Back in December 2021, I was interviewed by Bing Kimpo for The Bing Kimpo Show podcast, and got to talk about ’80s musical influences with a fellow music enthusiast and schoolmate. These are the best types of interviews, when it transforms from a dry Q&A into a real flowing conversation. But what do you expect when you put two ’80s music nerds together?
How I Know Bing Kimpo
Our paths crossed back in high school. I was a few years ahead of him, but our paths would often cross at school fairs where our bands would inevitably perform. I was part of an idiosyncratic dueling-guitar (mostly) instrumental band called Subdivision of Thought, best known for our covers of Ventures surf guitar themes and our original songs about cats getting run over in the street. Meanwhile Bing was a part of The Happy Shrimps, a new wave/new romantic outfit that did covers of the coolest UK bands and even recorded for an indie compilation album. Anyway, we were mutual fans of each others’ bands. In fact, their drummer Andre would become the drummer of our pop showband many years later. But, I digress.
Bing contacted me after my Facebook post on my new album (at the time, The Only Water Flowing) came out, and he wanted me to guest on his show to talk about the process of making the album, and why it sounds so much like the music we grew up listening to.
Here’s the interview in its entirety:
What We Talked About, Complete With Timestamps
- 04:35 – The 80s are back? What is going on? Well, musicians are bringing back the sound of nostalgic 80s synthpop and have created an entire new genre: synthwave and retrowave.
- 05:20 – How I found that there’s really no escape from the 80s. Since people who heard my tunes would inevitably say “It sounds so much like an 1980s song.” I decided to embrace it fully and go make a real 80s-sounding vocal album.
- 06:41 – How I realize 2020 is the perfect time to lay it all out, musically. 2020 was also the 20th anniversary of Alanis’ Jagged Little Pill album. If she could lay herself bare in her lyrics and music so fearlessly all those years ago? Why can’t I?
- 12:28 – How every arrangement I make, I realize I’m taking inspiration from a ton of 80s music I’ve heard throughout my life. Unconscious creative recycling of the music.
- 14:20 – How I went back to Heaven17 and Human League and listened to their earlier albums and realized: this is exactly what I want to sound like. How clearly I was influenced by all the UK New Romantic/New Wave bands like Tears for Fears, Simple Minds, Human League.
- 19:23 – How I came up with the title of the album: it’s a lyric in the song “Desert Dancing” and it turns out, it was also a line in “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid. And I didn’t realize it at the time until I did a search on Spotify for my own album.
- 21:33 – How I wrote the track about my dad “Apple Pie & Coffee,” starting off with the story that my dad loved to keep repeating.
- 23:31 – How I share that some of the best ’80s songs had happy, danceable beats but bittersweet, sad lyrics. Very introspective as well.
- 30:33 – My musical arrangement for the Filipino Christmas song “Gumising” by Bukas Palad Music Ministry.
Many thanks to Bing for a wonderful show! Looking forward to more podcasts in the future.