Hello, dear music enthusiasts, and welcome back!
Today we have yet another talented artist for you whose music will 100% touch your soul and be extremely relatable to anyone who has ever loved and lost. Without further ado, let's get to know Cooper Chasse.
1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am just an average guy who has a natural inquisitiveness about everything, and likes to understand how things work, which I think is why my music is what it is. In music, if I'm not songwriting I'm either scoring fun little films for friends or working on my indie-rock side project The Afterbloom. Outside of music, I enjoy writing and studying Horticulture or working on some other creative project. I'm a hobbyist by nature, so I need to be doing something all the time.
2. How did your musical journey begin?
I was about five years old when I started drumming and it was my life for a long time. Around my freshman year in high school I came across the work of composer Jesper Kyd and my vision of what I wanted to do changed drastically.
I was in a few bands and did some songwriting throughout the years, but spent most of my university career and beyond working towards being a full-time film composer. I had spent a year in South Korea in 2019 and formed the band Sun Smash Palace with a few other foreigners. During the recording of our debut album, I realized that I wanted to shift gears into being a record producer. I really loved it, and that's when I started to gain an interest in audio engineering.
In 2020, I came back home to Canada and was met with the rough end of a near four year relationship. I was absolutely devastated. Music and songwriting became my therapy, and for maybe about six months to a year I was writing a new song almost every day. Then I moved to London, England, and continued that path until I returned to Canada again in September of 2022, and started to work on my first full length album, "This Ever Changing Ocean."
3. What inspired you to write You & Me? And the album?
"You & Me" started as merely a musical letter to someone who's been the subject of many of my songs, some of which are on the album. It was probably written in about half an hour, peppered in between drags of beer and cigarettes, and was originally recorded on my phone as a voice memo.
A lot of songs on this album and previous releases were done this way, not the healthiest whatsoever. The album was supposed to be a lot quieter, more laid back, but somewhere during the recording stage I kept having new ideas that would drive it to be more expansive, more epic. The last song of the album is the title track "This Ever Changing Ocean" which I wrote when I first arrived in London, and it's about coming home if all else fails, so two years later when I actually did return home I felt like the song and album needed to reflect that sort of prophecy of coming back. Except it's not about failing but instead completing my Hero's Journey after so long.
To me, the album and especially this song feels like packaging the last few years into a neat little box of memories. And there's still so much more I can write about, it's almost neverending.
4. Have you faced any challenges as a musical artist and what keeps you motivated to keep creating?
Being a musical artist is facing non-stop challenges. Personally, I find the biggest hurdles to be the acceptance of failure, or inadequacy. The whole reason why "Four Sides of a Coin" exists is as a response to previous work that was sub-par in comparison to other people's work. I don't like comparing though, but you can't help it sometimes. I always think everything I do isn't the best, but it's continuously working toward that unreachable perfect sound that keeps me moving forward and pushing myself outside my comfort zone. I also have so many stories to tell through song and I'm too eager to be patient.
5. Are there any projects or performances that you are excited about in the near future? Can you give us a sneak peak?
I have a few projects planned after the album comes out. I won't spoil them too much, but there's definitely a couple more records on the horizon, one which is another collection of songs about my experiences living in London, and one which is a thematically heavy record about pivotal points throughout my life. In between all these albums will probably be smaller, more acoustic EPs that I can record in a weekend. I'm really bad at sitting still, I just want to keep doing the next thing.
6. How do you find working all by yourself from song writing to producing and mixing?
It can be quite a lot. It's not so bad working on one song and one song alone, but I've always done more. And the more I keep working on new material, the higher the standard for composition, production and mixing.
That's a hard lesson I learned working on the EPs that make up "The Ghost of Trouble." What working alone does do for me, though, is allow me to rely on myself only and not have to supervise or babysit anyone else. With this upcoming album in particular, I was able to be forgiving and kind to myself about the time needed to complete the project. But because I don't seek feedback until everything is already released, it can be very easy to get fatigued with the sound. I become a bit of a hermit during that stage, and people don't hear much of me for a while, so I like to think of myself as an Alchemist who's experimenting and trying to come up with new things.
7. And finally, what advice would you give to your listeners/aspiring artists?
Listen, observe, take in all you can, not just in music but in all things. Be curious, be vulnerable, be honest. This life is tough and full of rejection and heartbreak. It's constantly trying to ensure your failure, but when you arrange your meaning of success to be less about quantity and more about quality then you start to interact with the world and yourself in much more loving and forgiving way. And that's the kind of global society we need to continue to cultivate.
You can find Cooper Chasse on his social media and listen to his music on Spotify.
Until next time,
Chromind
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