{"id":3237,"date":"2020-12-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=141725"},"modified":"2020-12-21T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T08:00:00","slug":"musician-and-photographer-felix-k-walworth-on-creating-in-private","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/21\/musician-and-photographer-felix-k-walworth-on-creating-in-private\/","title":{"rendered":"Musician and photographer Felix K Walworth on creating in private"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Musician and photographer Felix K Walworth on balancing collaboration with solitude, experiencing the power of community, and keeping your process and art sacred.
\n <\/em><\/p>\n

\n

You released your first album in four years during quarantine. Had you considered pushing it back until after things returned to normal? Or was the project done, and you were ready for the world to hear it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I take a long time with my music. Typically, by the time I\u2019m finished with a record, I\u2019m already itching to get it out into the world. I\u2019ve spent years fiddling with the EQ and I\u2019m just like, \u201cGet this out of my control, and give it some ceremony, finally.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past, I may have been a little bit more strategic about being like, \u201cOkay, this is a horrible year to release music. I can\u2019t tour to promote the record. I\u2019m releasing it at the end of the year, which people typically already don\u2019t do because they like to be on year-end lists and things. And it\u2019s an election year, and it\u2019s a particularly fraught and insane election year.\u201d So, strategy-wise, horrible, right? In the past I probably would have avoided that kind of thing and thought, \u201cLet\u2019s push this to Spring 2021\u201d for the sake of the optics and engagement and such.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you can probably already sense by the tone of my voice, and the words that I\u2019m choosing right now, that I increasingly just don\u2019t give a fuck about those things. I\u2019ve been doing this for a long time. And, I\u2019m a small fry. If 60,000 people listen to my record versus 10,000 people, it\u2019s all small. They\u2019re small numbers of people. So frankly, it was more important to me to get the record out when it was done than to worry about timing.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

(dancers)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Stairs.jpg\"<\/p>\n

(stairs)<\/em><\/p>\n

The thing is, against all logic, the timing is actually quite good. People need music now. Your music is human and personal and moving. I imagine it being helpful to people right now. It has been for me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, thanks for saying that. Second, yeah, the times in my life when music has been most meaningful to me have been in moments of uncertainty and upheaval. Personal crisis. I write a lot about these things, whether or not they\u2019re large moments of crisis or slow, grinding crises over a long period. That\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been able to glean from art in general. So, yeah, I don\u2019t feel as though it\u2019s worthless to release music in times like this. It\u2019s not just about the attention span of the people who are engaging with it. In some way you might say my strategy is perfect here, right? Because it\u2019s like, everyone is at their most fucked up. They need a balm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of human connection, have you missed touring? And, have you thought of these new songs at all in terms of playing them on a stage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the pandemic I was practicing with a small band to try to create live arrangements for most of the songs on the record. But all of that was after the album was mixed and sent away. So, essentially, these songs have always existed just as the recordings. I feel unprepared to play most of them solo. I\u2019ve done a few Instagram Live things. Those are fun, but they feel like covers of the songs. Or like sessions or something. They don\u2019t breathe the necessary life. Of course, the live sessions don\u2019t breathe the other necessary life of being with a person in a room, playing music. So, yeah, the songs are not really imagined as live touring songs, so it doesn\u2019t feel like they\u2019re not going to be able to fully exist once this record comes out.<\/p>\n

For the past eight years, nine years, touring has been my job job. I\u2019ve been heavily on the road. Some years, six or seven months out of the year. That gave me a really complicated relationship to touring. Like, a pretty addictive one, for lack of a better way of understanding it. It gave me the feeling of being unsettled wherever I was. You know, unsettled on a stranger\u2019s floor in Utah, and also unsettled in my bed at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having a break from that\u2014and I really do think of this pandemic as a break\u2014has been great for my mental health. I\u2019ve been happier, I\u2019ve been more creative, I\u2019ve been focusing on other aspects of my life that touring didn\u2019t let me focus on. Ways of being in my domestic space that feel permanent or structured. Ways of building towards something, perhaps. I\u2019m not always on the threshold of escape, or leaving.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

(photo photo)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Noel'le<\/p>\n

(Noel\u2019le)<\/em><\/p>\n

In that sense, I don\u2019t miss touring. But also\u2026 I haven\u2019t been on tour since last August. This is a record for me. And, I miss seeing different things. I miss meeting complete strangers. I miss random acts of kindness. <\/span> There\u2019s a lot of kindness to go around these days, I feel, between people who love and trust each other and have that connection already built. But there\u2019s something to be said for someone sticking their neck out for you for no reason, who\u2019s never seen you before or met you, or anything, and doing the same for someone like that.<\/span> I miss that. I wish that I could take photos of places outside of the four square blocks of my neighborhood, you know.<\/p>\n

I do miss performing, too. But also\u2026 Recently, the year before the pandemic, I was touring a lot and I started having panic attacks. I was on tour in April of 2019, playing bass in a Lala Lala. We were opening up for Better Oblivion Community Center, so the shows were particularly big, as far as what I\u2019m used to. This one night on stage I had this full-blown panic attack. I felt like I was going to just drop dead on the stage. There were like 2,000 people there. It was something that I was just completely unprepared for, and it continued to happen almost every night after that on this tour. It then seeped into other aspects of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Boy<\/p>\n

