Trevor Douglas releases new EP "Four In The Morning"
You've just played a show at the Hotel Café. How was it ?
I did, it was great! It was wonderful, it was really intimate. It was my first time playing this venue. The sound is one of the best sounds I've had in any LA show.
What can you tell us about your EP "Four In The Morning"?
It just came out. It was about one person, for the most part. I did it all myself. I produced it myself. It was such a big journey, I taught myself how to produce my music. I started out doing some covers, watching a lot of tutorials on Youtube on how to use Logic Pro. I started out on Garage Band on my phone and then I started doing Garage Band on the computer and then I got Logic. That's when I really started and getting good at it. And then I wanted to record my own music because I couldn’t rely on people to record my stuff. It costs money, and I don't have a lot of money. I'm a self-funded artist. I co-wrote "Hold Me" and "Dandelions". I'm really happy how these two turned out. But yeah, it was something I did on my own.
What are the different topics you are talking about on the EP?
It's a lot of underline shit that just kinda came out that I didn't know was there. Some of the songs like "Dandelions" - I kinda wrote half the song about me and the girl I was dating when I wrote the EP. This song goes from the four seasons, starting off with spring and summer where everything is happy, then fall when things are falling apart and then winter, everything is cold. That was depressing. I wrote the song and I ended up kinda writing the last two verses - fall and winter into existence. And then "Take This Back" - I wrote it as a happy song about going forward in our stuff but now I listen and I'm like "Oh that's really a breakup song".
It's pretty interesting to reexamine those songs because I started that EP about a year ago. I was working on it for almost a year and I feel like I'm totally a different person than who I was a year ago and that's a weird thing. To anybody else, that's my sound. That's who I am. But it doesn't feel like who I am anymore for the most part, because that part of my life closed. Artistically, the songs I'm working on right now are a lot different.
What was the hardest part about this EP?
I struggled with a couple of songs. Finding the right arrangements was the hardest because I recorded it myself. I spent so many hours. I did three different treatments of "Hold Me" before I finally settled on that particular version for the EP. Same thing with "Take This Back". The hardest part was the production. The songwriting was pretty quick for most of the songs. But getting the sound I want with my limited knowledge and having to find work around because I don't have the money to get the cool plugins, and finding out ways to get things. Also funding it was a really hard part. I had to pay people to master my EP. My music account was down to 80 cents and my life savings was down to 70 dollars. I really put my heart and soul to that thing so I'm really happy to see the positive impact it had on people and the result.
What does this EP mean to you?
It's my baby. I put so much time and attention and detail into this thing, I produced it all on my own. It's my introduction to the world. The last music I put out was like maybe in 2015. I recorded it maybe two years before that and I put it out right after American Idol so I could have some buzz. It was pretty bad. It wasn't the best.
I saw myself really grow when I started to have more struggles in my life, like not being able to fund it. I've always wondered if I would have been as good as I am right now if I had money, a financial backing to do what I want to do because it costs money. Last time I was here in LA, I was paying to stay in someone's trailer and that's where I wrote a lot of my songs. I really feel like the struggle is what really improved me as an artist and as a songwriter.
What can you tell us about your new music?
I did a lot of different stuff. There was the folk stuff, there was the r&b stuff. There was the 80s stuff. There was the Ed Sheeran acoustic type stuff. So I'm really trying to get in the same place sonically with this new EP. It's a little more r&b.
I don't even mean to come out but I have a lot of emotions because of the recent breakup.
I am not producing it all individually. I am working with more songwriters, more producers on it. I wanna write more songs that's like the best, like 20 songs and pick like 6 or 7 songs. And if I'm lucky, I'll do more. Last time I've had like 8 or 9 songs to choose from. I want this project to be more planned. I want to take the time to get the promotion out there because that's something I really didn't do with the last EP. What else about this new EP? I want to write less love songs. I am trying to write songs that are about me too. I want to talk about me and how I feel, like writing about my anxiety.
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