities that maybe just can't be met by that outlet.
Denison: That definitely resonates with me. I feel that the one thing I always try to remind myself too is that, music is brand new to anyone the first time that they hear it, you know, it's, still new. So even though like it's played out to me and like, I've heard these songs a million times and I've worked them, you know, over and over and over it sits for another 10 months before anybody hears it, it's still going to be new to those people.
and so you just hope that it's timeless enough, it can last [00:15:00] until release date,
Michaela: Yeah.
Denison: sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. And. That's okay. You know, I've made enough records now that I understand the process enough to be able to let go of it.
Aaron: on that, I love the story behind Chapel Rone, who's, just one Grammys and all of that, where, you know, a lot of these songs she put out, you know actual dates here?
Michaela: pink Pony Club, at the start of the pandemic.
Aaron: Right?
Denison: Oh, really?
Aaron: song, yeah, a lot of these songs that are massive hits in 2024, she actually put out in like 2021, late 2020, and they just like, kind of sat and didn't do anything. She got dropped by her label. She went, back home, went back home, got a job, now she is winning, Grammy awards for best new artists with the same songs.
Denison: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And isn't that so cool too that songs can kind of exist in different forms too? Like I love that. You know, That's one of the things I was highly aware of when I was going into the studio with Sufian was that he makes multiple versions of a lot of his songs,
And so anything is kind of a possibility just because he's [00:16:00] very musically fluent and like he's got a lot of ideas.
And so I really had to be like, we're probably gonna do a couple of these songs a few times until we kind of hit something that seems like it's making sense for the record,
you
know, but It, doesn't invalidate that these songs can exist in that other format too,
which is also Really fun.
Aaron: Yeah. We both went to jazz school in New York City, and I grew up playing jazz and studied jazz and all of that. And so like that concept of recording multiple versions and even releasing multiple versions of songs is like something that's just very normal to me. I know it's like more rare in the singer songwriter world than it would be like in the jazz world. But you know, Charles Manus has been a big influence on me my whole life, and he would not only like rerecord songs, but he'd just release it as a different name. You know, There's some songs that have like two or three different names, but it's the same song.
Denison: yeah. That's great. I'm into that. I
love that.
I think it's great. And also with digital, distribution. Now you can definitely get away with that. You can leak things out in different formats,
Michaela: Totally. Well, It's interesting 'cause there's different trends. 'cause even like in [00:17:00] the Nashville songwriter world of like co-writing with other singer songwriters and conversations of can we each put out our own version of the song that we wrote together? And I'm always like, it's so funny that now it feels like if there's versions of it out there, we shouldn't do our own.
When again, thinking of like the jazz standards day, every single singer had a version of the same Cole Porter song, or every single singer did the Gershwin repertoire and had recordings. you said, you know, being at the mercy of the world, like we're all creating and sharing within the context of what's happening around us.
Like no matter how conscious of it we think we are, it does inform. How we share, what we share, all of that stuff.
Denison: absolutely. Yeah, it really does.
Michaela: I'm curious if you saw your songwriting and your recording, your relationship to it change when you took a step back from touring and started filling your days [00:18:00] with full-time woodworking did that change how you wrote, how you felt about music? For better, for worse,
Denison: it definitely changed well there were a couple factors involved in that, and one of them was that moving from a city where I had a lot of external stimulation. Which informed my creativity a lot more than I realized.
And then moving back home to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is like an hour and a half west of Philly, smaller town.
Aaron: what happened was know, when we had our second child, we weren't sleeping a lot. There was a lot of other factors happening in our
Denison: lives where it was just like, Okay, I can't just go on tour for like six weeks
and, you know,
leave my wife in this position, you know? so I started dividing my time, which was, and is sometimes very difficult for me, but I'm finding a balance now better than I had for a while. but what happened was that had [00:19:00] to go inward for my inspiration rather than outward, you know, in the city I would just be like part of a group of friends and hearing what other friends were writing, traveling all the time, getting all this external stimulation.