(kite)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Gust<\/p>\n

(gust)<\/em><\/p>\n

But essentially, for that year, I had multiple other tours booked, and really no time to address my mental health. So I was just sort of raw dogging reality: no medication, no therapy. Just like, full-on adrenaline and anxiety for like months. And I was just like, \u201cI don\u2019t know if I can do this anymore. I don\u2019t know if this is sustainable for me. Something about this lifestyle that I\u2019ve been practicing for years and years has caught up with me in some way. Something is unaddressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, in a way, this time off touring has been a blessing. I\u2019ve been in therapy. I\u2019ve got my drugs. I\u2019ve been taking inventory. I\u2019ve been doing a lot of excavating. I don\u2019t know that I would have if touring had continued. If the world felt like it was still going on, and I was the only one stopping, I may have had a more difficult time prioritizing myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re Told Slant. It\u2019s just you. You\u2019re piloting the project. As the person who is essentially the group, do you have strategies to keep going? How do I keep yourself accountable as a solo person?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting because I do go at my own pace, and my pace is slow. But I also have a lot of shame about that. And about productivity. Sort of just inherent capitalist shame, that we all have when we\u2019re not working our hardest, I guess. And that\u2019s enough, honestly. I don\u2019t need anyone else\u2026 My own internal guilt and shame, that gets me right through it.<\/span> Also, most of my close friends are songwriters, artists, people who are constantly working on things, and we don\u2019t have any structured way of sharing what we do. I used to have that in a lot of ways. And that used to be meaningful to me, to have like show and tell kind of stuff. But, I think just being in the presence so often of other people who are experimenting and writing, it helps you remember, \u201cOh, that\u2019s what I can be doing with my day.\u201d Instead of despairing about this or that.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re saying the show and tell has maybe changed. Have you been able to preserve any of that in the current climate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I still have exchanges of work with people. For music and for photography, I have a web of people. You know, we\u2019re like, \u201cOh, check out this. Will you tell me what you think of this song, or this mix? Or, what film stock was that?\u201d Those things are really important. My trusted music confidants are important to me for getting mix advice, and songwriting advice. That can all be done sending things over the internet, but I miss being able to show people things in a real space.<\/p>\n

My favorite thing is when someone bombards you with a piece of art that they\u2019re working on, because it\u2019s like, all of a sudden you\u2019re in a pressurized, obligatory space, when you thought you were just hanging out. But I like that. I mean, not exactly when someone takes the earbud out and sticks it into your ear, but being at someone\u2019s apartment and them being like, \u201cOh I was just working on this song, you want to check it out?\u201d It gives people an opportunity to really pay attention to each other and really engage.<\/span> Sometimes someone will send me a mix, and the WeTransfer link will expire, and then I\u2019m too embarrassed to ask them for another one. And, the medium of text messaging is just insufficient for actually digging in. So there\u2019s something to be lost there. But I\u2019m doing the best that I can in the circumstances.<\/p>\n

\"Molly<\/p>\n

(Molly)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"SB<\/p>\n

(SB)<\/em><\/p>\n

You also take photos\u2013 often of outdoor spaces, friends, people on the street. Is photography something you want to pursue in a more \u201cprofessional\u201d way? Or do you see it as something that you\u2019re doing on the side of your music, and the music is your primary creative outlet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I feel in a lot of ways that in the last couple of years I\u2019ve had to claw music back into my life in a positive way. This thing starts out as your passion, and the mechanics of the industry, the social worlds, all these sort of ancillary trivial dumb-ass things just take over and poison the well.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never thought I would quit music because I can\u2019t. I\u2019m cursed, essentially.<\/span> But there have been so many times where I\u2019m like, \u201cWhy did I do this to this sacred thing?\u201d Like, Why did I defile god?\u201d And so I\u2019m nervous about that with photography, because it\u2019s something I\u2019m still learning as a practice. I\u2019m still very much in a full-on sponge-brain world with it. It\u2019s so joyful to me, to just walk around and play. The idea of it not being like that is very deeply sad to me. I feel like, if I\u2019m going to survive as a person, I\u2019m going to need to be a lot more protective of the spiritual space of art.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the very first interviews we did on TCI was with Anohni<\/a>. At the time she was taking a break from live performance and focusing on art for this very reason: She was burnt on the industry of music, but found art exciting and joyful and freeing. There was a purity to it. This was a few years ago, and I noticed that she released another song the other day. Maybe finding ways to divorce herself from the industry allowed her to return to it. I remember when I saw that, I thought, \u201cOh, maybe she found a way to project it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a hopeful story to hear. Right? That someone isn\u2019t just completely derailed by the exploitative system, or the weird scarcity mindset social atmosphere. And they can just make art because it can still feel good. And that\u2019s \u2026 For me, so much of being protective of music, for myself, that\u2019s a lot what making this record was for me. It was completely alone. I feel like in my earlier music, I had more of a style, or something. I was using very similar modes, just in different configurations, and focusing on words a lot more than music. But ultimately it was a mode I was comfortable working in. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m comfortable doing this because I know how to do it, I feel like I\u2019m pretty good at writing this kind of song.\u201d There was safety in it, but also, with that safety, an expectation, I think, of success. It was like, \u201cThis is what I know that I\u2019m good at, and what I know that other people think that I\u2019m good at.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And for this record, I was like, \u201cWell that didn\u2019t feel good at all.\u201d Like, I made this thing. And people did like it. And yet, I still feel alienated from music. This thing that I love is like slipping further and further from me.<\/span> So writing and arranging and all this stuff with these songs just felt like, \u201cAnyone who likes my music or had expectations about my music\u2026this is a curveball for them, stylistically.\u201d And I was just like, \u201cI don\u2019t care. I\u2019m having so much fun.\u201d I\u2019m just writing like six-minute songs and shit that I would never do.<\/p>\n

