As a follow up to his April 2015 album release of ok, night, Micah Visser’s new single “I Will Not Return As A Tourist” came out in November of last year. The 19-year old will be embarking on his second tour, headed East on March 17th. The last night of the tour is a homecoming show on March 30th at The Good Will Social Club; Visser hopes that, for his city, this homecoming performance will be his best yet.
Visser is a compelling and thoughtful individual, qualities that translate not only to his music, but also into the reaches of all he composes and shares. On a frigid, sunny Winnipeg day, Stylus sat down with him for a chat.
Stylus: There has been growth in your sound from the album ok, night to your new single, what has been the most exciting thing about this process?
Micah Visser: Being able to take more of a producer role in my music than a musician role. In ok, night I was constantly fighting everything that I needed to record because I didn’t have proper set up. At the time I was going to a recording school so I would sneak into the recording studio to record vocals and I would just be in this super expensive recording booth with my computer and my little stuff and recording like that. It turned out pretty good considering the circumstances but there were some drawbacks and I always felt like I was working in spite of the things I had at my disposal instead of working with them.
On this new album I had grant money and a band I trusted. I was working with Ryan McPhae, an engineer at the recording school I went to, and there’s no one else I’d rather have worked with. It was a really awesome and collaborative experience. Individually everybody is better at what they are doing than I am, I have the idea for these songs and record them the way I used to, playing all the instruments, but then I take them to the band and say “ok here’s the song, everybody make this way better” and they do. I could just step back and describe what I wanted to happen in a more abstract way…it was really fun for me and it makes for better music.
Stylus: What really strikes me about your social media presence is your blog entries. How long ago did these begin and why did you decide to start writing them?
MV: I don’t do them often, I only do them when I feel like there’s something I really want to say but I can’t say through other outlets. I wrote one in November after I got back from tour and I was thinking of a lot over that tour about why I was making music and I don’t just want it to be narcissistic. I feel like, so often with music and solo projects especially, there’s so much narcissism tying it all together and I really don’t want it to be that, ever. I want music primarily to be something for other people that makes other people feel good and I can take my own experiences and turn it into something positive.
Stylus: You leave for your second tour on March 17th, what are you looking forward to on this tour and what are your hopes for future tours?
MV: The last tour I went on was a really good opportunity for me to be analytical about how I was playing and the way I was performing. I used to get really nervous and lock up before I would perform, and worry about the way I looked when I was playing music and not looking weird and stuff like that. Then on tour, you have 7 shows back to back, you stop being nervous and I guess I just stopped caring about that stuff. It just allowed me to free myself from getting into my head too much when I’m playing, do what I do and not really care how it looks. I’m hoping more of that for this next tour because there’s always space to improve. Everybody gets better and tighter when you’re playing the music. That’s why I put the homecoming tour at the end and not the beginning.
Stylus: What is your hope for your future in music?
MV: I realize that music can really be a viable thing and I decided to pursue it really seriously and go for it as much as I could. So I gave myself 2 years and in that time I want to see if it can become a viable option. I really want to have a similar impact on people that artists have had on me. Music can play such a profound part in your life and it seems really funny to me that just one person making music impacted me so much. Eventually getting to the point where my music could do something like that for somebody else is really exciting to me. It’s something that’s worth pursuing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3r3JMV_X-4