06 | Your Music Doesn’t Rely On Your Gadgets with Leigh Gardener

Through The Creative Door

In this episode, Perth-based songwriter and creator of the series “Tender Is The Night,” Leigh Gardener, joins Alexis to share insights into his creative journey. From his experiences coordinating ensembles to his innovative approach to songwriting, Leigh offers a candid look at his creative process. He reflects on the importance of finding a creative space, sharing anecdotes about his trusty desk that has been a constant companion throughout his musical endeavours.

Leigh also discusses the genesis of the “Tender Is The Night” music series, born out of a desire to support fellow musicians during challenging times. Through this project, Leigh bridges the gap between contemporary music and classical composition, providing artists with the opportunity to hear their songs transformed by string arrangements.

However, Leigh's creative journey hasn't been without its challenges. He opens up about his struggles with mental health and the realization that his approach to songwriting was taking a toll. Despite setbacks, Leigh remains resilient, seeking healthier ways to channel his creativity and offering valuable advice to fellow artists (like you!).

If you’d like to see more, you can follow on Instagram @chuditchmusic OR @tenderisthenight_music

This episode was recorded on 29 October 2023 on the lands of the Wajuk Peoples. We hope that this episode inspires you as a creative person and as a human being.

Thanks for listening, catch you on the next episode.

Psst! We are always on the lookout for creative people to share their story and inspire others. Have you got someone in mind who would love to have a chat? Get in contact with us via Instagram @throughthecreativedoor

Links:

Grasping At The Water by Chuditch - https://open.spotify.com/track/45G9QOQvNEDStAiqrumD9D?si=a0d222dafc6a4a56

Music Video to Grasping at the Water - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Da5zJwzbpc

Let’s get social:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/throughthecreativedoor/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ttcdpodcast

CREDITS

Created and Hosted by Alexis Naylor

Music by Alexis Naylor & Ruby Miguel

Edited and Produced by Ruby Miguel

—------------------------------------------------

00:08 - Alexis (Host)

Hi, my name is Alexis Naylor and I am your host here at Through the Creative Door. On behalf of myself and my guests, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. We pay our respects to all First Nations people and acknowledge Elders, past and present. On this podcast, I will be chatting to an array of creative guests, getting a glimpse into their worlds and having some honest and inspiring conversations along the way. Welcome to Through the Creative Door.

Hi Leigh,

00:48 - Leigh (Guest)

Hi!

00:49 - Alexis (Host)

How you going?

00:50 - Leigh (Guest)

I'm good, how are you?

00:51 - Alexis (Host)

Welcome to Through the Creative Door.

00:54 - Leigh (Guest)

Thank you for having me.

00:55 - Alexis (Host)

Oh, my goodness, I'm so excited that you're here. You are such a talented bear. You do lots of things, thank you very much. Lots and lots of things, things that people might not see all the time.

01:07 - Leigh (Guest)

No, probably not no.

01:09 - Alexis (Host)

No.

01:10 - Leigh (Guest)

And that's sometimes a good thing.

01:11 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, yeah. You have been part of heaps of different ensembles over the years, so you were a very accomplished musician yourself, and you've also seen how the industry works and given back in lots of different ways. Why I wanted to chat to you is because, all of that stems from creativity and I would be curious to know what, for you, is a creative space.

01:45 - Leigh (Guest)

Yeah, look, I think that's all I have going for me in a lot of ways is because I wouldn't really even consider myself a musician.

02:01 - Alexis (Host)

Which I find very hard to believe, considering that you play so many things.

02:07 - Leigh (Guest)

No, I enjoy marking around on them, but I feel like my niche has more been coordinating other people that are creative as well in some ways. Well, that's what I think everything has sort of led me to. That's that, like, I still love creating for myself, but I think yeah, it's a weird one I don't necessarily think. I still don't feel like I understand music at all. I hid my masters of theory books that were up on this and I just hid them because I was like I don't want people to see that I'm still trying to do level one. But yeah, no, we're all still learning.

02:56 - Alexis (Host)

But yeah, no, we're all still learning.

02:58 - Leigh (Guest)

Yeah, we are, we are. But I guess you know it's. I think that's what I've found. Like I have ideas and then I am good at trying to make them come to fruition. I think that's been my strength in this industry. Yeah, I think that's and that's. Yeah, you're going to be comfortable with what your strengths are.

03:21 - Alexis (Host)

That's true. That's true, and we're in your little. I don't want to say dungeon, but.

03:26 - Leigh (Guest)

It's been said before

03:30 - Alexis (Host)

It has been said before. But this is your office, your, your space.

