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raudeliunaite · 5 years ago

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Junior A: "Music is a safe space from the real world"

This interview took place long before you read it. We agreed with songwriter and performer Tautvydas Gaudėšius, known as Junior A, that our conversation would take place somewhere between Nida, Vilnius and virtual space. By the time this interview comes out, Junior A has released a new EP and completed a concert tour in Lithuania. Obviously, the release of the fifth EP "Spa Day" drew a line between the ending phase of the artist's life and the exciting beginning that he will meet with the release of his first full-length album. According to Tautvydas, the debut album will be a collection that will change everything from the ground up once again.

What is your own life, daily routine, household about at the moment?

I write, I love, I have fun, and occasionally I try to sleep. I am currently in Nida. I spend my days wandering around the places I loved as a teenager, reading. In the evenings I write music. I have been working on my debut album for a while now.

We had a very active summer season. In November I will go on a mini-tour of Europe, in Lithuania I will present my last EP. I'm trying to rest a bit. It's been hard so far.

What are your values as a music creator and performer? What is important to you?

Maybe it's that I've never looked at music as a product. For me, music is a conversation with yourself, where you have to be open, otherwise it doesn't make sense.

Nobody prepares me, nobody writes music for me. In a word, they don't tell me what to say, how to behave. Everything is real. As long as that is the case, everything will continue.

You and drummer Sindre have been an inseparable duo for some time. What keeps the two of you together? How do you complement each other?

The simplest answer is probably the love of music. The songs are real. All the melodies, the harmonies, the explosions. It's so much fun to perform them live. It's good to share the stage. For both Sindre and me, music is a safe space from the "real" world. It's hard to explain.

Think back and tell us what was your time and presence on stage like when you were alone and now with Sindre?

They are just different periods. In the beginning it was one big chaos. Everything was very fast. I was trying to stay as focused as possible so I could write songs while we were figuring out how to perform those songs live. One day the producer Snorre suggested I try to play with Sindre. It was one of those "bingo" moments. The rest is history.

How often do you set yourself challenges and goals? Do you always try to achieve them?

My life has never been very simple. These days especially. Staying sane, surviving and writing songs, learning to be happy - these are my challenges.

What was the last thing you were proud of as an artist?

A few days ago, my parents and I were watching a video of the summer concerts. It's strange to see myself there. I've always dreamed about it, but now it seems like I'm not even there. I saw the joy and pride in my parents' eyes. It's good in those moments.

What environment has shaped you into the person you are today?

Everything shapes me. All my life I have somehow found myself in all kinds of situations. Girls, parties, fear of death, doubts about everyone and everything around me. Eventually I learned to describe those stories.

When I wrote "Born Busy", I felt in a hole, I felt I had reached a crossroads - I was writing an album that would change my life. "Superglue" is the range of emotions that I described when I broke up with my girlfriend, "Spa Day" was written entirely in the morning when there was still a party going on outside the door.

What I am now, we will hear sometime next year.

Do you face disappointments, internal critics? How do you accept and survive them?

Of course. In the first year and a half, there were a lot of difficult situations, from dilemmas about whether to fix a broken tooth or to buy winter boots for the cold season.

Few people understood my choice to sell everything to pursue my musical dreams.

The comments, the glances, pushed me to reflect on whether you are really doing the right thing. In my case, I believed more than I doubted - so far so good.

I've always wondered what is the relationship of the person who makes and performs music to silence?

Silence has always seemed luxurious to me. Growing up, you live in your parents' house with their rules. Then you set out to live your life. In my case, I went to London, and I lived in all sorts of places there. Not all of them were in great neighbourhoods and so on. The peace and quiet there really started to seem like a luxury.

If you could choose one thing that's important to you that you'd like to learn and one person of authority... What would that person be and what would he/she have to teach you?

You would have to find someone who had a slightly simpler way of looking at things. I would like to learn this art.

Or have you already learnt one of the most important lessons of your life?

