Bill Ricchini Interview

Bill Ricchini - Tonight I Burn Brightly (2005, Transdreamer)


Opening with a beautiful lullaby and closing on a hopeful lament, Tonight I Burn Brightly is one of the year's best albums.

Bill was kind enough to do an interview. Here's what he had to say.


CTC: Bill, your new album, Tonight I Burn Brightly, has just been released. Your first album, Ordinary Time, was recorded at home. What was the experience like recording in a studio for the first time? Can you talk a little about what it was like working with producers Bryce Goggin and Britt Myers?

BR: Recording at home has its benefits. A record can slowly reveal itself to you over time. Its a less sterile environment than a studio and is recorded in the same environment someone will eventually listen to it in. It gives the songs a strength of atmosphere and built in intimacy, I think. The goal of making a studio record, something I at first had reservations about, was to capture the things I like about a home recording but also make the record more interesting sonically. I took a lot of time before I went in to record to really flesh out the arrangements yet also be happy to new ideas in the studio— like the country arrangement of “When the Morning Comes” and making “It’s A Story” more of a dance song. I learned that the same things I knew from Ordinary Time transferred to a “real” studio and it gave me the confidence day after day to make this album and more or less steer the ship in terms of arrangements, instruments, and composition. Bryce was great as a sort of capturere of the moment. He’s smart enough to know when something is working and he is also a master of sound (he engineered the Pavement album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain) with his background as an engineer. His studio in Brooklyn has all vintage gear, a huge keyboard arsenal and also he introduced me to Lee and Roy who were a great rhythm section— something that OT did not have. This record is much more fleshed out in a rhythmic sense. Britt mixed the albums and we did some more vocal overdubs there— lots of Beach Boys type stuff, harmonies, oohs and ahhs. The details that make a record really interesting, really gorgeous. He has great ears and I love his mix and the sounds he really carved for me out of thin air.

CTC: There was some early talk of this being a double album. Tonight is a very tight package. How many songs were left off the album?

BR: I wrote and gully demoed about 40 songs for Tonight I Burn Brightly. Many of those songs I still love but for this record I think it was more an exercise in economy. If this record has a theme it is 11 strong pop songs. Tonight I Burn Brightly has a fully demoed version which is somewhere between this and Ordinary Time. I think this was also a result of having 2 weeks in the studio. For my next album I would like to find more of a balance between recording my best songs, which I think I did, and also giving the record more room to breathe like a soundtrack with instrumentals and detours. At this time I wanted to make a record that was 11 strong songs from start to finish. I liked the idea of total focus, at other times I have liked the idea of more of a sprawling less disciplined work. There are arguments for each I suspect the next record will have elements of both. I have so much stuff on the shelf— from Jon Brion waltzes, to tin pan alley show tunes to folk guitar pop to bossa nova stuff.

CTC: "Eugene Hill" seems almost like a companion piece to the Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby." I've always felt that your character work was particularly strong. Can you talk a little about how much your music is inspired by personal experience and how much is fictional.

BR: Yes it is in a sense. "Eugene Hill" is more than the other a song about growing up in Philly and the idea that people need something in there lives to keep them going. For many people especially older people that is often religion. But I think religion is dying in the U.S. At least Catholicism is. But the whole parochialism of East Coast cities is strong. I think much of my music is emotionally true. I have felt these things but I don’t necessarily share those exact situations. I like the idea of storytelling but I can’t pull off the detached narrator thing. I'm too emotional for that and I feel like an emotional connection is what interests me more than being a cool customer. David Berman told me it’s better to “say something true than to say something cool.” I agree with him. And yes "Eugene Hill" is a character song, it is a church song, it is a bit of a companion to "Eleanor Rigby." But I amazingly did not really think that until about 5 minutes ago. I must be too close to it.

CTC: What are your top five favorite Albums of all time?

BR: Wow, this will change daily but:

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds/Friends (tie)
Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
The Beatles - Revolver/Rubber Soul (tie)
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead

CTC: Are you planning on doing extensive touring to support the album? I'd certainly like to see you out here in Los Angeles.

BR: I hope to. It’s about money at this point and how long I can afford to be out there. But I will be doing something

To learn more about Bill, check out http://www.billricchini.com/. To order Tonight I Burn Brightly or to purchase Ordinary Time, go to http://www.transdreamer.com/cart/index.htm.