03:35 - Leigh (Guest)

Yeah, I guess when you sort of said that I you know what is your creative space. I have been living the share house life for 18 years, I reckon at least since I finished high school pretty much and I was trying to think like where is there a specific place that I feel creative and I couldn't really pin down an exact thing. I think one of the things I really love about being creative are those Eureka moments, those things that come from being unplanned, that just sort of. And it's a detriment to me as well, because I feel like a lot of my songwriting I rely on that feeling to feel like I'm doing something good, whereas I think good creatives don't wait for that feeling. They just work. It's like a job, they just sort of work through things, they wait for inspiration and stuff, but they don't have to feel this massive elation to be like, oh, I'm doing something, that's good. They just consistently work at it.

04:50

But I could say that I guess I felt for the consistent thing I've had for 18, those 18 years and probably longer is actually this desk. This desk belonged to my great grandfather and then it was my dad's and then, I reckon, since I was about eight or nine. We had some refurbishments in my house and this desk was sort of shoved into the bedroom that me and my brother had and you can see there's like holes in it from where extra shelves were added like alarm clocks and stuff, and all down the front of the drawers there are stickers that came from. Do you remember, like those scholastic book fairs?

05:38 - Leigh(Guest)

That came to the libraries and stuff. I think I bought a sticker book or something and it was all around. I think it was the Atlanta Olympics in 2006 or something.

05:48 - Alexis (Host)

Oh yeah, I see gold medals.

05:50 - Leigh(Guest)

Gold medals and country flags and all this rubbish. So it stuck with me. I've dragged it around to pretty much every share house that I've lived in. This desk has gone with me and it's kind of this drawer here at the bottom. I've decided to repurpose it but for I reckon since I was probably 15, 16, when I started to be a songwriter, I used to, whenever I'd have those little Eureka moments, I would write the lyrics down on a piece of scrap paper and it would go into this drawer and then when I would have a song idea or when I'd finally had sort of a melody or a chord progression, I would start pulling out all those little slips of paper and start jigsawing the lyrics together. And that's how I've kind of always worked as a songwriter is sort of having little ideas and almost trying to fit them together, and I don't know if I would recommend it as a songwriting technique. I know INXS used it.

07:02

They said they used to use like a washing basket or something and they would fill that up.

07:08 - Alexis (Host)

I think there's a mod. I swear I've heard on the grapevine there's a modern band who has a spreadsheet and they have little bits that they put in as well.

07:17 - Leigh (Guest)

Well, I mean nowadays I use my phone and that's I always put my. I have a couple of notes where it's just ideas, but yeah, for a long time they went into that drawer and then I'd pull them out and they were the most disgusting scraps of paper. Yeah, a lot of my early songwriting ideas came because I grew up on a dairy farm. It would happen when washing down the yard, at the end of milking or during often during milking, because you'd be singing little songs in your head or just thinking about life in general or anything. And you know it's something that I've sort of picked up.

08:01

You know I really love watching documentaries and stuff, but I think being bored Paul Kelly said being bored was a really important part of being a songwriter or being creative is having that time where there's nothing else interesting you. And I know Elliot Smith, he used to love working really boring, laborious jobs like plastering or making mud for bricklaying or something like that. I think he used to do a lot of those sorts of labour jobs where you could be incredibly repetitive and not actually put much thought into what you're doing and that way you had space to be somewhat creative but also you weren't exhausting your mind during the day.

08:47 - Alexis (Host)

I can empathize with that. I find, when I do long-haul drives.

08:53 - Leigh (Guest)

Yeah, yeah I do love driving. I used to love. I, yeah I often people sort of go why don't you put the radio on when you're driving? It's like that's the best time. It's just having some science. But the frustrating part is when you do have an idea and then you have to somehow get it down and sometimes rocked up to places. I've got scribble notes my thighs. Yeah, I've written it like just grabbed a pen written it on my thigh as I'm driving or when you get to a traffic light or something like that.

09:21 - Alexis (Host)

I've definitely had to pull up. I'll be like doing a hundred and ten somewhere and having to like pull straight up so I can do a voice memo.

09:28 - Leigh (Guest)

I think, yeah, I think it's more scary when you've actually got a melody idea, because then it's, you can write down words. But you know, having all those that's a lot harder to remember. I think. Well, for me anyway.

09:39

No, I can't so yeah, I guess, if we're gonna talk about some sort of consistent space, this, this desk, would be one. When, when I had my first band, Louis and The Honky Tonk, and we used to do a lot of artwork, I quickly realized why am I paying other people to try and come up with band posters and stuff? Just make it yourself. Not really realizing, I was totally and totally am and still quite inept with like any sort of photoshopping or anything like that.

10:12 - Alexis (Host)

So, off the back of that, you have done so many things and I'm sure you will continue doing so many things, but is there a body of work or something that you're the most proud of creating, and how did it come about?

