Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Hank May, who discusses his origin in music and goals for the rest of 2021, as well as his new single, NBC.Â
Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?
Hank May: I was a huge fan of rock music on the radio as a kid. A couple people in my life pushed me toward songwriting. My dad when he bought me my first electric guitar for my 9th birthday, my cousin when he stayed with my family and gave me indie rock CDs around the same time, and my friends at school who started writing and recording super early. Will from Baths was my first bandmate in 7th grade. I’ll never forget listening to a song he recorded with beats and everything when we were 13 and thinking, damn I really gotta get my shit together.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
May: Sitting down at my computer with my guitar and working on demos in my DAW has been the songwriting process for me for years now, lyrics always in a jumble of text edit windows.
Review Fix: What inspires you?
May: Other people’s music and the weather and my personal experiences. I’m very sensitive to the effects of music on my body and I know right away when I like something because I’ll cry, laugh, get the chills, or all three. When something makes me feel that way, I am compelled to try and make something that makes someone else feel that way.
Review Fix: What does music mean to you?
May: Pure magic!
Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?
May: This question always stumps me even though I get asked it all the time. I said “Kinda like a one man Weezer” at a wedding the other night and it was completely wrong but the best I could do at the time.
Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?
May: I have trouble getting a good vocal take in the studio. Live on stage, I nail it every time. But I will never watch a video of myself playing live, so I’m probably completely wrong about that too.
Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?
May: My new single is about loving music but hating what it sometimes does to people. There’s a fact checker in my family who thought I made a mistake because neither Nickelback nor Creed played Woodstock in 1999. So I want to let it be known here that Nickelback Creed is a poetic phrase that I made up. I know what it means to me, but I want my listeners to define what it means to them.
Review Fix: What are your goals for 2021?
May: Be ready to record the next album by next spring. Make it amazing.
Review Fix: What’s next?
May: Playing shows, making albums, and praying that it’s all good enough to keep me out of the service industry for a whole ‘nother year.
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