Q&A: Open and Honest, Palo Sopraño Talks Style, Inspiration & More
CHILLINGLY RELAXED — Palo Sopraño’s sound is dreamlike and wistful, a nod to artists of the past and future. Employing a multitude of layered vocal harmonies, bubbly twang, saturated reverb, and raw melodies, Palo’s music moves into the essence of both bedroom and beach rock.
Ryan Pickard, a Pacific Northwest native who goes by Palo Sopraño, has been deeply ingrained in the music scene since a young age. We spoke of knee surgery (wish him luck), our hometown (both of us hailing from Bend, Oregon), and his six-year anniversary with his girlfriend. “Music, love, and knee surgery: three very important things,” he says. Sopraño even educated me on a useful songwriting tactic — “Power Hour,” which he employs with his group message of fellow musicians and friends based in the LA area.
Sopraño is looking to set a long-term base in the industry and has made considerable strides already, with music as the center point in his life since a young age.
Read the full interview below to learn more about what he's been up to lately.
LUNA: I'm a big fan — I've been listening for so long, so I’m very excited to talk today. Tell me a little bit about you.
SOPRAÑO: Thank you so much for talking with me. I was born into a family of musicians: a pianist, a guitarist, and a drummer. So I was around music my whole life — music is the core element my life has revolved around. I picked up the bass when I was nine years old, guitar when I was 10, and have been playing music ever since. Then I was in a couple of bands in high school. My friend Andrew and I would write music together. Then I started recording my own music, just to have some more freedom. That’s how Palo Sopraño came to be — as an outlet for anything I wanted to do, whatever I wanted it to be: a free project, without any other input.
LUNA: What would you say your style is?
SOPRAÑO: I have no idea. I'm going in so many different directions right now. I have a song with my friend Miles that he’s going to sing and rap on — it’s kind of disco; upbeat. I’m starting to get into different drum sounds, too. I have been branching out, so I’d like to call it jangly. Yeah, like jangly, indie, beach surf, beach rock.
LUNA: It is jangly, that is fitting. I’m always trying to use new words to describe music — that’s a new one.
SOPRAÑO: Yeah, a lot of my early music is super jangly. I'm starting to get my music mixed well and stuff, but a lot of the music I put out — I don't know how to mix. It’s literally just like the most like blown-out, fucked up, jangly, trebly, insane, cacophonous mix of sounds. So I'm trying to get into more of a professional sound, (laughs). My friend Andrew mixed all of my songs that are going to come out this year. Hopefully, I will be dropping an album next year with a lot of new stuff.
LUNA: So, working on an album? Any other fun new creative projects?
SOPRAÑO: Well, I just got Logic.
LUNA: Let's go.
SOPRAÑO: I've recorded most of the music I’ve put out on Garbage Band. And then I made some moves, got a new microphone, and I have Logic. I've already recorded some songs, and I like using drum loops and incorporating a lot of new, different sounds. Now, I have the whole world at my fingertips. I feel like I've been so restrained in my sound. And I'm finally going to like being able to just sit down and really find a new sound and kind of just explore that.
LUNA: That's pretty awesome. Do you mean you're going to do all of the instruments yourself?
SOPRAÑO: I play every instrument, yeah. I've been collaborating with my friend Lloyd Taylor Clark on the last two songs that came out, and he played slide guitar and helped me with some backup vocals, but for 98 percent of all my music, I’m playing everything. So I finally have the plugins I've downloaded, and I'm ready to hone in and sit down and make an album.
LUNA: Very exciting. My friends and I from college were obsessed with your EP, so it reminds me of my days in Santa Barbara (where I attended UCSB) and the beach and everything about living that kind of relaxed lifestyle. I really liked it. Do you have a favorite part of the songwriting or music-making process?
SOPRAÑO: I feel like I write most of my songs while I’m recording. I feel like when I get into that flow state, when I just kind of forget about what I’m doing, I lay tracks on top of each other and come up with a cool guitar line and then think of a good melody line, and it's a cascading effect of all these ideas.
LUNA: Such a crazy part of the creative process.
SOPRAÑO: I'll do it for, like, 60 minutes or 90 minutes. And then I'll be like, “Oh, that song's done.” That's how I record them. I just make it all at once and then I'll be like, “Okay, maybe I'll mix it later.” I'll just kind of spruce it up like Candy [my last EP]. A lot of my music is the demo, so it's very raw.
LUNA: That’s probably such a cool, rewarding feeling — it's just all coming to you and you can't stop it. And you're like, “Holy shit, let's go.”
SOPRAÑO: Exactly. My friends and I do this thing called “Power Hour,” where you sit down and have an hour to write and record a song. Once you finish, you have to send your song to the group chat. At the end, we just declare a winner. So basically, I force myself to come up with something crazy. The worst thing that happens is you spend 60 minutes making music.
LUNA: Have you ever won?
SOPRAÑO: I think I've maybe made the best song one time. Sometimes, one of us sends a hilarious rap — that's just the funniest thing you've ever heard in your life. You can’t beat that really: the most obscene, out-of-pocket rap is usually the thing that I vote for and is usually the most entertaining thing. But I've won maybe once or twice, you know? I dunno.
LUNA: Yeah, I'm sure. So it seems like you have a big network of artists all supporting one another.
SOPRAÑO: Yeah, definitely. I’ve relied on Andrew to mix and master my music. I have no idea how to do that; I'm moving knobs and just like, “This is loud enough?” And my girlfriend, Caroline, does nearly all the art for my records. And just having a group chat to send all my creative stuff to … I don’t know where I’d be without all the support in my life.
LUNA: Yeah, and with that comes inspiration and motivation.
SOPRAÑO: Yeah, exactly. I definitely feel like I'm the dad of the group sometimes. We will be talking about other things, and I’ll be like, “Okay, Power Hour now?”
LUNA: All group chats need a dad. Do you have any end-of-the-year goals? This can be music-related or life-related.
SOPRAÑO: Just sitting down to record — making sure I carve time for that. I’m doing Power Hour after this interview and just making songs every day. And then I'm getting knee surgery on Dec. 30 … shit. Catch me on New Year’s without some of my menisci! I tore it three years ago.
LUNA: Oh no, without some of your meniscus?
SOPRAÑO: It really sucks. I already got one knee surgery and then I went back to the doctor, and they were like, “Either they did the surgery on the wrong side, or you tore the other one, or something bad happened, because your knee is fucking torn again.” But besides that, I celebrated my six years with my girlfriend, then celebrated her birthday [in mid-December], and then it's Christmas soon. So I’m basically looking forward to the three most important things: music, love, and surgery.
LUNA: Congrats on it all: music, love, and surgery. Six years! Crazy stuff.
SOPRAÑO: I can't even really imagine, like, I don’t really remember my life before I met her. It sounds cliche, but it's kind of true. Like, who the fuck was I? What were my motives?
LUNA: Yeah, especially because these past six years have been very transformational... What have you been listening to these days?
SOPRAÑO:: What am I listening to? I love Liam Kazar’s’ new album. It is just beautiful music. Let's see …Valley Boy. They dropped an EP this year called Thursday, Friday. They [made] a movie with it too, and it's fucking amazing and super cool. Also, Lloyd Taylor-Clark, one of my collaborators. He dropped an album a couple of months ago called Swan Songs. Very beautiful music — harmonious, happy, happy music. Also, you know, constantly listening back to what I always listen to: David Bowie, The Beatles, Beck.
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