Chords for Interview: Gregory Alan Isakov - Singer /Songwriter

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_ [A] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] Hey Zing, what are you doing?
_ [A] I am [G] getting ready to see Gregory Alan [A] Isikoff tonight at the Imperial in [D] Vancouver.
And as though that's not exciting enough, [G] he has agreed to do a little pre-show interview with me in [A] just about a half an hour.
[Bm] So that's pretty exciting.
[G] And [D] Sted is clearly pretty excited too.
Gregory Alan [G] Isikoff is a singer-songwriter, folk musician.
[D] He was [A] born [E] in Johannesburg, [G] South Africa, but he currently lives in Colorado.
[D] And he's currently on tour and is in Vancouver right [G] now.
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Man!
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[Eb] [Ab] I [Eb] _ [Bb] [Ab] just come [Gm] to talk St.
[Cm] Valentine.
[Bb] _ [Eb] [Ab] I never pictured [Eb] you living here with [Bb] the rats in the [Bb] vines.
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[Bb] _ [Ab] [Eb] Hello?
_ [Cm] _ [Bb] _ [Eb] [Bb] Hey, it's Zane from [Ab] Van Arts.
How's it [Fm] going?
Great thanks, how about you?
[Gm] Good thanks.
Great.
I'm going to keep this super brief.
I know you have to be on stage in just a couple of hours.
So let's get right to it.
So we had to add a second show here in Vancouver, that's tonight.
And you're all sold out in Calgary as well.
Do you think that there's a reason that you have such a prominent Canadian following?
I don't know.
We don't get [Fm] a chance to come up there very much.
Every time we've played up there, I love it.
For some reason we [N] just haven't had too many shows in Canada.
So just lack of exposure I guess.
Yeah, I don't know.
And when and why did you start creating music?
You know, I've always played music, probably since I was a kid.
Because I felt like I had to.
It was my [Bb] release of art, the way I [N] see the world, the way I deal with the world.
I never thought I'd get to play it in front of other people.
I'm still kind of getting used to that.
[E] That's still a little bit mind-blowing.
[Gm] But yeah, I think I've always written songs and played.
[E] I kind of only started playing outside of my kitchen probably.
[Eb] Right before my first record came out in 2007.
Now you also have a passion for the outdoors and you studied horticulture.
Did you ever take a break from music to do so?
Or did the two things coexist nicely?
I kind of mainly [N] did that.
I got jobs at these farms in Colorado in the wintertime.
Really cool owners that owned the place where I was living.
I would kind of go on these little tours through Montana or Washington.
I wouldn't have to pay rent while I was gone.
And then I'd work the summer mostly.
I think music was something I was always a working garden.
For me, it was just something you did every day.
Is it difficult to sustain your farm while you're on tour?
It's a juggle.
I'm learning a lot about it.
We don't play a lot of festivals, so that helps.
I pretty much block off the main part of the season.
So mid-May to mid-October.
And then the rest of the year, we're pretty gone.
We're pretty much out.
You've always been a very prominent name on my playlist,
but you recently re-emerged with your performance and recording with the Colorado Symphony.
Can you tell me a bit about that process and what motivated it?
It was [F] a series of shows we did [E] with the Colorado Symphony.
We ended up doing about 14 [N] shows with different symphonies across the country.
It was amazing.
It took a lot of work [Em] writing the scores.
I think the scores took about six months to a year.
Kind of just [F] songs that we'd been playing live [N] and a couple new ones.
Originally, it was going to be a live show in Denver.
And [E] then we were [Abm] mixing it.
I did a [F] reference.
I referenced some rehearsal tapes, and I was like,
I like how these sound better.
So we went back last summer and recorded it again [G] in front of nobody.
I just liked how [E] you could hear the space.
So we ended up just recording all the songs, you know, again, live,
and then mixed it back at [Gm] our studio.
I was actually introduced to your new rendition of Amsterdam by the show Girls on HBO,
which I also hold to a very high regard of artistic integrity.
When you write your songs, do you think of them as soundtrack material from the get-go?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, [Bb] that's a really big goal of mine.
[Eb] It rarely happens.
I've always been interested in [Bb] that.
You know, like [Eb] whenever I'm watching a movie, I'm listening to the music all the time.
I love that collaboration.
♪ [Bb] On [Eb] the [Bb] road, [Ab] our [Bb] Amsterdam she [Eb] heard.
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[Bb] _ [Cm] _ [Bb] [Ab] Not a mile in the land, [Eb] she's waving her hand.
[Ab] Her [Bb] other [Eb] hand in mine.
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[Bb] [Cm] Now, [Eb] branching off of that, [Ab] and you're probably so [Eb] sick of hearing this,
I actually discovered [Ab] you through a McDonald's commercial in my sophomore year of university.
Can you tell [Eb] me a bit about that?
Because you had a bit of an interesting take on that in regards [Cm] to the proceeds.
[Eb] Oh, I never hear that.
That's awesome.
And [Cm] actually, [Ab] that commercial happened when we were up in Lee's Palace in [Eb] Ontario, in Toronto.
We played an opening set for Blind Pilot, and there's these two [Ab] filmmakers,
and they said, [Eb] hey, [Cm] we'd love to use one of your songs for a commercial we're working on.
And I was like, cool.
[Ab] And [Cm] they were like, well, you know, it's been hired to make it for [D] McDonald's.
And I was like, [Cm] I don't know about that.
I'm sort of [Eb] like an organic farmer.
That'd be kind of weird.
And they were like, well, this [Bb] is the budget.
It's kind of [Ab] a lot of money.
And [Eb] I was like, yeah, [Fm] it still feels kind of weird, but thank [Eb] you.
It's so nice.
[Dm] And [Eb] the band and I went home for [Cm] the winter, and [Eb] we were like, well, you know,
what if we just said yes and just did some cool [Cm] stuff with the proceeds?
So we ended up doing [Ab] it and donating a lot of the money to [Cm] all these organic farming companies
and organizations, and it ended up being really cool.
I loved it.
And not to [G] pressure you, but can we expect an album anytime soon?
Yeah, we've been working on one for a while.
I would say the past 500 or 600 years.
But yeah, we're working on it this [D] summer, trying to finish it this summer.
We've been [A] working on it for about a year.
Gotcha.
[G] And no [D] ETA on that, hey?
Yeah, I don't like to have one of those because it just it doesn't seem [G] productive.
[D] Because I know I'm going to work on it [D] every day.
And when it's done, I'll know it's done.
[G] It's done.
All right.
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