10:25 - Leigh (Guest)

if we were talking about me as an artist, I would say this song Grasping At The Water. I felt like I got it was it was. I just felt like I got most things right with it. Like the chord progression is very easy and that's because I did it. The drums are very simple, but I just got the right people to do them and that they sort of took something very simple and made it interesting, which I think is really, I think the listeners really like. I think people like that, you know, not that it's had any massive traction or anything, but I think there's really something to something being very simple but done in a way that makes it interesting, rather than, you know, if you do try and do something simple that sounds complicated or something that sounds simple and is simple, it just doesn't quite get people. But if it's something that's, yeah, simple but interesting, or I think the flip side of that, you have to do something that's complicated that sounds simple. But I was very proud of that song.

11:34 - Alexis (Host)

I mean, and the accompanying music video.

11:40 - Leigh (Guest)

Yeah, that worked out particularly well as well. It’s funny, the video is of me somewhat getting, I get shaved and I get my teeth brushed and, but it's all done through the lens of almost a Instagram filter and there's people commenting and the comments would affect what the hands coming into the footage would be doing to me. I guess that's the one of the not a flaw. But the song was written as a sort of description. It was meant to be a metaphor for how, in particular through social media, it was hard to do anything right, like anything you tried to do, there'd be people that would disagree with you, and in writing the song, I sort of set up a metaphor of it. You know, in particular, I felt you know women.

12:27

It was particularly hard to be able to do anything correct, like it's a pretty difficult space and women probably get criticized far more than men in that space, you know, unfairly, in particular. If we’re being selfish, that's a creative thing that I'm very proud of. I guess on a bigger scale, the Tender Is The Night music series. Like that came about during COVID lockdowns, when a bunch of friends of mine who were composers and string players had 12 months of work cancelled because no one knew if it was going to happen or what was going to work. And some of them had mortgages and stuff and they're just freaking out.

13:16

And everyone was coming together as a community and really trying to help. And I was being a bit extremely naive, like thinking back and just going you're an idiot. But I had, you know, a few thousand dollars in my account and in my savings account and I was, like, you know, I've had this idea for a little while. After working with Beck on having strings on my songs, I was thinking, you know, I feel like that's something everyone, every musician, really wants to do is have that, you know, Nirvana unplugged moment where you're getting to play with string players and stuff, or The Verve Bittersweet Symphony, you know, like we all think of. It's a really kind of, it's something that almost feels out of reach to, I think, contemporary artists having a quartet play your music.

14:04 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, such a special feeling and sound that yeah, unless, of course, someone's going to encourage you to go into that space, perhaps. Yeah a little, like you said, a little out of reach.

14:16 - Leigh (Guest)

It does, and I guess. So I decided to commission a few composer friends to write some music, and it just grew into a small little show with Tanaya Harper, who was amazing. And then we sort of went, oh wow, this, this works, maybe we should do another one. So we got another artist and then another artist and it just then, all of a sudden, another friend sort of took, took it to a council and said this looks like something you guys should be doing, like support these people.

14:50

And so now it's turned into you know, we're just entering our fourth season and still, you know, trying to support composers and, you know, upcoming composers and string players, and but also giving this opportunity to contemporary musicians to to have their music with a quartet and hear it in a different way. An what I think I really like, what I really like about strings is you can hear what people are still saying. You like so that the message of their words which is what I'm really passionate about with music was, to start with, was the words that still comes across, and and often the strings really enhance what's trying to be said.

15:37 - Alexis (Host)

They’re so emotive.

15:41 - Leigh (Guest)

Yeah, they are, they're incredibly emotive. So, yeah, I feel like that's being particularly as it sort of came for me at a really important time in my life where I didn't feel like I was contributing so the music community anymore, and I didn't know how I was going to contribute, going forward, it, it sort of it came as a real blessing. So I feel like it's something that's bigger, way bigger than me now and way more important than then just my feeling good about myself and helping those friends. It's, it's, you know, it's something special.

16:19 - Alexis (Host)

So flipping that coin on it's head yeah. Has there been a time or a season that has challenged your creativity, and what was the major lesson?

16:37 - Leigh (Guest)

I still haven't got the lesson out of it, maybe. Okay, still something I'm working on. I had some mental health struggles and I kind of realized that the way that I was trying to write songs, having those Eureka moments, wasn't healthy for my mental health. I was ruminating a lot on things that were going on in my life and I guess to me those song lyric parts and what part of the reason probably why I like Grasping At the Water is, I felt like they were really complete lyrics and said exactly what I was feeling or what would I was trying to say. But in doing that I was having was ruminating on things that weren't healthy to ruminate on for a long periods of time. I was being very self-critical and very harsh on myself, maybe, and it just wasn't healthy, and so the realization was I can't keep putting myself In that position to create art. So I sort of walked away. Not well, I had it, didn't walk away. I finished a few songs and I definitely finished them from a healthier position, but they still probably aren't incredibly healthy songs.

