A Chat With: Canyon City
The multi-talented singer songwriter, producer, and musician Paul Johnson is gearing up to release his second album, Constellation, under the moniker Canyon City. Based in Nashville, Johnson stands out with his smooth, flowing vocals, which he weaves with indie-folk acoustic melodies. Out in October, Canyon City's new album will showcase a more layered and developed sound from Johnson. To celebrate the release of the newest single "Midnight Flight" and the onset of the sophomore album from Canyon City, we chatted with Johnson about his writing process, pushing his limits in recording, the story behind his viral cover, and what's next for him. Get to know Canyon City now!
Photo Credit: Jordan Merrigan
ANCHR Magazine: When did you very first decide to start writing songs and make music as a full time profession?
Canyon City: I think the first time I decidedly went for it was probably about halfway through high school. Music has really been around most of my life...both my parents played in a folk trio when they were in their 20’s. I guess folk stuff was around growing up. I picked up the guitar when I was a really, really young kid, and did what I could to learn it. It probably was about halfway through high school that I started writing. I think that was the turning point, and I kind of started to find an early voice in that. Sort of a new level of expression and satisfaction of doing it. At that point I was sort of addicted. I kept that going, and then moved to Nashville when I was 18, kind of using the excuse of college to do it, but then dropped out of college after a year to play music. I’ve been here ever since.
AM: Nice, do you still remember the very first song you wrote?
CC: Sort of. I remember a handful of the first songs, neither of which do I have much desire to relisten to, but you gotta start somewhere!
AM: For sure. Now you’re gearing up to release the sophomore album. What have you noticed as some of the differences with the songwriting and recording process between this album and the debut?
CC: Well with this one, it expands a bit. I think part of the reason I went out into some new sonic territory and some new instrumentation experimentation is because the first record was right after I built up my studio, and I’d done a couple EPs. I was still kind of learning the ropes. The first album Midnight Waves was pretty folky, pretty acoustic...partially because I was just learning the ropes of my setup here, and also because I knew when it comes time to play that live, I wanted to be able to play solo sets in addition to full band sets. With this one, I felt a lot more confident in the studio and in the production. I felt like I had a workflow down. So things that might have taken me awhile to figure out with Midnight Waves, I already had down for this one. It sort of allowed me to find things that I didn’t know how to do again. In this case, there’s a lot of percussion in a way that I hadn’t before for Canyon City. I also opened up the opportunity to hash out some instrumentals so that I could bring a band on the road should there be the opportunity for it. I really...with feeling a little bit more confident in the work flow, I sought out challenges and things that would expand the sound further. Production wise, I think this album just experiments a bit more. It still has the same heart and soul; songs that can survive with just an instrument and a voice. I always want to make sure it’s not something where I couldn’t play it to a room of people with my guitar if I wanted to. There’s a little more room for it to blossom and grow outside of that.
AM: Very cool! Is there anybody musically or even non-musical influences that might have inspired you when you were writing?
CC: Yeah, I’m always pretty steep in folk and alt-folk guys. Jason Isbell is an incredible writer. David Ramirez... I really love his stuff. I also listen to a lot of stuff that’s totally out of my wheelhouse... I think people would be surprised. My recently played on Spotify is sort of all over the place. It was a lot of relationships that end up getting jumbled up in the writing process, a lot of what’s going on in life.
AM: Is there a common theme that threads through the album that you could pinpoint?
CC: For Constellation, the reason why it’s called Constellation is something that was a conscious and subconscious theme. Just sort of the contention of the life in your head and the life that you’re living in reality. As a musician, as a writer, you can feel that if you’re producing good work in your studio, that sort of counts as enough living, but you think 'I really need to get out of these four walls and engage with the world and write that story.' I think a lot of it is you take a look at yourself and the world, both being in your 20s and the world being in its current state, and you sort of see a lot of---I’m trying to find the right way to articulate it, but there’s a few points of light that you’re searching for. You sort of try to create a shape of what you’re hoping to make out of it, but most of the time, you spend in between those points of light. Those are the times, and sort of that unknown thing, which is where the constellation metaphor comes from. That’s the central metaphor, and every song goes into a mini story of that. There are songs like “Like I Did,” where that’s kind of like what a raw, real honest chunk of life looks like, and then there are other songs like “Satellite,” that talk all about the distance and being a little bit lost in the darkness between those points of light. If anything, that’s probably the most central theme across the record.
AM: Very cool, it’s sounds really relatable! So you mentioned a little bit when talking the recording process that you want to be able to strip the songs down or build them up for a full band, so do you have any plans for tour? I know you have two shows announced in October, in LA and NYC.
