The Good Life Interview

Some people let their music say everything that they ever wanted to. Whether it's those things that they really want to say or things that they must say, the best songwriters tend to let their lyrics say the things that they may feel be better left unsaid. It's this vulnerability that makes Tim Kasher's songs resonate in the minds of everyone who's ever wanted to speak up about their insecurities and hardships that propel us through each of our good lives. With Novena On A Nocturn, the Good Life's debut album, Tim Kasher left the door of his personal life open just a crack so that we may see and hear more than we should, and he set it against a soundtrack that still compels each of us to continue eavesdropping. While Tim Kasher may be best known for his work with Cursive, the Good Life is where Tim let's his personality best come through.

At a recent performance in Columbus, Ohio with Azure Ray I had a chance to talk with the soft-spoken but very humorous mind behind the Good Life about his new album Black Out and the history behind the Good Life and how the project unfolded after years of writing songs.

Interview conducted in person by Dan Rizer, February 2002.  Pictures by Jason LaVeris.

Names: Tim Kasher (Vocals, guitar)
Band: The Good Life

D: When you started writing songs for the Good Life was it intended to become a full band or more of a solo project?

T: My original intention was for it to be more of a solo project. It was stuff I had been working on for years, but then it just came to a point where I felt like picking up a few musicians to turn it into a full
band... that was probably about four or five years ago. Then it took a few years to actually get the first record out.

D: So why did you feel that it became necessary for you to bring in other musicians and make it the Good Life?

T: Well I really should say that it was more of just something I did on my own and then like I said about five years ago I just got a couple of friends, Clint from Cursive was one of them, and we just started playing these songs together. We were far from calling it the Good Life, but it was pretty much the same incarnation that there is today, and we're still playing some of the same music that we were playing five years ago.

D: How much of the writing and arranging do your bandmates contribute to the songwriting and how much of it is just you?

T: Everyone works on most of the melodic instrumental arranging. I just compose the songs as far as writing the structure and chords and melodies.

D: Your press has said that that the songs for Novena On A Nocturn were written over the better part of 12 years. Was the new album written during this same period?

T: Oh no. Black Out was written over the past year, year and a half maybe.

D: Was there any added pressure writing the songs for Black Out, knowing that you knew that you were writing these songs to be released on an album?

T: ...Yeah, maybe. I could say that writing Novena was a lot less pressure than any other records I've done. Mostly because it was things I had been working on for years. Technically Novena is more a collaboration of songs that I had been developing for around three or four years with the exception of "Your Birthday Present" which was quite a bit older. But really Black Out is more like the other albums I've written, whereas Novena is really the oddball.

D: Was there ever any thought of naming the project just Tim Kasher?

T: No... well it kind of popped around. When I began Novena and I was actually starting to take this seriously people were suggesting that I name it after myself. There really wasn't a set band at that point...

...Interview gets briefly interrupted here when everyone starts laughing at a story someone was telling about Tim's family buying him an electric razor to shave his former facial hair and I forgot what we were talking about, so...

D: ... Okay, you tend to write lyrics based on some of the more troubled experiences in your life...

A friend of Tim's: He just sings about being drunk (everyone starts laughing)... you know Black Out's... passing out... (more laughter)

D: Is that where the album name came from?

T: Yeah, that's it.

D: When people talk about the Good Life they tend to really focus on your lyrics. How much of your lyrics come from personal experience and how much it is just storytelling?

T: I really don't know exactly what percentage of it is personal. I try not to get too specific with the lyrics because it can tend to hurt people.

D: Have you had much experience with someone getting hurt by revealing too much in your lyrics and do you have any regrets with that?

T: (long pause)....Yeah.........yeah....yeah.

D: So is the name the Good Life meant to be taken as a sarcastic statement?

T: Yeah, definitely. I like how often the term gets used. The more I see the name the better it gets for me. You know like Good Life Real Estate.

D: Right now you're writing songs for both the Good Life and Cursive. What are some the differences in which you approach each band and what do you take away from each?

T: I tend to approach Cursive more as a guitar player, where I try to arrange and compose more with the guitar as my focus. The groundwork we lay with the instrumentation is crucial to what we try to achieve with Cursive's songs. Obviously a strong melody is very important to us and whether or not we feel a song is successful.  With the Good Life it's more about just strumming a guitar and singing over it and finding those melodies just from playing. That's why I work with the additional musicians so they can help more with the arrangements and the instrumentation.

D: So do you tend to write the lyrics before you write any music then?

T: I do it both ways. With Cursive I tend to write the music first and vice versa with the Good Life.

D: What sort of influences have you had as far as the direction Black Out has taken?

T: It really doesn't come across apparently, but with the album as a whole, with the sort of eclectic attitude it takes, for me very often it's Elvis Costello. With his ability to be successful with writing
songs that range from bluesy rock n' roll to sad piano ballads, he's proven himself to be a pure songwriter. Whatever he does musically, and I 'm not talking stylistically... he just writes great songs that sound like Elvis Costello.  I admire his skill as a songwriter without being limited by style. That's something I strive to achieve.