17:56

After Grasping The Water, I released Cue The Violins, which is pretty much exactly about what I'm saying is like cue the violins oh, you know you're feeling sad, you know like, but it was all about I've got something that I need to talk to someone about, you know, and I guess there was somewhat a bit of a guilt about talking about your feelings and but you know the song, the first line, so “I want to separate the fiction from my fate.” You know that, that fiction that I was creating in my head to almost work myself into a state where I felt comfortable with those lyrics, that I felt they were good enough to be in a song, you know, but in a way I was creating a fate for myself that wasn't really where I wanted to go. So I had to sort of stop that and I've sort of said to myself I need to discover a way of a more healthy relationship with writing songs.

18:56 - Alexis (Host)

It brings me into my next question. Yeah, is there an object or a thing that you can't live without when you create?

19:07 - James (Guest)

To me, I've have one of these in my hands quite a lot especially if I'm bored,

19:11 - Alexis (Host)

For those who are listening, it is a cricket ball.

19:17 - James (Guest)

And I'll spend a lot of time leaning back in my chair just throwing it into the air, watching the seam rotate, as if I'm, you know, bowling a ball to swing, yeah, and trying to get that into the right positions.

19:30 - Alexis (Host)

But just, perhaps, maybe that's your object that keeps you I don't know grounded while you're yeah, I think.

19:36 - Leigh (Guest)

Well, it's like I said about the Paul Kelly thing about being bored and you know, maybe when you're trying to think something over, just having some something, that I find it really hard to just stay in one spot. If I’m being creative, I like to be walking, moving sometimes, and sometimes that's good, but sometimes if you're trying to finish something, it's counter-intuitive.

20:01

And you know, if you just need to stay at your computer for a moment, like sometimes, like alright, I'm just going to throw a ball for a moment and it’ll, keeps you in your seat, keeps you from getting up yeah, I love that.

20:13 - Alexis (Host)

Off the back of that, if you could give one piece of advice, nugget of advice to another creative. What would it be?

20:23 - Leigh (Guest)

In some ways I think you really need to be like laser, laser beam focused. Like I said, I've got lots of gear and some.

20:35

I reckon that takes up a huge amount of space in my head and always has for some reason, like I've always had a bit of an obsession with the gear and you know you'd go on pages and look up what guitar pedal someone's using or how what guitar amps they're using, and then it turned into an obsession about microphones and like reading up on studios and recording. And you know, buying gear and to buy gear you have to keep working and so you get a job that pays well. And then you know I got into drums. So I started buying heaps of drums and all this sort of stuff, all this sort of stuff. But the truth is it's not important and, you know, stupidly, my dad's not a musician but he told me that it's very early on. It's like you don't need that to do what you're doing. You know, but he's just, he's just as bad. He's always going through the Farm Weekly which is the magazine that you'd get every fortnight or something looking at tractors and the latest you know, machinery and stuff.

21:37

So I probably got it from him to be honest but he was, you know he was probably trying to be honest with me. It's like, do you actually need that to do what you're going to do? And it feels good to have a nice guitar in your hands, it feels good to have drums and they can be inspiring, but it doesn't stop you from writing a song. Having a, being in a fancy studio doesn't necessarily stop you from recording. So that leading into, like having that laser focus on what it is exactly you're trying to do.

22:09

And you know I also flip side saying you know, going into producing, so producing shows, going into trying to manage a band that you're in, trying to, and I've worked in the music industry as a stage manager and a backline manager and a guitar tech and a sound person they're all great things and they're all things that stem from that love of music.

22:34

But they take you away from, maybe, what you were trying to do to start with and you spend too much time, you spend your weekends doing stuff for other people. Sometimes you get so caught up in what you think you are and what you think you're trying to do that you don't hear what the world's actually saying. Actually, you're really good at this, you know that's what you should be focusing on, so that could in some ways that could take you away from what you really should, what that laser focus, but in some, but in some ways it's really important to be open to those other possibilities because they will lead you to who you maybe you actually are and what you are actually good at. I don't know if that was a great answer.

23:28 - Alexis (Host)

It's a great answer. I love it. I love it. One last question if you could have anyone come on to the podcast next and answer these questions, who would they be and why?

23:39 - Leigh (Guest)

Ian Grandage, who is like the Perth Festival director. I guess he would be pretty amazing because not only is he a classical composer, but he's now sort of been curating a festival and I think that that would be incredibly like so, so freaking hard, and I you know, it'd be amazing to know how he does that

24:05 - Alexis (Host)

Well, I'll see what I could do. Maybe he’ll be on a future podcast.

24:09 - Leigh (Guest)

Who knows?

24:10 - Alexis (Host)

Leigh, thank you so much for speaking on Through The Creative Door with me

24:14 -Leigh (Guest)

No worries, thank you so much for considering me.