CC: Those are definitely the quickest coming up. I’m gonna do one in Nashville too with some friends, as sort of a release show. After that, the next route of touring will probably be early 2018, although I do want to tour this one out quite a bit. We’ll do those handful of shows...we just got back from an East Coast run that was kind of similar. It was a run of three shows up along the east coast, and also a stop to make a music video in Rhode Island. We’re trying out these first few runs, and once we have it down, we’ll hit it harder in 2018.
AM: What’s the current live setup with the band?
CC: There’s a couple configurations. One is it can just be me. When I’m out in LA in October at the Hotel Cafe, that will probably just be a solo show with me. Then when we’re doing full band stuff, it’s usually a three or four piece depending on who’s available. Usually drums and percussion and someone on keys. If we can, we’d like to get bass in there too, and me on guitar, switching back and forth between electric and acoustic. This fall will be sort of interesting, every show will be a version of one of those three shows. LA will be solo acoustic, New York will be a percussion and guitar thing, and Nashville will be full band.
AM: So being based in Nashville, what have been some of your favorite parts of the scene? What are the pros and cons of being a musician in a music city that can be saturated at times?
CC: Saturated is definitely a good word for it, but it’s something that I think a lot of musicians go through when they come here. It’s both exciting and seems weird to wherever people grew up or came from that doing music or pursuing music professionally is kind of commonplace here. I think pretty quickly people feel overwhelmed in just the sea of talent that is here. Inevitably, it’s a good thing cause it sort of forces everyone to get better. I definitely had to learn how to rise up and do this on a higher level. Nashville sort of forces you to do that. There’s also a lot of saturation, and music is everywhere. I think something I’ve come to peace with is that Nashville, although it’s my base and where all my friends are, I realize that musically, my audience is elsewhere. There’s definitely people in Nashville that follow Canyon City, but I find that the concentration of Canyon City’s audience tend to be other places. I live here, but I feel like an average Joe in the city. I think that’s the reason a lot of musicians like living here is because it doesn’t matter if you’re a musician or an accountant...you’re treated the same way.
AM: Any Nashville based musicians that you would recommend to your listeners?
CC: There’s a group The Ten out of Tenn group. It’s been a minute since they put something out, but it’s a revolving group of Nashville artists. There’s some really good people, like Matthew Perryman Jones is a really solid dude that I’ve learned from in that group. Jason Isbell being out of Nashville too, I really love his stuff.
AM: Cool, any particular new music or new bands elsewhere that might not be a similar genre? Like you said, your recently listened to on Spotify might surprise some people…
CC: Weirdly, I go on--especially when I’m producing a Canyon City record...I’m not really trying to be folky, but it just sort of comes out. But because I spend so much time in it, I sometimes seek out stuff that’s totally different. Like I’ll drill out the new Jon Bellion record into the ground to get out of my sonic headspace and comfort zone. It’s kind a reset for me. I’ll go all over the place, regardless of genre.
AM: Yeah, totally! So the cover that you did of “Fix You” by Coldplay went pretty viral on Spotify. What was it about that song that drew you to create your own version of it? Any fun story behind it?
CC: It’s a great song, and it’s also a song that’s been around for a minute. When I thought of doing a cover, I didn’t want to do something that was just a flavor of the week thing. I thought that was an incredible tune. It wasn’t too premeditated...I was just writing one day and I think I was just taking a break. It initially was just for fun, and I decided to take a break and record someone else’s song. The funny thing about it was that I tried to take it down...not because I didn’t enjoy the song or the cover...I really enjoyed both, but I was afraid people were going to think of me as a cover artist because it was right before Midnight Waves came out. I always have and always will love that song, and I think I was overthinking it, but I was afraid people would peg me as a cover guy and I’m about to put out a new record. So I reached out to see if it was possible to at the very least temporarily take it down, and then two months later is when it started to go viral and pick up. It ended up being a huge boost to my original content, and that’s something I’m very grateful for. “Fix You” has been an entryway into Canyon City, and then people will actually explore the original content afterwards. I totally almost self-sabotaged, but I had a blast making the song.
AM: Anything else that you’re looking forward to this year besides potentially touring and the album coming out?
CC: Yeah, the album coming out, and there’s gonna be some videos that come with it too, which I’m really looking forward to. We don’t have a ton of video content, so I’m really excited that’s gonna be coming along with this record. Then next year, I’ll be putting together some plans for tour and even more new music and more writing. Because I have this home studio, I never stop, but I think I’m gonna be building a separate facility in the next six months or so, which I’m really looking forward to. But mainly just releasing music, playing some shows, and really getting face to face with the people that let me do this as my job, which is still kind of dumbfounding. I really enjoy that in-room interaction and being in the moment.