What I hope I can show people is that you don’t necessarily need three chords to start a band, and it doesn’t matter what training you’ve had as long as you have inspiration, a willingness to work, and a willingness to make editorial judgements. The main difficulty with people who want to make music is that they don’t make enough editorial judgements about what’s good, how it could be better, and how to make it better.
-Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson
When I’m tasting, writing, thinking, and drinking, I tend to listen to ambient and instrumental music that helps me go deeper into my emotions. It’s a habit I started back in 2010 when I was taking long flights to Scotland and France, and was doing a lot writing on the plane. I would sit there for hours, pounding away at the keyboard, soaking up albums from Boards of Canada, College, Gold Panda, and dark wave synth stuff that taps into a strange combination of nostalgia and fear. If you want to write honestly and empathetically, your innermost joys and insecurities both need to be at the forefront.
I’ve been trying to tap back into some of that magic(k) lately, and as a result I’ve been going deep, deep, deep into Coil. If you’re unfamiliar with Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, there are few musicians more capable of evoking sheer ecstasy and utter panic within the same composition. Coil, Christopherson’s third project with his life partner John Balance, was founded back in 1983 and has influenced everyone from Trent Reznor to Bjork to Nick Cave. I’ve been aware of Coil since my teenage years when I devoured industrial music like a junkie. But it has never really hit home until now.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve had two albums on repeat non-stop, having snagged them on vinyl recently: Musick To Play In The Dark and The Ape Of Naples. There is something slightly sinister at play with both works, and it bears noting Christopherson is no stranger to the occult. Not that I’m into that stuff, but it’s a powerful force for creativity here and—I’m not gonna lie—it keeps me slightly on edge. In any case, I got stuck in a wormhole of Coil interviews last night on YouTube and I listened to Peter talk about what it takes to be successful as a musician:
Inspiration
A willingness to work
Editorial taste
If I were teaching a course on what it takes to succeed in the wine and spirits industry, I couldn’t have said it any better.
First off, you need to love drinking in order to last in this business, otherwise why are you here? Booze must inspire you. Second, you need to work your fucking ass off in order to make an impact because there are thousands of people in this industry who think having an opinion is enough. Third, you need to be painfully aware of what constitutes quality, never avoiding the necessary editorial judgement when it comes to taste. If you simply parrot what other people think and say, what good are you?
Lastly, you need to be continually thinking about how to make things better. It should be like an itch you can never fully scratch.
-David Driscoll