Review Fix Exclusive: Jom Comyn Talks ‘Change Your Mind’ And More

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Jom Comyn, who discusses his origins in music, creative process and new single, “Change Your Mind.”

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music? 

Jom Comyn: My dad is a working musician, and he got me my first guitars and microphones and everything. I always made songs and recorded on my own in the basement when I was a kid, but I didn’t start playing live until after high school, I met my good pal Mike Kropiniski, who was in a band at the time. They needed a bass player, and that was the beginning, how I met my first group of music pals in Edmonton. 

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like? 

Comyn: It usually starts with a rhythm, from walking somewhere, a certain moment lends itself to a certain rhythm, and from there, a sound is waiting to be made, or a phrase comes or a melody, and when I get home to a guitar I can start building it up. 

Review Fix: What inspires you? 

Comyn: It’s impossible to tell what moments are going to come together into a song and which ones won’t. It still feels like I’m learning from square one each time. 

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

Comyn: I usually just say I’m in a rock band, but if I have to get into it, I come up with weird, farfetched things like “snowcrust” indie rock, because I don’t really know how to talk about it. And then there are the recordings I do where it’s a specific genre, like jazz or noise or country or soul or whatever. 

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

Comyn: In a recording, you can do anything, but at a show, unless I want to commit to a huge band, or a lot of backing tracks and samples and triggers and stuff, then I have to confine myself to what can be played with a 4 piece band, except for some special occasions. I’ve never counted, but I bet there’s a 1/3 or 1/2 of songs I’ve recorded that I’ve never played live. 

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single? 

Comyn: “Change Your Mind” was a sound I was playing with for years, it would come to me, but I always heard it as a really elaborate part with two guitars in weird chords fit together in a really clever way that would just sound amazing, but I could never figure it out. Then one day, I realized it was just a plain old A chord and G chord, and it ended up being one the most basic songs I ever wrote. Whatever works!

Review Fix: How is this album different from your seven other releases? 

Comyn: This was my first time recording on analogue. My pal Chris Dadge, the producer, works on a TASCAM 388, so we would do the basic rhythm tracks on analogue, and when we ran out of room, we would do the rest of it, the vocals especially, on the computer. Musically, this is one of my most cohesive albums to date, it doesn’t go all over the place like a lot of my other albums do. 

Review Fix: Where does it land in terms of your legacy? 

Comyn: Ha that’s over my pay grade.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2019? 

Comyn: 2019 is very much one foot in front of the other, focusing on giving this release and these tours the best that I can, to do right by this album Dadge made with me. 

Review Fix: What’s next? 

Comyn: I’d really like to play in the UK and also in the US someday, but I can’t even think that far ahead right now.