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I first saw Seth Glier perform at Johnny D’s last December in a show run by the New York Songwriter’s Circle. We got to talking and he agreed to do an artist profile for me. Seth released a full length album (his fourth), The Trouble With People, last fall. He has just embarked on an impressive tour in support of the album, playing from Montréal to Texas over the new few months. Seth is no stranger to the Boston area  – although he lives in Western Massachusetts, he attended the Berklee College of Music and has played in many of Boston’s venues. I caught up with Seth last week at C3 in Cambridge where he was playing with Ryan Hommel.

 

Seth Glier started writing songs after 9/11, but it wasn’t until the last few years that he hit his stride. Several events lead to a prolific period of songwriting. While he was attending Berklee, he studied songwriting with Livingston Taylor. Taylor’s influence on Seth led directly to the song I Just Want to Make My Daddy Proud. But one of the most important and personal experiences had to do with his brother.

Seth: My brother is autistic and non-verbal. I spent a lot of time with him and I learned a lot that influenced my music. I learned how to listen to someone non-verbally. Music played a large part in how we connected with each other, and I got very good at observing other people without being influenced by what they were saying. I also think it prepared me to be the voice for people who don’ t have one. But I also think it’s tough for people to ‘get me’ at my age. I’m young and I think some people don’t believe that I should be singing about the topics I choose because I’m too young to have the experience.

Dave: You invoke a lot of metaphors, like the line about the clock downtown striking, “twice in a while.” and even singing that, “the metaphors have changed,” in one song. How do you come up with these?

Seth: I was influence a lot there by Randy Newman. I went to a lot of open mikes when I was in Boston at Berklee, but I got engulfed in Randy Newman after I heard one of his albums. He didn’t let the metaphors get in the way of the characters. It was an amazing album because it was stripped of all the usual trappings and the songs were reduced to the basic essence of a particular moment. Song writing is about a snapshots, a scene, a moment in time. And around that time I was studying with Livingston Taylor – he challenged me as well and I wound up writing I Just Want to Make My Daddy Proud.

Dave: That’s one of your mainstay songs – how did your interaction with Taylor bring you to write it?

Seth: Livingston Taylor challenged me to write a song from another person’s perspective as opposed to my own. But I ended up writing more about myself than I thought I would. In a way I was protected by the Bush persona. Also, I wanted to challenge the listener – that’s the Randy Newman influence.

Dave: Perhaps your best song is The Trouble With People. How did you write that one?

Seth: That song was written during a time when I was very frustrated with Berklee. It was right after the Red Sox won the World Series. I was living in the Fenway and I saw all these people partying in the streets and the destructive celebrations. I worked 14 hours a day for a week on that song, but it felt like a runner’s high. I wrote the first version hanging out in a mall, actually. And then after that I wrote Reply, but that song felt like it wrote itself. Songwriting gets a lot easier the more you do it – I wrote 40 songs in the year I lived in Boston.

Dave: You play a lot of different instruments, but primarily the piano and guitar. Which one do you compose on?

Seth: Well yes, I write on both the piano and guitar but piano is my main instrument. I typically will start with a series of chords that strike a certain mode for me to write off of. Many times when I start writing a song on piano I will end up finishing it on guitar. I am a much better piano player than guitar player, but since I am less familiar with the guitar, I don’t develop certain tendencies. I feel my writing on the guitar tends to be somewhat original as a result.

Dave: When I was preparing for the interview, I discovered that Naia is actually a real person – a performer from Western Massachusetts.

Seth: Naia shows up in a lot of songs including The Trouble With People. We’re not really close anymore – we had a relationship that didn’t last.

Dave: Is that something you’d rather not have me write about?

Seth: No, it’s OK. I also learned in that time that writing songs for other people can be bad for friendships. I wrote a song for a friend, Julie’s Song, about how having a kid changes your life plan. And then I played it for her and she hated it. I still perform it because I think it’s a good song. I just don’t play it for her anymore.

Dave: What were the driving factors in how you wrote, assembled and produced the album?

Seth: Well I wanted people to listen to the music and I wanted the music to be accessible to a large audience. I wanted young and old to be able to find something they like in it. I never really looked at recording the record as producing. The whole process felt more like creating a film than a record. Each song was like a scene and the layers of arrangement where like lights, angles and wardrobe. Each thing was placed to bring out the detail of emotion.

Dave: How long did it take to make the album?

Seth: Ryan and I worked hard on the album. We spent every day from 7 AM to 11PM working and we were able to do a song a week.

Dave: How many times did you have to hear it through to know the sequence of songs was what you wanted?

Seth: It wasn’t so much the sequence of songs, it was more about getting the right space, tempo and mood. That took a weekend to do.

Dave: You seem to be fearless with your voice and I gather that you are very precise about how you are going to sing a particular piece?

Seth: (chuckles) Well the joke around Berklee was how horrible the singers are because every one is doing a trapeze act. We called it the American Idol syndrome.

Dave: So how do you approach the vocal parts of these songs? You range from a falsetto in Nervous Laughter to belting it out in The Trouble With People.

Seth: Well, I never used to sing like that. I used to try to sing like Michael McDonald or Martin Sexton. I used to try to sound like something I wasn’t. I guess finding my true voice happened when I found my true self. I started letting my heart do more work than my throat. For me singing and writing is all about communication. You have to connect with yourself in order to connect with others, and sometimes speaking a lyric can be just as powerful as belting it out.

Dave: Seth, thanks for taking the time for this interview.

Seth: You are welcome.

Seth is on tour now, but you can catch him on March 6th at Club Passim and on April 14th at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton. He has other regional dates in New England during the next few months – check his show schedule for details.