"Everything But" (Album: "Bright Side") by Damien Binder
Damien’s essence and spirit infuse his sophisticated and graceful songcraft throughout the ten tracks that compose "Bright Side". The album explores themes of self-discovery, re-discovery, resilience and self-determination, often in contrast with external resistance. Damien’s songs express a genuine sense of honesty and humanity, without being sermonizing or moralistic.
He provides gentle guidance from a life of experience and reflection. The five singles from the album are a great glimpse of the range and depth of the songs on "Bright Side". Among them is "Everything But", where heartland rock meets atmospheric synth style and Mr. Springsteen is lurking nearby. A fantastic song from a brilliant album!
What sparked your love for music, and who or what inspired you to develop your own musical voice and genre?
I was obsessed with Elvis from the age of 8 onwards. I had a copy of an LP Elvis' Golden Records Volume 1. There was a record shop just around the road from where we lived in Auckland NZ at the time and I think I got it from there. It's all killer early stuff. Later I developed a love for classic singer songwriters work - people like Jackson Browne and others who have a conversational style with memorable melodies and strong personal lyrical themes.
What was the inspiration behind your release, “Everything but”, and what’s the story?
'Everything But' is one of a bunch of singles released off my album 'Bright Side'. There's a lot of stuff theme-wise about trusting in your own intuition and knowing yourself through experience on the record - 'Everything But' follows this thread. It's about treading your own path.
The track has a great harmony. How long did it take you to work on the composition?
Thank you. It was written like all of mine on acoustic guitar which I laid down with the vocal to start then Matt Gio (Producer) and I built the track up. Before we started I had reference points of Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love album and I think there are some echoes of this throughout in terms of sounds and production.
“Everything but” is one of the songs in your album. Which three songs from “Bright Side” do you think our readers should listen to?
I'd like to think there's no filler so all of them! 😂 However, depending on your mood, 'Don't Know What' 'Here It Is' and the title track 'Bright Side' are good places to start
How do you balance the time-consuming aspect of being an indie artist with the other aspects of your life?
I have a full time job but it's not too taxing so I'm able to work on my music with enough mental space. These days like most artists you have to be a social media marketer, promoter, booker, website guru and a dozen other things.
It never stops but if I don't work on all the other stuff nothing would happen so I do the best I can. No one teaches you this stuff. You kind of have to learn how to do it on the job by doing it. I'm still learning but I try to put the music first and remember that this is the part I love. This keeps me going.
Do you still remember the first song you ever wrote?
'Disappear' (1995)- Was the first song I wrote all by myself. I was in a band called Second Child - My band when I lived in NZ. We had our moment in the sun in the 90's. We supported Nirvana, Jesus and Mary Chain, Fugazi and lot's of other well known bands. It's a good one and the video is good too. I was the least proficient musician in the band at that time but I learnt that writing songs is not something everyone can do and is a skill all in itself so I became the songwriter and that's probably what I'd call my biggest strength.
What are you aiming for in the future?
'Bright Side' had a long gestation period, the songs were written over the last few years and I released singles periodically up until the eventual album release this year. I'm aiming to follow it up soon with another release - maybe an Ep soon as the whole process of releasing and playing shows has sparked some new songs which I'm pretty happy and excited about. In short, keep doing what I do and getting better hopefully.
