Who is Luther? According to… Luther!
“Really, I’m a Band Guy. I have been since about 16 when my best friend Matt handed me his bass and briefly taught me “Christie Road” by Green Day so we could play along with the CD.
I went to College to learn music production, but really to find band members that would start a real band with me. I found them, we started a band called Crush Luther, and I dropped out of college.
In Crush Luther we got to tour Canada 5 or 6 times; we got to play 3 times on Warped tour; we got to make 2 records and released them internationally; we got to make 5 videos; and we got to watch a couple of those videos hit number 1 on Much More Music in Canada.
Crush Luther eventually folded after 8 years. We shut it down because we could see it wasn’t getting bigger. I had a huge vision but I could see it couldn’t happen this way. At the time, I thought it was the fault of our team, or even bad luck, but really, I just didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t get the work-load, the necessary drive, the business, I was busy being a self-righteous artist.
I moved into business. I started a record label called Daycare Records with a business partner and I started producing and managing artists. I produced a really great record called “Wyatt” with The Danger Bees and I co-wrote, and produced songs with battle rap legend, Kid Twist.
Meanwhile, post-Crush Luther and mid-business ventures, I started a new band with the guys from Crush Luther and JD Fortune, who used to sing for INXS. JD fronted and I played bass, co-wrote, and produced. I put everything I had into that band for 9 months and then it imploded in perfect VH1: Behind The Music fashion. Classic.
The whole 9 months was documented and there’s a movie called Chasing Fortune that still plays on Super Channel that I will never watch. It was a weird time for me.
After Fortune, I officially had no band, no music project of my own, and I was gun-shy about going for it again. It’s tough to restart.
I had an idea about becoming a performance coach so I started showing up to my friends’ band practices. I asked every band I knew if I could come to their rehearsals and give them feedback about their performance. I just thought I knew enough after 1000 performances on stage to pinpoint some easy things to fix and I wanted to be around bands working because I missed it.
I was over-confident then. I’d ramble endlessly about passion and energy and precision and I’d be in my head thinking “what the hell am I on about?” But the bands always seemed to dig it. I was motivating them. Being a motivator might still be my best skill.
I scaled it and started running workshops through management companies and labels, and working privately with bands and artists in their rehearsals. I developed an intense performance workshop called Destroy The Stage from my decade-plus in bands and started to figure out how to really push artists on stage to find energy and intensity in their performances. Now I work with Canada’s Music Incubator, The JUNO Master Class, and many of the Music Industry Associations in Canada.
But, I’m a band guy since 16. Music is a mosquito lamp for me. It will probably kill me but I don’t care. I’m drawn to it. I’ve got a new pop/edm duo with Chala. We’re called House Of Goobata and it’s my best creative work ever. That’s really what I’m still after, the performance high. Everything else is in support of that dream.”
Read Luther’s interview with the S.A.C. below:
What inspires you to create music?
I always thought music was my thing, but I finally realized that moving people is my thing, and music is simply the best way to move people.
How has your music evolved since you first became a recording/performing artist?
It’s the same for every artist, I think. You start with perfect sincerity, writing without judgment, because it’s fun and new. Then, you learn about fame, target markets, awards, followers – and the sincerity takes a hit. You start calculating your writing to try and make it fit somewhere. Your songs become shit. The job then becomes finding your way back to sincerity despite the always-present awareness of those elements that can destroy true inspiration .. I learned too much, I lost the sincerity for a time, I clawed my way back, and my reward was wisdom and sincerity, finally working together.
What is your fondest musical memory or favourite piece of music you’ve written?
I wrote a song for my best friend when he had his second child called Caterpillar Bones. It’s one of my favorite songs because I had a vision of writing one of those semi-morbid, dark lullaby songs for kids like Rockabye Baby. I wanted it to be beautiful and melodic, yet have it feel a little unsettling in the spirit of those creepy old lullaby songs. It was one of the uncommon times when the implementation met exactly in line with the vision from melody to lyrics to delivery to arrangement.
What is the most important “tool” you need when creating, eg. GarageBand, google docs, your cell phone, Pro Tools, or a pad of paper?
A clear head. For me, I can’t be my most creative when I get stuck on Thesaurus.com trying to calculate my next move. I do best when I can find the zen state of letting ideas just happen. It’s not always easy to conjure that state, and the craft part of a song always has some root in calculation, but I’ll write a better song singing my guts out randomly over a beat I’m feeling than trying to find a word that rhymes with “baby”.
How can S.A.C. help you?
I’m part of the industry as an artist, but also as an educator, so aligning with S.A.C and learning more about the state of the industry will help me as an artist and also allow me to better represent and educate the artists I work with.
