Andrew Becker, the creative force behind Human Potential, is ready to unveil his most adventurous album yet, I Write Wedding Songs. This innovative project marks a departure from Becker's previous solo endeavors, embracing collaboration for the first time with vocal contributions from L. Skell and Amira Nader. The album's latest single, "Cut Worm Forgets The Plow," reflects Becker's new creative direction—one that challenges his past sonic and emotional landscapes. Inspired by a line from Claire Vaye Watkins and William Blake's Proverbs of Hell, the song explores themes of moving on and embracing natural consequences over forgiveness. As a multi-faceted artist with a background in filmmaking and music, Becker's exploration of new creative processes and partnerships has given birth to a truly unique work, blending synth-pop, experimental elements, and deeply personal reflections. I Write Wedding Songs promises to be Human Potential's most sonically daring and emotionally resonant album yet.
Q: In your opinion, what are the essential qualities that make a “good songwriter”?
I would say being named Paul McCartney, Andy Partridge, Gilberto Gil or Paul Westerberg.
Q: What is the basis for writing attention-grabbing music in this day and age?
I honestly would have no idea. I'm fairly certain the only people that listen to my music are my father and, I'm assuming by dint of these questions...you?
Q: Can you pinpoint some specific songs and songwriters that changed the way you write music?
I'm not sure it changed the way I write music, but one song I've been listening to a lot recently is "Place Position" by Fugazi. It's extraordinarily well crafted and covers a lot of territory, pretty seamlessly, in under three minutes. They are masters of the pregnant pause, which can be gimmicky in other contexts, but they wielded this device pretty powerfully in many of their recordings, including the aforementioned song. Also, The Homosexuals album is sort of a master class in writing defiantly non-punk punk songs that are blissfully hooky, while taking unexpected and novel turns usually within two minutes or so. Amazing. In a just world, they would have achieved Clash-like fame. So it goes.
Q: Q: Do you find it hard to be inspired by your peers? Can you name any new artists you find inspiring?
Well, I'm in no way connected to any sort of scene, so it's hard to think of any contemporary artist as a peer...and to be quite honest, I'm pretty woefully uneducated about contemporary music these days. That said, there are contemporary artists I am consistently awed by...these are confoundingly creative aliens like Tim Hecker, Demdike Stare, Wolf Eyes, Krallice, etc. Also, pretty much anything Califone does. I think Tim Rutili is the most underrated/underrecognized songwriter of the past 30 years.
Q: For your new album, what inspired the lyrical content, album title, and overall vibe?
Lyrical content often comes from stories I make up. Also, the Old Testament, the pages of which are filled with probably the most terrifying passages in existence. Other literary inspirations for this record were Claire Vaye Watkins, Rimbaud, Henry Miller and Paul Bowles.
The title of the album is sort of a long story...it stems from a moment I shared a few years ago with my then girlfriend. We were at a Bill Callahan show and she started crying during one of his songs (I don't remember which one). Though I'm not super well versed in all of his material, I do love Bill Callahan...and his music has this interesting emotional resonance...it's at once romantic and hopeful, but also sad and poignant...to me at least. Anyway, I was thinking that the song she was reacting to could be someone's wedding song...and while that song could have a particular emotional resonance attached to it at a specific time (joy, hopefulness while slow dancing at one's wedding or something), the same song could invoke very different feelings 20 years later after a divorce or something. I felt like she was crying for both of those reasons...she was feeling everything all at once. Weirdly, when I was writing the lyrics to the title track "I Write Wedding Songs", I was trying to think of another line for the narrator that would precede, "I write wedding songs". What else would he do? Ah..."I break horses". This is all without knowing "I Break Horses" is a Bill Callahan song. Kismet.
That song is partially autobiographical and contains allusions to previous relationships...and others that haven't happened yet. More specifically it directly relates to the album cover, which is a picture of my parents dancing on their wedding day. Though they were seemingly happy at that time, their marriage ended bitterly a few years later. This is all to say, music is a living, breathing entity that shape-shifts, emotionally, as we move through life...or something like that.
Q: Do you find that you ruminate over writing songs and hold on to them for a long time before including them on a record? Or do you prefer to write them, release them, and be done with them? Do you ever revisit old material to do a re-write or once it’s done it’s done?
I tend to just put stuff out that I think is relatively releasable. I have a stable of songs that I've recorded and mixed and subsequently ended up despising so those will probably remain locked away, but generally I just get them out there.
Q: Were there any lessons you learned in the writing and recording process for your current release that you will take with you into your next project?
The lesson I should have learned from day one was to stop wasting financial and emotional equity making records that will probably be relegated to obscurity. Yet, here we are again. I actually just finished tracking twelve new songs...so, I'm hoping to get another one out there sometime next year. Apologies in advance.
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