“I need to be inspired” is often a familiar mantra of us musicians when we want a new direction in our work or get in “creative mode” again.  We can take an active role into seeking it.  You could imagine the typical scene unfold: One would browse his/her music collection and listen to obligatory artists that have made “high artistic achievement” and “those that changed the world forever with music”.  You listen to their music with the hope that it will move you forward to achieve the same thing yourself.  Maybe you put on Dylan or The Beatles or maybe you put on Radiohead.  But as you grow as an artist yourself you realize that inspiration often comes unexpected or when you’re not looking for it.  It happens just because you are, well…living.  Day by day.  Hour by hour.  Currently, I am writing material for my new album (or next batch of songs because who knows the fate of albums anymore) and I’m finding that the unexpected inspiration hits me more and more. It’s the noise, sights and interactions of what is around me. The small things that make you see big ideas. It’s a beautiful thing. Here are a few scenarios that I have stumbled on recently for inspiration:

I want to be Tommy Lee.  Do let me explain!  I was tinkering about in my apartment cleaning and a recent live Motley Crue concert played on the TV.  Now, I was never a big fan of The Crue and saying I’m a casual fan would be pushing it.  However, I can say this: Tommy Lee on the drum kit was one of the most awesome things I have ever seen.  Besides being an amazing drummer, he’s a great performer. This guy REALLY loves what he does.  I could sense the 8-year-old boy he must have been, playing with such aspiration and big dreams to rule the world. Here he is all these years later and the happiness and heart was still there.  I remember thinking as I wiped off the dust off the television (and envision I’m in sweats and the hair in my pony tail at this point is half out and on the side of my head from cleaning all day), “Now this is exactly the kind of experience I want to give each and every fan of mine”.  An eternal happiness.  A permanent grin.  An association of happiness almost in a conditioned Pavlovian way:  See Tommy play=make fans smile.  See Lisa play=make the fans smile.  Ding!

One song that I have been completely obsessed with lately is “The Hardest Part” by Coldplay. Obsessed defined here as playing the song a few times a day in a row, to and from all locations that I walk to, on my ipod.  I always dug the song on the album “X & Y” but hearing the live (the free bee download from their past tour) stripped-down-piano-only version took it to new heights.  To me the chord changes, arrangement, emotional build and lyrics are at a level of perfection.  The theme is universal: moving on after lost love. We all experience this regardless of where we come from, live, grew up, bourgeois or pauper. It’s perplexing that a song can convey that.  I keep thinking who wouldn’t get this song?  You almost feel that the song was written for you because it fits so well. It’s about you.  So every time I begin to write a new song I think of “The Hardest Part” as inspiration to write a song that someone can connect to and feel it’s for them.

Recklessness and hair-in-your-face has always been a major draw for me to take up Rock n’ Roll.  Recently seeing the “Nirvana Live at Reading” DVD ad in a magazine reminded me, as if I saw the ribbon tied on my finger, the reason why I write music.  The image of Kurt Cobain suspended in air jumping put the pureness of rock back into my consciousness.  You can tend to forget or loose sight of it as you see more bands slicked up looking like a million bucks.  Protooled and airbrushed.  A mirage of flawlessness.  Nirvana was full of imperfections, wild untamed energy, and just raw.  They inspire me to abandon all perfections.  Which is in turn perfect (smile).  To roll with it and lead to where it goes.  These are some of the reasons why I learned to play guitar and what set me free.  There’s nothing like smashing your guitar into an amp and feed backing the hell out of it.  Symbolically, it’s like Neil Armstrong staking a US flag in the moon’s surface to declare “This moment is mine”.

It was only a few days ago I had a complete revelation.  I was simply returning home on the subway to my apartment.  Tired and dazed.  Taking a few head bobbing catnaps, being careful not to pass out onto the person to the left and right of me.  I just looked up and saw a 3 second flash of the latest ad from The Whitney museum.   Their new exhibit is “Georgia O’Keefe –Abstraction”.   I repeated those words:  Abstraction.  Hmmm.  Could that possibly be the new working title of my next album?  Right then and there I screamed in my head “Hell yeah!”  It rang so well.  But why?  No, I wasn’t going to write an abstract album with 10 minutes of meandering opuses, get overtly “art rock” and eliminate all guitars out of production. I thought “abstraction” was basically what songs are in a way.  They are an abstraction of a story meant to be interpreted by the listener.  I love that idea.  I went home and wrote it on my little white wash board on my fridge.  I see it everyday.  My daily affirmation.

That is my answer to what inspires me.  And looks like it can be anything anytime anywhere. So turn on, tune in and drop out.  Think, don’t think, pray, meditate, eat cookies, dream and maybe the next best song is in there.