And then when all that bottomed out. It was like what inspires me? Because it's gonna be books and albums and it's gonna be somewhat of like a self-led journey, inward in a lot of ways. And so I think I just started writing from a very different place because it had to come from me deeper within me rather than that external inspiration. And it also just had to happen at a different pace, you know? whereas I used to be writing all the time. I would go for a few months without touching a guitar, and now I'm back to, I have a guitar kind of hanging in every room. And so if I have an idea, I pick it up and I play something and, I wanna mirror that for my children.
I want them to have music happening around them all the time. So,[00:20:00]
you know, I ended up like rebuying a bunch of instruments, you know, that I didn't even have
Aaron: before, just because I thought well, if I, put a drum kit there, maybe one of them will start playing it. Or like if I put a piano in that room, like somebody's gonna tinker on that piano at some point, and so I kind of found my way back into by just surrounding myself with instruments and just trying to play them alongside of my life. I love that. especially like, the patience in a way of being able to have period where you're not touching an instrument for a few months and not the image that comes to mind is like drowning in that. Just being like well, that's, that that's done.
You know? And then coming back to a spot where it is like, oh these, things can coexist. This is all, part of the same stew.
Denison: I had to learn that the hard way, you know, I had to face my own impatience a lot just to be like, if I could only get time to work on me, if I could only carve this time, you know, like.
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Denison: that was really a struggle for me, in some ways it kind of mirrors the way I feel about [00:21:00] moving back home too.
Like I see all these parallels now, you know, that I have a little bit of time and perspective between then and now, which is that when I moved back home, I didn't want to, you know, I loved my life in the city.
That was Fine by me. But, Also my wife's experience was different than mine. She's a little bit more introverted.
She felt, bottled up in this like, smaller apartment, one winter we had like two feet of snow or something, and she couldn't do anything. And it was just her and our kid. And I'm like, in Europe doing shows, you know, it's like,
and I had to recognize, okay, that's not fair, we need to find out like a medium.
And so we moved, back to Lancaster and I really didn't like it. I was just like, I don't wanna be here. I wanna be somewhere else. But. Then I started putting systems in place, to make my life here work. And then doing that, I realized I love it. And I'm like so thankful that I'm here and I'm really happy that I'm not in the city anymore.
And for this phase of my life, I can't think of a better spot to be, in terms of [00:22:00] like geographically on the East coast like, space, you know, all these different
things that now are actually making it easier for me to do music again. You know? And I didn't realize that it was like so much of a struggle before
you know how it is. Like
you lived in New York, you leave the house and like you're already in decision fatigue. The second you swing the door open, you're like, how many decisions do I have to make before I even get to the subway?
Like, there's just so much going on, right?
And now I don't have that.
can be a lot more. I don't wanna say regimented because I'm not a super regimented person, but I can be a little bit more picky about my schedule and my routine and, there's that like freedom and constraints kind of thing that
people talk about and I definitely, feel that way.
Michaela: I think what you're touching on is so interesting also because of the phase of life that we're in of having, we have a three and a half year old and now a newborn, and I definitely, since entering parenthood, have struggled with the relationship to my building my patience for my ability to write and [00:23:00] create and perform, which has been like.
What I did with the bulk of my time, my entire life, even as a kid, up until becoming a mother. honoring that and being patient with it and knowing that it doesn't mean I've completely lost who I am,
but I think what I try to remember about it and listening to you talk really brought that up was that I mean, we could choose to not grow in life and not necessarily not grow, but not experience other bigger life experiences like long-term partnership, making sacrifices and compromises for the other person in your life.
Not solely doing everything that you wanna do that is just serving your whims and desires, becoming parents. There's so much like selflessness that you have to start learning when you, combine your life with a partner and then bring children into it. That of course, it takes away from our passions and our [00:24:00] work, and I think societally, we often look at it as a negative, how often we've heard the stories of like, oh, people had a family and then
they gave up their art, they disappeared.
That's a narrative that's I'm fighting in my head.
Denison: Yeah, sure.
Michaela: But I think when you, like you said, building systems and figuring it out. I really do think that the work and the creativity and the, art becomes so much richer because you're living so much more. You're deepening your capacity to handle things, to manage things, to think of others.
