Review Fix Exclusive: Perhapsy Talks Creative Process And More

Review Fix chats with Perhapsy, who discusses his lo-fi, reverb drenched indie tunes that combines the grandiosity of Smashing Pumpkins with the homespun sounds of early Alex G. 

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Perhapsy: I first really started playing music when my Ohio friends from middle school and I used to sneak into our church chapel — where all the worship band instruments were held — and play improvised post-rock type jams for hours and hours. It was a nice way to learn how to play music/guitar and felt only mildly sinful. :)


Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Perhapsy: It definitely has changed over the years but it usually begins with some kind of melody or chord progression on guitar. I’m a big fan of trying to “sabotage” one’s practicing or writing process — for me, this is usually accomplished by putting my guitar in a random tuning where I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. It tends to feel a lot more exciting and fresh that way. Usually the melodies and lyrics come afterwards in pretty quick, slight-revision processes. Lately, however, I’ve been starting with lyric ideas first and doing a lot of revision. It’s a new experiment, I suppose.

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Perhapsy: I’m inspired by a lot of things — in terms of creative inspiration, I think a lot about the similarity between making songs/albums and the idea of making a painting, writing a short story, making a sketch, a sculpture, choreographing a dance, etc. I really believe all these things come from the same place and are just different outlets for the same thing. When things like that seem connected it makes me excited again to work on music and art stuff. 

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Perhapsy: I think music, specifically, is such an immediate way to experience creative thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc. 

For me, there’s a special kind of immediate pleasure to be found in music — which isn’t to say music needs to make you feel great or something. Obviously, a full range of emotions are possible in music. I do believe that’s true in other art forms, but, for me, music seems to be one of the most immediate of the forms.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Perhapsy: That’s always kinda tough because I’m not entirely sure how I would describe it in a neat or tidy way. I suppose there’s definitely a connection with pop music. However, I’m very much interested in creating music that is immersive in some way and hopefully not “safe” or boring. In that regard, all of my favorite music, art, etc tends to be very immersive or of its own world. I guess the one thing I’d include is that the guitar is an important part of what I do — while I do sing and write lyrics and melodies that might be based on pop forms, my goal would be to keep things a bit more off-kilter.

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Perhapsy: They’ve always been pretty different. It’s fun to play music live — especially with friends. Although what with COVID, it’s almost hard to remember what that’s like! But with recording songs/albums, I feel like I can create my own little musical world and having control over the sounds is a very exciting and insular experience. Over the years, I’ve learned that live shows are more about broad strokes. I think sometimes my music can translate well in the live setting but it is pretty different. Either way, I definitely miss it. 

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

Perhapsy: Like most of my songs, it started with a chord progression that felt exciting to me and has some slightly unusual movements. The lyrics, however, are mainly about this odd memory I had of vacationing on Lake Erie in Ohio with my family when I was really young. Somehow, I got left accidentally on the beach with no way of getting back to the cottage where my family always stayed. Apparently, my mom, who wasn’t initially on the beach, had felt some “spiritual” or otherwise presence letting her know I was lost. This was all before anyone knew or told her I’d been missing. Eventually, some nice person helped me get back home. Because I was so young, it’s hard to know how accurate this memory really is, based on the other-worldliness of it. It still feels much more like a dream. 

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2021? 

Perhapsy: Well, in terms of music, I’ve been working on writing/recording new songs for another album — something I’m pretty much always doing. I’ve also been doing quite a bit of animation work, commissions, etc. I’m also looking forward to doing more music and art collabs.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Perhapsy: I hope to just continue to make as much art and music as I possibly can and try to find more and more ways for the music side of what I do to overlap with the art side of what I do. 

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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