Writer and educator Clayton Perry, who has specialized in doing in-depth sit-down interviews with numerous musicians and artists, has now published his 2-part interview with Ms. Grey online.
Read an excerpt from the extensive interview, and click the title to view it in full!
Skylar Grey Interview w/ Clayton Perry | ClaytonPerry.com ::
Clayton Perry: With the recent release of The Buried Sessions of Skylar Grey, several songs from your songwriting catalog have been refashioned – and reincarnated, if you will – for a beautiful afterlife. What beauty have you found in the spirit of your acoustic takes? And when you reflect on the songs’ evolutions, what thoughts immediately come to mind?
Skylar Grey: I initially wrote these songs just as what I would personally do or sing as an artist. And then the fact that it got picked up by other people. It’s not like I wrote “Love the Way you Lie” for Rihanna. It’s just that it happened, and it’s really great, and I’m so grateful for it. But I think it’s cool, too, because being a songwriter, there’s like a different type of connection with the lyrics than somebody who’s been performing it. And the reason I called it The Buried Sessions was because of the raw sessions of the songs in their pure form, before they got taken to these great heights with these amazing other artists. And I just think it’s cool to see the whole evolution of the song.
Clayton Perry: As a songwriter and instrumentalist, examine the influence production and instrument selection has on the vibe and spiritual mood of a song, in regards to Kaskade’s remixes of your new song, “Room for Happiness.”
Skylar Grey: Well, when I wrote that song it started as the Fire Mix, and Kaskade had the concept to make his album Fire and Ice, so that there was two different mixes of each song. And I had nothing to do with the production of the Ice Mix, but he sent it to me with live strings and some kind of piano. And it blew me away, first of all, to hear Kaskade do a production like that. And then also just to hear how even when I wrote the song and I sang with a certain amount of emotion, but when you’re distracted by pumping beats, you sometimes don’t listen to all the emotion in the vocal. So when he stripped it back, it became a whole different animal and it was really, really interesting to me. And I think that as all the other songs that I wrote with hip-hop people, there’s a place for all of it. Like, I was driving on the PCH listening to the Fire Mix and it was just like a more feel good way to listen to it, whereas the Ice Mix kind of makes me want to cry.
Clayton Perry: Speaking of things that you live by, is there a guiding philosophy or life event that made you write: “Sometimes it’s worse to have lost than to have never had at all, because it’s a curse to feel love and to feel it all dissolve”? Is there any particular inspiration behind this quote?
Skylar Grey: No. I mean, sometimes if you never experience something, you don’t even realize what you’re missing. But then when you experience that thing and it goes away, it feels like a piece of you is gone. Like, if I had never met this person that I just lost, just for example, maybe I wouldn’t feel empty now because, you know, I wouldn’t even know what I was missing. But after having experience with that person, and then losing them, it’s like you feel empty and that’s all that line meant.
You can also check out a January 23 portrait of Ms. Grey, taken at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival by Victoria Will. Click below to view the image full-size!
Skylar Grey – Sundance 2012 Portrait | Victoria Will ::
(JAN-2012).jpg "Skylar Grey - Sundance 2012 Portrait | Victoria Will")
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-01(wKaskade)(HauteLiving).jpg "Skylar Grey & Kaskade @ Marquee, February 4 | Haute Living")
.png "\"Room For Happiness (PIXL Remix)\" Preview | SoundCloud")
.png "\"Room For Happiness (Feenixpawl Remix)\" Preview | SoundCloud")
.jpg "\"Room For Happiness (Gregori Klosman Remix)\" Preview | SoundCloud")
.jpg "Skylar Grey - Sundance 2012 Portraits | Zimbio")
-01(Idolator).jpg "Skylar Grey & Kaskade @ Sundance 2012 | Idolator 1 of 2")
-02(Idolator).jpg "Skylar Grey & Kaskade @ Sundance 2012 | Idolator 2 of 2")
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