And I think that part is really beautiful and is up to us to put. The value on it. We had our good friend, Caroline Spence, who's a really beautiful singer songwriter on the podcast, and she just had a baby two months ago, and she was saying that she really consciously made a decision of, she didn't wanna just write songs about being on the road.
She was like, as a human being, I wanted to grow and experience these other big life things just as a [00:25:00] person, but also as a writer. I wanted to write about more than just being on tour.
Denison: Yeah, I agree. That's, that's insightful. And I think from my own writing perspective, you know, I've always, my records kind of just act as like chapters of my life. And like, it's very important to me that I feel like I'm always writing from an honest place.
And so I can only write about the experience that I'm having at that moment. I don't ever really write from another person's perspective. That's just not the way I
operate. and what you were saying about how, your life just gets busier when you add a partner. When you add kids, you know, it's like that ping pong ball on a mousetrap in a room, you know, where there's like a whole room and like one of them goes off and it's just like, the variables just increase, it's very fragmenting in a lot of
ways. what I had to do is just kind of remember, okay, like down here under the water right now and I can see the surface. whereas like at one phase of my life, like I was and I have to be careful with my words 'cause I don't want to sound like I'm being judgy or
anything like that.
But at [00:26:00] one phase of my life, like I was maybe only responsible for myself or self-involved enough that that trip from underwater to the surface was much quicker. And I could just pop my head out and be like, okay, I'm here. I'm being creative again.
You know, But now like, I see these things that have to happen before I get there.
Where I can take a breath,
And so it's really about putting systems in place that allow me to get there, you know? that's not always easy, you know, it takes a lot of negotiation. My wife and I this year, it's gonna sound odd, but this is the first year where we've decided to, in addition to like our family vacations, take solo vacations.
Never really occurred to us that we needed to do that. But like, if you don't have enough childcare or you can't really give your kids to someone just to go away, you know,
like, which is not, our case. It's like, well, you need a few days away just to like get back to the surface.
So just go do your thing. Like I can manage the kids for a little bit and like I can see on my schedule, like. I've got a few days, in a couple months where I [00:27:00] can go do whatever I want, and I use that time now and I just accept that that's just the flow. It's just the way it is.
There's a learning curve that comes from those first two weeks of playing guitar before I start actively writing or trying to record. I set aside that time just because if I haven't been practicing enough, if I haven't been singing enough, I know that I'm not going to be where I want to be for recording.
So I have to like, add extra time to just practice
and I have to do the same thing for carpentry. When I go back to carpentry. I have to take very simple projects so I don't cut my fingers off or do something stupid in the shop, you
know, where I'm just doing something that's refamiliarizing myself with the tools before I actually try to make something. as good as I can possibly make
Denison: So you just have to be patient with yourself. you have to be kind to yourself too. That's something I always tell my wife. I'm just like, be nice to the woman that I love, you know, like You
would never let me talk to myself this way sometimes, you know, or my
kids too.
It's like but we always tend to [00:28:00] I can only speak for myself, I always tend to like, criticize myself a lot more than build myself up. in those moments I have to look back over a career of records and being like, I accomplished all of these things. Like, I can do this again.
Denison: Don't talk yourself out of it. Talk yourself into it, you know, even if it takes time.
Aaron: all of that just resonates so much with me and like the patience in the, process and just, understanding that the actual work of everything is the process, you know? And for me personally, speaking from my experience yeah, I definitely felt that, seeing the surface and getting to the surface was a way quicker before kids, I was a lot more agile in my life.
I could do this, I could do that, I could bounce around and, with choosing to take on the responsibility of raising another human being that's, an act of, choice that we, made. But, like you said, that agility is slowed. I guess I could still be agile, but the process is much more elongated and simultaneously the process of raising kids, as you said, and again speaking from my experience, is like you are living that process of growth and development with another [00:29:00] human being of a very tangible, visible display of that process in real time.
And I see it starting to make me more patient with everything and understanding like, this too shall pass. I feel that discomfort and that urgency when I see, the surface of the water that I'm not there and I'm like, I want to be there.