Cherish your friends and never lose yourself. Don't fight when you are drunk. Respect your parents. To write when it's good, when it's bad, when you want to disappear. To write and to love, because only writing and love can save me.

What helps you the most in your journey? Who do you trust the most, if not yourself?

I have some very close friends who know that what I am doing is not a career or some kind of empty adventure.

When I'm too pale, they ask me to slow down, to stretch out somewhere.

In an interview you said that the birth of a song is a magical process. How would you describe this magical process in a few words? How do you feel when you write?

Dreams without sleeping are my method of songwriting.

First the music is born. Even before the summer started, I started writing down three musical ideas every day. This process ended in mid-September.

Then I listen to it all long and hard until I find the melodies that speak to me. Then I turn my eyes and the words are already there.

When did you realise you could write texts? Were your first lyrics published?

I remember this moment very well. It was the first time after the coma. I picked up the guitar and wrote a song. After a while I realised that I hadn't even stopped thinking rationally. Not even for a second. That's when I realised that you don't have to write songs. They are already there...

Your lyrics are very open and personal. Was it difficult to be so vulnerable when you first started publishing them, especially when you didn't really know who your audience was?

I know it might sound pretentious as hell, but I really feel like I don't even write them sometimes. For me they are as open and personal as for anyone else. I learn a lot about myself from them, as strange as that may sound.

If you could turn your songs into a movie plot... Which song would you use to start the story, which one would be the climax and which one would be the climax of the whole film?

What a great question. I could come up with at least three options. It's true that those songs, those EPs are already films, with their beginnings, climaxes and endings.

My debut album will be a collection that will change everything once again from the ground up.

I guess you know the feeling of coming to a concert alone and sometimes feeling uncomfortable... But personally, I've noticed that even if you come to a concert alone, you get the impression that all your listeners are like one strong community where everyone can feel comfortable. That's one of the charms of being at your concerts. I don't know if you feel the same way, but I'm curious to know what kind of listener and audience you dreamed of at the beginning of your career, and what you see and feel now? How do these people affect you?

I often say that I'm happy to be part of all this. All these processes just take over. The songs, the stories, the melodies, the adrenaline, the faces, the voices.

Because of that transformation from the beginning to now, it has become clear to me later that people have never seen anything like this before and therefore do not know how to react. I'm not trying to be tougher than I really am, to pretend to be something and so on. If I'm scared, I tell how scared I am, what motivational videos I've watched so that I don't die before the concert, if I'm feeling good, my hands are in the air and I'm screaming like a child, I even cried once.

It's important to sing well, but it's even more important to be real. To be there in your mind, in that moment.

I've heard it many times that the atmosphere of Junior A solo concerts is unique. I believe that I feel the same as the audience, but whether that is really true I will probably never know.

You've released four EPs. A fifth, "Spa Day", was recently released. How important is it for you to be productive and keep the rhythm?

In the summer of 2016, I tried making electronic music for the first time. I had never made or listened to electronic music before. Then "Sleep Machine" happened, and it all started (The first single "Sleep Machine" was played on BBC Radio 1 and made it to the USA Viral Top 50 playlists on Spotify - ed.). I'm just doing what I love, learning and trying not to go crazy. That's all.

Could it be said that certain phases of your life, once begun and now ended, are given meaning in the form of EPs?Do you let go of the past stages of your life and the EPs you have created and completed easily?

My life is encapsulated in those songs, it helps me move forward. The past is the past, even I am starting to understand that. On the other hand, all the old songs are like a time machine. When I play it, I go back to the twelve-square-metre flat where I wrote "Sleep Machine", the house in Žvėrynas where "Paper Planes" was born, the flat of my friends Sauliaus and Beata where "Corolla" was born, etc. It's a strange but wonderful feeling.

If you could interview yourself, what question would you ask and how would you answer it?

Considering that you care so much about words, Tautvydas, do you already know the title of your debut album?

Not yet, but I have no doubt that it will be amazing, just like the album itself.

Photo: Ieva Budzeikaitė

Published: swo.lt

#junior a #interview #spa day #music #senioryears #fcbaseball

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