This album is a diverse landscape of sounds, rhythm, and stories. We got stories about love, loss, drugs and grandpa's tool shed!!!
Trail Magik is my debut album, inspired in part by none other than Fiona Apple. Now, before the guessing starts as to what part or parts of this album that applies to, I will confess it was the recording and mixing of it in my own home using Garageband. No studio, no engineers, no auto-tune..... none of that, just me and the music. Not that I am against any of it, quite frankly I have absolutely loved the final products that have come out of professional studios that I have used in the past and the individuals I have worked with. But any musician will tell you it is incredibly expensive. It takes a good amount of money, money that I don't necessarily have right at this moment. I found myself with enough original material to finally put together an album, but was not in a position to finance an entire album in a studio.
So, when I came across a review of Ms. Apple's latest album, "Fetch The Bolt Cutters," and I read that she recorded the entire album in her home on Garageband, I was both impressed and intrigued. Then it happened...... the FEAR set it. "What would people think?" "Will it be good enough?" "Raw and unfiltered is not professional, I can't do that!"
I'm not going to lie, the thought of doing this album in my home on Garageband challenged me on a whole new level. It brought to the surface with brute force my insecurities as a singer/songwriter where I constantly battle that question that I think we all struggle with, "Am I good enough?" Then I stopped, took a long deep breath and made a decision, "yes, I am," regardless of what people may think.
With my mind racing, driven by curiosity and inspiration, my eyes started picking up speed as I read, as if she would confess as to exactly how to eliminate my crippling fear at some point in the article. Then, I came across this line, "Apple’s music is interior and interpersonal, but it also operates in a much broader context, in conversation with (and defiance of) entire institutions and dominant ways of thinking." And it hit me, she doesn't give a f*ck!! She doesn't do music for approval, she does music for expression. I was an instant fan!
I don't create music for approval or status, I create music because it is an innate expression of who I am at a core level. Jennifer Knapp once asked me if I to created music because I liked to or if I created music because I had to...... I have to, it is just there, churning underneath all the noise and chatter waiting to be released given the right formula.
I bow in thanks to you Ms. Fiona Apple for being willing to color outside the lines and sharing your music however you deem fit and necessary for you regardless of what other people may think or say! It inspired me to get to work and put into motion something as a creator rather that being a spectator waiting for the "perfect conditions" to manifest in order for Trail Magik to happen!
- Stacey Hampton