And it like creates all of this stress and all this anger and frustration I guess it's a long, way of me saying like, I can't wait to sit where it sounds like you're sitting where it's like, I'll get there and here's the process and here's the steps, and it's, you know, because like I could
Denison: I'm no, uh, I'm no patience guru over here. Don't get me wrong. Like That is definitely not, I have my moments, you know,
it's hard to describe it to somebody because in some ways, I think people hear parenting as like the final stage of grief where it's like acceptance, like a lot of people have this idea
that that's what
parenting is, Especially when I talk to my friends who don't have kids and they have like lots of time and you know, and I'm just like, you guys understand? Like, I can't do that until way out. you know, here's why. And [00:30:00] you know, I'm in this collaborative creation, project with two children, and my partner actively being creative like I think that my children are probably the most creative thing that I've ever
done, you know,
and mostly because it's a collaboration. it's not like a song where it's like I get to decide when it's finished and release
it. It's like they can say no whenever they want,
and they're totally their. Own personalities, very different from each other. And if they express an interest in something that even maybe is not necessarily one of my interests, I have to be like, well, if that doesn't rub against my moral code, then I'm gonna support it because this is what they want to do.
So it actually deepens me and it changes, you know, as a creative person, I really just try to view it as a creative act because now it's kind of getting away from me. And I can recognize when I've had songs that have also gotten away from me and be, I don't know what I'm doing right now.
I'm making something, I'm writing something. I don't know what words are coming next. I'm
just adlibbing. Something's coming outta me. Don't know where it's coming from. Call it whatever you want. Open a window and an idea comes [00:31:00] through that's really what parenting feels like a lot of the time.
You're
just like, I'd never expected this to be where I would be, but
here I am.
you have to center yourself and. You have to be as present as possible while remaining like nimble, you know, while
remaining like open to the possibility that it can just change at any time.
Denison: Maybe that is a phase that I'm in my par kids are a little older than yours. I don't know. I don't know. I recognize what you're saying as like feelings that I have had and still have. I don't think that ever goes
away,
But I do think it gets easier to manage if you just, I keep coming back to this, put systems in place, you know, that'll
allow you to be the person that you know yourself to be
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Denison: alongside of all that.
You know,
Aaron: Absolutely.
Denison: swept up in your kids, isn't it? It's because they're so interesting. That's what the funny
Aaron: are. Yeah.
Denison: They're great to hang out with.
Aaron: And for me it, mental and biological. You know what I mean? It's like your body and our bodies as humans are programmed to be like, oh, that other being that small being [00:32:00] is important. I need to focus on that. But What you were saying about your kids being your greatest creative endeavor, McKayla was the first one to kind of raise that awareness in me.
You know, She's like, you gotta be creative with how we do this. And creative how we, you know, when you're trying to talk to a really strong-willed 3-year-old, you gotta be pretty creative in how you corral them. Telling
Michaela: her what you want her to do is not, does not work. Nope.
Aaron: No. You have to,
you know,
Michaela: Create a way.
Aaron: Yeah. But like, I'm a big fan of systems too, and I have a lot of systems in my business and then, my work, my creative work and all that too. Be able to show up and be creative on demand. You know, It's like when you have a window, it's like, I need to show up and I need to be able to access my creativity.
What do I need to do in preparation before that to be able to show up and do this? so for me, when I'm being creative like, inside our house with our kids, whatever it is, and then I have to be creative in my job. Like creative fatigue can come on quickly and strongly and, so a system that I've found with that [00:33:00] is trying to homogenize it all and just be like, this is all my creativity.
when my daughter's screaming at me to Make up a three little pigs story for like the fifth time in the last hour. And I have like, no more in my head. I go like, okay, well I'm, expanding my creative endurance right now. This is all the same, but like, God, I don't wanna tell the story right now.
Denison: Yeah, and it's okay to have those feelings too. And I think that, gosh, this has kind of become like a parenting
uh,
Michaela: I know it's gone there.
Denison: ways,
but that's totally fine.
it's important to remind yourself that you can take time for yourself too, which
is really hard to do,
if you have a partner that can support that,
that understands that same end goal it's a negotiation, but you can get there,
Michaela: we talk on this podcast so much. I mean, Again, we've had over a hundred conversations so far ranging with, just so many different types of musicians and artists and it's really given us intimate insight into there's no one way to do this. And [00:34:00] everybody has different approaches, CareerWise, creatively about, songwriting.
