When summer is coming I begin my lookout for fun, happy, energetic, summer-sounding music. You know the kind of thing — no deep morose subject matter or scathing social commentary but lively, fresh, animated music. Tunes that make you smile, that make your heart smile, too. Tunes that inspire you to feel young, vital, and eager for activity. I was thrilled to find Willie Herath (pronounced like Harris with a lisp), whose self-described “nod your head beach rock” is the epitome of summer music.
Barenaked Ladies mixed with Jack Johnson, doing the Funky Chicken with Fountains Of Wayne — and it is a perfect reflection of the man who makes it. Best known for the numerous commercials he has been in, Willie is now pursuing his music, with the release of his debut album Cohgie Never Landed.
Willie seems to be a typical Southern California guy — except that he is from Illinois — physically active, enthusiastic, and spiritual. And his music mirrors his life. It’s the only music I can imagine listening to when camping on the beach after a day of lobster diving — a hobby of Willie’s — cooking over an open fire, and singing songs. He was born and raised on a farm in Illinois. His first exposure to Southern California was during a family vacation to Los Angels when Willie was 12. He says “I didn’t really like it too much. The tourist stuff back then was dirty and way to expensive.” He assures me it is a much nicer place to visit now.
At 14 he found a box of his dad’s old Beach Boys records and inspired by the beachy tunes he heard, Willie began to take guitar lessons and shortly after began writing songs. And in his acoustic-type, singer-songwriter style of music you can feel the influences of the Beach Boys — breezy musical mixes with buoyant lyrics and Willie’s lively, guileless vocals being the perfect accompaniment for this imponderable music.
Willie and I sat down recently for an early morning chat and we talked about lobster diving, and of course his music and debut album Cohgie Never Landed as well as everything else under the sun.
Why are you taking the music road when you are already a successful commercial actor?
Well, it’s kind of like, why do people like to have a glass of water when they eat? It’s just one of those things for me. I feel like I have to be diverse in what I do, in order to keep myself content and focused in life. I think acting is just great! I think music is great! I think that people always want to label entertainers as what they feel they should be.
So, you’re an actor, or a singer kind of thing.
Yeah. As an entertainer I just feel blessed to be able to do both. I don’t really consider myself to be one or the other. I don’t really pull my identity from what I do for a living. I think my identity is more who I am as person, and who my family are and who my friends are as opposed to what I do to make money.
You write all the lyrics and music that you play but you have put together a band to play with you, correct?
Yeah, uh-huh. I have been in bands before and it’s always been great until somebody’s life changes. And that’s just the way it is with bands. You play with people and then this or that happens, somebody has to move or somebody has to get a full time job or they get married and then the band is no longer what you formed. So when I decided to start doing music this time around, I decided “you know what, I’m going to be myself, I’m going to be Willie Herath, I’m going to be a solo artist. And then I’m going to find some really great guys that believe in me, who believe in my music.” I give them, obviously, a percentage or a portion of the licensing and the royalties to the album as well, like it is a real band but if some of the guys come and go through out the years there’s no confusion.
Tell us about your band.
My lead guitarist is named Rob Heskin and he is a really great guy. He is from Colorado. He is trained in classical performance – he got a degree in that from Colorado State University. He is a really, really, fun guy and he and I have actually become great friends over the years playing together. He and I just went to Butler University last week and played a show. We did an acoustic show so it was just him and I and acoustics. It was fun, I like hanging out with him a lot.
My drummer is named Jordan Hill. I actually met him about a year and a half ago here in L.A. and he is also from Illinois, my home state. We didn’t know each other back home; we met once we got to L.A. He’s a really great guy, he’s a family guy, he’s married and he’s got a kid as well. He is a great drummer. He actually wrote all the drum parts to Cohgie Never Landed. What I did, I had recorded the album in its current state to a click track, then I burned it all to a CD. So basically the same thing you have now but with a metronome in the background. And then I mailed it to him and he threw on his headphones and got on his drum set at home and just started adding really cool drum parts to it.
My bass player, his name is Jeremiah James and he is also a musician. He is a really great musician. He does a mix between Blink 182 and Foo Fighters, that kind of stuff. He is a great friend of mine. I met him out here in L.A. but he is a Minnesota boy. So literally everybody from my band is midwest or Colorado. Nobody’s from Los Angeles at all. We all just gel, we get along really good, and all go on weekend trips.
When you write a song what is your focus musically? Is it the lyrics, or the melody, the harmonies?
When I feel inspired about something I usually sit down with my guitar and try to find a good chord progression. At that point I either know what the song is going to be about – because I am thinking about lyrics – or I have an emotion that I need to just get off my chest. So once I figure out a good chord progression, then what I do is I start humming different melodies along to that chord progression. And then once I have a good melody stuck in my head — that I’m not going to forget — then I start to do thick babbling, kind of like jibber-jabber; where it almost sounds like words but it’s not really words. Then I record it to my tape deck, I have a little tape deck that I keep close to me all the time.
I write the whole song in jibber-jabber and when I go back through and listen to it I just sit flat on my back, in the room, with my eyes closed and just listen to what it sounds like; the emotion and tone the feel of what I was trying to convey. That’s usually when I feel inspired and I start to write the lyrics. And at that point the song is done. Sometimes it can take me just listening to the song twice, to get the whole song finished and then sometimes it can take me a year to finish a song.
I always feel like… it’s kind of like when a miner finds a lump of diamond. The diamond is there, it’s just cutting off all the junk to get to the diamond. That’s how I feel about all of my songs. I feel like they are all already in me, in here, I just have to cut out all the stuff that doesn’t work, until I find the finished product.
It’s surprising that you don’t start with the lyrics.
Yeah, that is unusual. I’ve had people tell me that before. I usually start with an emotion and that emotion turns into whatever is on my heart at the time. Like, for example, “Come Home” – the third song on the album – if I hadn’t been in such a low emotional state and I had just gotten into an argument with my wife and it just kind of came out. I’m not saying that I don’t ever write lyrics at the same time or before, but 99 percent of the time I usually write the lyrics last.
How long has your album, Cohgie Never Landed been out? It’s your debut album, correct?
Yes it’s my debut, first full album and I just finished it in July. I have done a bunch of different EPs and demos but nothing was over like five songs.
Tell me about the title? Can you explain who is Cohgie and why didn’t he land?
Actually Cohgie was a name I was thinking we could possibly name my son. But my wife didn’t like it.
I don’t blame her! (laughing)
(laughing) It’s a good name! It’s a good name. Needless to say I decided to name my album that instead.
If you would like to learn more about Willie Herath you can visit his website, where you can even view some of his commercials. You can hear some of the tracks from his debut album Cohgie Never Landed too, or visit his MySpace space. Cohgie Never Landed is also available to download from iTunes.
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