Springworks
Canadian duo David Beaman and Ryan , who call themselves Springworks, have been making strange melodies together over many years, motivated mostly by the desire to hear them.
Q&A
Springworks are...?
... David Beaman and Ryan Rollinson (me!) . Dave was the first person I knew that not only played music but wrote his own! I was impressed and didn’t want to be outdone so I started writing too. Despite living in different provinces for the last few years, thousands of miles apart, we’ve been collaborating for many more years than that.
Who inspired you to make music in general?
Strangely, some of the inspiration for learning to write and play came from listening to extended club remixes of synthpop songs.
Because the tracks would be very separated and drop in and out of the song we could discern how songs were constructed in parts and how they all fit together. It felt like a blueprint. Along with having been absorbing songs we heard since we were little kids.
What's the story behind your song "Joke of the Season", what was your inspiration, respectively ?
The song 'Joke of the Season’ was inspired by a feeling that the songs we had been hearing at the time were often, if not always, very much sounding one like the next. Nudging towards and a reaction to that feeling you get when you’ve been eagerly told the same joke too many times.
What was intended to entertain begins to provoke ire out of sheer repetition. Joke of the Season was a corrective to that feeling, an attempted remedy to the creeping ennui.
What can we expect from your upcoming Album?
The new album ‘Chapter Thieves’ has a varied mix of styles. The usual influences are always there: pop melody, layered production, tangental lyrics, etc. and we always try to keep ourselves guessing. Try something unexpected.
All the music we listen to has an element of surprise to it and we strive for that too. Dave is making great progress on the final mixes of the remaining songs for it, and we are excited to be so close to having the album completed.
What's in your opinion the most time intensive part concerning songwriting?
The time consuming part writing songs is 80% boring technical stuff (recording levels, mixing, porting tracks) and 20% waiting for inspiration to strike. We’ve been at it together for so long now that we always have songs on the go, and are becoming more adept with the mixing and mastering end of things.
What are your "All time Top 3 Songs", right now, in this second?
Top 3 at the moment? “Enemy” by John Gallen, “Highway” by McDead, and “Super Mario in Pain” by Paul & Pets keeps coming up as well. Near impossible to pick just 3, but I’d say those are a few favourites at the moment.
What's your most useful talent besides music?
I can’t speak for Dave but my most useful talent is keeping a clean apartment. Odd thing to be good at but useful! Maybe a knack for harmonies and getting the lyrics and vocal melodies just right.
What’s next for you?
More mixing and finishing off songs for Chapter Thieves. Dave does all the videos so that’s an additional bit on the list. Plus we always have some crazy b-sides we’re working on.
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