You know, It always sticks out to me that Joe Henry the great songwriter and producer, always telling us like he doesn't like to write from a personal space. He really doesn't like anything to be about his life. That everything is like a fictionalized story. And then other songwriters are like, no way.
It's all from my life. And we all have to connect with. Why we create, why we write songs and then reconcile that with what outcomes we're looking for in our career by sharing our work and trying to make it a commodity to the point that it supports us to some degree financially, which is tricky and that's why I love these conversations 'cause everybody has a different relationship to it.
And, you know, thinking about the way that you said you write about your life. I'm a very similar writer and yesterday we recorded an album of mine [00:35:00] a year ago at this point, and it'll probably be another year before it even comes out. And I was listening to it again yesterday and thinking like, should I just put it out?
You know, Like all that kind of stuff.
And as I was listening to it, I was listening to the lyrics and there's a couple songs very specifically about. Our daughter and I was like, oh, I forgot. There's a lyric about, putting her to bed at night and she greets the moon and the stars and I was like, oh, I forgot that.
She used to, literally at night when I'd put her to bed, say like, hi, moon High stars. And I was like, wow. Regardless of release schedules and how this is released and critical press and whatever happens with this record, that has been my relationship to my records the past 10 years of putting out records.
Like what a beautiful thing that I made a living record. not an album record, but recorded. It's called the record for a reason.
Denison: The record.
Michaela: yeah. This experience, this memory that. I already forgot [00:36:00] about, and it was only a year and a half ago, and that our children will be able to listen to.
And I think kind of holding that all the time is really important of both sides. So yeah, just to kind of, tie in, like the parenthood aspect, we always are trying to like, not make this a parenthood conversation, but it,
Denison: Sorry, I drove here. Right into it
Aaron: we we're right there, we're right there with you.
Michaela: but I also think there's like a stigma around like, oh, we're talking about being parents again. And, like, for some people, it's the biggest thing you're ever gonna do with your life. That's not for everybody. I wholeheartedly believe you should not do it unless you absolutely.
Want to. Mm-hmm. But yeah, so for those of us who want to are able to all all that stuff it's a really significant life experience that it's like, of course we're gonna have hours of conversations about it,
Denison: Yeah,
Michaela: especially as creatives because it changes everything.
Denison: Yeah, it really does. I liked what you were saying about being able to listen to like a [00:37:00] document of your life. You know, That's, from somebody who writes from that same place where it is very much like a journal in a sense, you know, snapshot of whatever my life was like. It's fun to go back.
Well, Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's not. But, But sometimes, it's nice to go back and be like, oh, I have this documentation of this. Like, I'm almost writing my autobiography in real time. It's
just to music, you know,
it's, and with every record there's another little chapter. And I think it's cool that, I think it's cool.
I wanted to say that in such a better way, but I'm just gonna go with, I think it's cool.
I think it's cool that some songs can change with you as well. Like, Sometimes someone will request a song of mine when I play, and I'll try. I try to honor that as much as I can.
And sometimes it's something I haven't touched for a long time, and I'll go back and I'll be playing it and I'm thinking, wow, this song like means something totally different to me in my mid forties than it did when I was like 27 and I
Michaela: Oh, yeah.
Denison: And sometimes it means nothing, don't get me wrong.
Sometimes it's just like I am [00:38:00] over that feeling
like it doesn't really connect.
But other times it does. And then almost, it's like in real time I'm hearing it as a person in a different phase of life
and the meaning of the lyrics change and become something else entirely. And then you realize oh, so when I was in my mid twenties and somebody who was like 55 or something comes up to me and says this song really hits me in my face of life right now.
You know what I'm thinking they mean, and what they're actually meaning is two different things. And that's great. That's incredible. When songs can mean different things to different people. I love that.
one of the songs was about my grandmother and I wanted to honor her and like just have an excuse to interview her and talk to her about music and things like that. And, another one was like a Nick Drake cover or something, I don't remember. And I'm like you, where I kind of go on both sides of it when I'm like, I don't really wanna say too much because I would never wanna rob someone of the meaning of a song, what it means to them.