\"Dan<\/p>\n

(Dan and Hilary)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Kids<\/p>\n

(kids with ice cream)<\/em><\/p>\n

When you were finished did it feel like a success to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes and no. I\u2019m very, very proud of it. And not just because I\u2019m like, \u201cI think these songs are good.\u201d But because I still can feel the place of joy<\/span>, and I just\u2014I want to avoid words like \u201cpurity\u201d\u2014I felt closer to god<\/span>. [laughs<\/em>] I don\u2019t want to use words like purity, but I\u2019ll use words like god. But, I felt so spiritually connected to this process. It was just such a positive force in my life, making this record. I wasn\u2019t beating myself up about it. But then again also, once all the fun stuff is done, and you\u2019re tweaking little things, one day your album sounds incredible and the next day you listen to it and you\u2019re like, \u201cWhat was I thinking? It\u2019s the worst album I\u2019ve ever made.\u201d<\/span> It\u2019s hard to say whether, definitively, it felt like a success. Right now, I feel like it was a success. There have been times when it did not feel this way.<\/p>\n

It also depends on how you define success. Because you were saying you felt closer to god, you felt joy. That seems successful. There\u2019s personal success, the success of completing a thing, and then there\u2019s the external success of people\u2019s reception of it, or people\u2019s response to it. I always like to think that I\u2019m divorced from that, but I\u2019m not. If everyone is like, \u201cThis is terrible,\u201d it\u2019s hard not to be bummed by that. But if a couple of people are like, \u201cOh, this is great,\u201d even if it\u2019s balanced with a few other people saying it\u2019s terrible, at least for me, I can feel successful about that. I don\u2019t need to convince the entire world. I just want to know that it meant something to somebody else.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019re right. You want to divorce yourself, like those aspects of the process. And it\u2019s so hard. It\u2019s really so, so hard. Like, this \u2026 I wish we had better words than \u201calbum cycle.\u201d But this album cycle, press stuff has been so\u2014just so<\/em>\u2014bad for me. And no one has even said anything shitty about my music. I mean, usually at least there\u2019s someone out there that\u2019s like, \u201cWhat the fuck\u2019s this bullshit?\u201d Like, \u201cSounds like fucking Donald Duck,\u201d or something. But just having to get into that mindset again, or allowing myself to fall back into the world of, \u201cIt matters whether other people value what you\u2019ve done.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Putting your work out there is weird: \u201cHere, world, take this thing.\u201d Especially when people don\u2019t get the context, or they come up with their own, and it\u2019s completely wrong. People read their own biases into it. It is weird. You have this thing you make, and then it\u2019s out there, then suddenly it\u2019s kind of not entirely the thing you made anymore. It is, but people project their own selves onto it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Definitely. Yeah, and I mean, there are so many questions that arise from that, right? You know, about authorship. Like, whether it\u2019s meaningful, the author\u2019s intent. Whether or not your song can really be your song anymore. Yeah, I mean, that\u2019s really hard, to release something that\u2019s often so personal, and have someone else\u2019s narrative, maybe, become the public narrative. And all you have is your private feeling of, \u201cI\u2019m right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Felix K Walworth Recommends:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Succinct political quote: \u201cFrom each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.\u201d Always thought this was a Max Stirner<\/a> quote but it turns out it was Marx.<\/p>\n

Best lyrics ever written: \u201cThe signifieds butt heads with the signifiers \/ and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words \/ when across the sky sheet the impossible birds \/ in a steady illiterate movement homewards\u201d -Joanna Newsom, \u201cThis Side Of The Blue\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Piece of advice I\u2019ve found useful: learn how to teach yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thing I am excited about: exploring photography as a medium of self expression and play.<\/p>\n

Video game recommendation for anarchists\/socialists\/artists: Disco Elysium<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n \"Fluffy<\/p>\n

(fluffy plant)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musician and photographer Felix K Walworth on balancing collaboration with solitude, experiencing the power of community, and keeping your process and art sacred. You released your first album\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":324,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346,4,911],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3238,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237\/revisions\/3238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}