However, I also know that if that's the way I operate, there are [00:39:00] plenty of people who want to know, oftentimes when you're doing interviews, which, you know, because you're a musician, you've done a lot of interviews, people ask you those questions, you know, so they want to know, and I have no troubles telling them as well, because if somebody doesn't wanna know, they can turn it off or look away, you know?
And if somebody really wants to know they can listen.
Michaela: Yeah. Some people and I also feel this way of feel more deeply connected to a song when they get to hear even further what the intended meaning or the backstory was. Hear the elaborate backstory. So it's, again, there's not any one way to do this. Some people will be like, no, I don't want to hear that.
So you just have to constantly be like well, what feels good to me? Do I like sharing this stuff? Then I'm gonna do it.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Which is one of the things we love about this podcast that we have, and having guests like you is coming on and we're essentially talking about what's behind the songs, but like what's behind all of the songs and how you got here.
And,
it resonates with some people and it does with others, and
Michaela: what's the, what's the life like?
Denison: Yeah, [00:40:00] yeah, for sure. Well, what did we, cover? We be easy on yourself.
Be patient, be empathetic. That's the other thing that like parenting has really given me is like a wider empathy. You know,
it's like kind of taken the guardrails and it's gone like way, way, way wider. The road got
wider, you know, which has made me more patient with my friends.
It's made me more patient with my siblings, everybody in my life I'm just like, okay, I can handle that. I'm just wider, and that's not like a braggadocio type of thing. It's just.
By necessity.
I've become wider and I'm actually very thankful for it.
You know, I have a lot more tolerance for all kinds of things and a lot more joy. I feel a lot more like I cry at movies now, like all the time. Like I don't, and I
don't, and I was never like a crier at movies, but like now I'm just like, know, water waterworks, like stuff moves me in a lot different way.
Aaron: Me too, I grew up playing soccer. I played soccer all through my childhood until I realized that I really didn't like to run and I wanted to spend all my time playing music. But there's this documentary, I guess it is on Apple TV about [00:41:00] Major League soccer.
And they follow all the things around. And he actually plays for the Philadelphia Union. And there's this kid named, I'm not gonna say his name right, but Kevin Sullivan, who made his debut in the end of 2023 as the youngest person in any professional league in North America. He
Denison: I actually caught that game randomly
Aaron: Oh, cool.
Yeah. So this episode was following him and as his lead up and his brothers on the team and like all of this, and they put him in the game with like, you know, five minutes left. They were winning, but they gave him his chance and like, I just full on cried.
this was two 30 in the morning just been on baby duty. I'm in what will be our son's room. 'cause he is sleeping in bed now. 'cause there's no room for me in bed. I'm sitting there like under the covers on my phone, like watching, it's just like crying to myself at two 30 in the morning.
I'm like, cool, I gotta go to sleep. This is it. But yeah, that was never me before but here I am, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Denison: I love that.
Aaron: Yeah. with that we like to uh, do one thing as we're wrapping up these. talks, and that's to ask if you would've told your younger self one thing as you're getting into this business, what that would be.
Or something that somebody's told you that's really resonated with [00:42:00] you could be either of those.
Denison: It's hard because I feel like I've come full circle in a lot of ways. even in just the way that I am, allow myself to be creative. I do think that people are like trees in a way where we kind of grow out in circles. like this,
maybe we're more like a spiral.
It's a concentric thing, and we circle back over our own problems and we circle back over the things that are great, you know, and we keep making the same mistakes and we keep excelling in the same way. And it's like you just incrementally go out, I can only speak about like the creative standpoint because professionally I think it's such a toss up.
You know, Like even my friends who are. Very, Very successful in the music business. Keep coming back to me at times and being like well, I just feel really lucky. Like it was a timing thing. Something happened with this song where it hit at the right time and then all of a sudden people started talking and it blew up.
And it's like,
in a lot of ways, they almost don't believe their own fortune, you
know? and I know a lot of really talented musicians who have not been successful commercially, and it's not because of anything of their own doing, it's just, there was not other systems in place [00:43:00] to like help them.
So I can't really speak from a professional standpoint, but from, a creative standpoint, I think the thing to remember is that any type of creativity that you're doing is valid. it's valid to you and whether or not you decide to share it with anybody, that's fine. You know, You don't have to share it for it to be valid.
it is about the experience. Of being creative, that is the important thing, Some of decide at the end writing a song to make it public, and some of us don't, but I think both of those things are valid, you don't know how your songs are gonna be received.
People gravitate toward the songs that are never the ones that I, think are gonna be the ones that gravitate toward. I mean, I know
what my favorite songs are on my record. I can tell you right now that one of them is probably the least played song on the record, but
it's still doesn't change the way I feel about that song.
And so it's no less valid just because it doesn't have the same number of streams or something like that. Like, it's just, you just have to do what's important to [00:44:00] you. and if it's important to you to be part of the conversation and to share that with people, Then do it, you know, but understand that reception is just a very nebulous thing.
you can never know how something's gonna be received, the same way that you can't get attached to outcomes, you know?
yeah.
And find your own voice, except that you are a unique person. I, feel like I sound a little bit like Mr. Rogers right now,
Aaron: No, it's,
Denison: you know,
Aaron: I'm, we're right here with you.
Yeah.
Denison: but you, you know, you are a unique person and you're going to say something in your own way.
And there might even be phases in your life where you are mimicking the other things around you. Like, I think that until you find your voice, that happens. For sure. I know I was guilty of it early in my career, at the same time
I think maybe when I. first started making records, I didn't have any perspective for somebody else, or influence as much.
And then, you know, I went through a phase where I kind of felt really influenced by other musicians and then I phased back out of that and I was like, oh no, this is me and [00:45:00] this is the way I make songs and make records so. be yourself. Just be yourself. Yeah.
Aaron: That's what I say too. I was, raised on the band and the talking heads and you know, if I look back, it's like all these artists that resonate with me are so unique. They're all artists that you can tell it's them within a few seconds, and that's, the longevity.
That's what lasts, that's what resonates
Denison: Absolutely.
there is one thing that, I come back to when Sufi and I made this record together, we set a couple ground rules for making the record, in our time together.
And I'll just tell you what they were, because I think they applied to this conversation. You know, One of them was that don't get attached to outcomes. That was like the number one rule. You can't get attached to outcomes. And then one of them was, finished is better than perfect.
you know,
That one really sticks with me because I think a lot of us can get in our heads about what we're doing or self-critical and that one's very important to me.
but yeah.
Finished is better than perfect and don't get attached to outcomes, I [00:46:00] think that applies to a lot of different things
Aaron: yeah. Finish is better than Perfect is a I first read that a couple years ago and it's just, been reverberating in my head since then. 'cause it's like, because I'll totally just trip myself up and, you know, it doesn't matter how perfect it is if nobody ever hears it.
Denison: Exactly. And sometimes that actually. Isn't great. You know,
lot of really perfect things out there that have no feel.
I find that I always gravitate toward the little mistakes and songs that I I love, I start to look forward to them. Whether it be like a drum hit that's looks slightly out of time or like a finger scratching on a string where you're just like, oh, wow, that's really loud.
You know? And maybe if I was engineering that in my basement by myself, I would be like well, I'm not gonna let that fly. But it never bothers me when it's something else that I love,
Aaron: Yeah. Somebody earlier last year pointed out to me that in Let It Be Paul McCartney just plays an awful chord. And, you know, the chorus don't change. It's the same thing. It's, and he is sitting there and it's just, it's right before a chorus. And it is all wrong. I mean, you know, My jazz [00:47:00] head is like, well, it's actually, you know, this is sharp 11, blah, blah, blah.
But it is very glaringly wrong. And I, I've heard that song a thousand times and never noticed it. And now every time I'm like, there it
Denison: There it is. Yeah.
Aaron: still feels great, you know, despite that, it still absolutely iconic,
Denison: Yeah. I love that.
Aaron: yeah.
Well,
Denison, thank you so much for taking time to sit down with us this morning and have this conversation and
Denison: Yeah, Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. It's really Nice to meet both of you.
Aaron: Thank you so much.
I'm not sure