Music Like Coming Home: A Conversation with Valley Palace
words by Liv Bjorgum || photos by Vernon Nutter
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How much do we really know ourselves? Valley Palace’s new EP, Pastel Mood, seeks the answer and inspires more questions along the way. Valley Palace is the project of 26-year-old Nathan Taylor from Fresno, California. Valley Palace’s dreamy, nostalgic tunes don’t fit in any boxes; they move between genres as each song becomes its own conversation with the listener. As you journey through the Valley Palace catalog, you’ll find the subtleties of Taylor’s voice echoing like thoughts in your own mind.
On October 25, Taylor released the first Valley Palace EP, Pastel Mood. The EP features five songs, all ethereal. Pastel Mood is a contemplative project of intentional self-reflection. Although personal, Taylor’s realizations catalyze introspection in each listener. In the end, Pastel Mood is about finding belonging within yourself.
I had the chance to chat with Taylor over Zoom following the release of Pastel Mood. Taylor’s kindness, sincerity, and a true passion for music came through the screen during our conversation. We discussed emotions, the creation of Pastel Mood, and taking the time to reconcile the person in the mirror with the thoughts in your head.
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Liv/Pure Nowhere: Hi! Congratulations on your EP! How are you?
Valley Palace: Hi! I’m good. How are you?
Have you done live performances before?
I have, yeah. I’ve played a lot of shows. I would love to get a Valley Palace show going, but I have so much visual representation of it in my head that I’m nervous that I won’t translate it how I want to.
I understand that. The visuals and cover art for your music feature fragmented and obscured faces. Is there a meaning behind this?
For the cover art for “See You There,” I worked with an artist. She designed that one for me. The cover art for “Shell,” “Tapes,” and the Pastel Mood EP I shot myself with something in mind already of what I wanted it to be.
The art is definitely very cohesive. When did you start making music? What instruments do you play?
I started writing music in high school, which was a long time ago. I think I wrote my first song in like 2012. I always had the mindset of I love indie music, I want to write in the style of indie music. And from there it became projects that led up to Valley Palace. At the beginning of 2019, I actually brought the idea to fruition. I wanted to start not necessarily another project, but I wanted to rebrand myself and my solo music. [I was thinking,] I’m feeling these different emotions and I feel like my writing style has changed, so I shouldn’t keep releasing under this previous name and everything. I want to change it. It all became one thought and one focused idea, and that is Valley Palace. The name for it is simply because I live in the Central Valley. It’s my home, and that’s why it’s Valley Palace.
As for instruments, everything you hear on the songs is me playing guitar, me playing bass, me playing the synthesizer, me doing all of that. I write and record everything in my bedroom.
You’re the actual bedroom pop! What do you think about that label?
I like it and I don’t like it. I love the bedroom part of the label, but every time I think of pop music, I think of what’s popular. As a bedroom artist, most of the artists I listen to feel like we’re never like, ‘I’m writing this music to be popular’ so much as ‘I’m writing music to release these emotions or to touch someone or let someone know I’m going through a similar thing.’ That’s the reason I write the music I write. I want to touch hearts in a way that other music doesn’t. Most music is like ‘oh, this is so fun to listen to, I love listening to it,’ but the reason I write the music the way I write it [comes from the question] I have in my head when I’m writing it is, Does it make you feel something? That’s why I like it, and don’t like, the bedroom pop thing, because, yeah, it is made in the bedroom, and that’s cool, but I’m not doing it for popularity.
I think music is going to outgrow genre eventually. I tried to categorize your music and I don’t even know how.
[Laughs.] I’ve gotten dream pop, bedroom pop, shoegaze, indie rock. I don’t know. It’s everything.
Do you have specific inspirations?
I do. There are a lot. Most of my inspirations don’t come from me listening to the music and [going] ‘Wow, this is really cool, like, I really like the music.’ The inspiration is really based on the feeling. I really like Men I Trust right now. They’re very talented. Also, their mixing and everything about their music is really good to me. I really like listening to it because… it just makes me feel something. From there I go, ‘I want to play my guitar right now, I want to try to come up with something.’ So, experiences influence my music, rather than just listening to an artist like, ‘Oh, that guitar line’s really cool, I’m gonna try to write one like it.’ That’s not really how I draw inspiration; it’s more from the feeling.
“That’s the reason I write the music I write. I want to touch hearts in a way that other music doesn’t.”
It’s all about the emotions and moods. So, what is the ‘pastel mood’?
Pastel mood is a soft mood. Most people know that I’m very soft in character. I’m not someone who is prone to aggression. I had the title for a while before the EP came out. I’m just a very soft guy. In my late-night hours, I would recognize my behavior and how I would act and reflect and it’s all soft in nature. So that’s kind of how I came up with Pastel Mood. I guess the way to describe the EP is (imagine someone quoted this but it’s not an actual quote) “an hour of self-reflection.”
Pastel Mood sounds like it’s about identity and finding identity in other people, so that self-reflection comes through. There’s a sense of nostalgia to your music.
Definitely. 100%. Even when I listen to it. There’s this part on “Young” where every time I hear it, doesn’t matter what I’m doing, it’s just like I’m a 16-year-old and I’m hanging out with my friends when I didn’t care about anything else but doing kickflips down stair sets. Wow. Every time, I get nostalgic. Every time.
I read about how skateboarding inspires you.
Yeah. I’ve been skating since I was 13. I’m 26 now. So, 13 years. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted my younger years or my childhood to be any different from just getting home from school [and skating]. I did my homework in class when the teacher would hand it to us so that I could go home, get my board, hop on the bus, and meet my friends at the skatepark.
What makes you feel free? Would that be skateboarding?
This is actually how I came up with the cover art for “Shell.” I was sitting with my friend Mikey, who’s on the cover (and who’s one of the guys I’ve been skating with my whole life). In the last lyric I ask, When will I be free? … I was like, “Mikey, when do we feel most free, man? When we’re just cruising down hills, huh?”
You just feel like there’s nothing else in the world. You’re focused on nothing except for wiping out. You just feel unstoppable. So, just cruising down hills. I wouldn’t say bombing hills because that’s a completely different thing, but if the hill is pretty mellow and you don’t have to push or anything and you let the street take you, it’s an open road. You’re not thinking about anything, the wind’s blowing on you, you’re just cheesy and throw your hands up in the air; you’re just cruising.
Is that a feeling you try to communicate through your music? What do you want listeners to take away from your music?
I have this little description that I came up with a little while ago. Imagine someone sitting down by themselves, it could be anywhere, like on a swing set or at a park or they’re having a cup of coffee by themselves in the morning. There’s something weighing down on them, like some kind of burden. A figure, it doesn’t necessarily have to be me, but sure, a figure of me comes behind them, places a blanket over them, pats them on the back, and gives them a look like, ‘I understand and I’m here with you.’ And then I just pass on by. That’s the emotion I would like from my music.
What makes a Valley Palace song a Valley Palace song?
What makes all the Valley Palace songs Valley Palace songs is emotion. If I listen to a song after I’ve written it or while I’m working on it, and I don’t feel something, like literally, actually feel something, then I scratch the idea completely. Every song I have written and released under Valley Palace, at some point in time I’ve cried to. That is 100% what makes them Valley Palace-worthy released tracks.
What is a song by another artist that would meet those criteria? What’s an example of a really emotional song for you?
That’s so hard. “Room Song” by Plums. It’s just so pretty and airy. I literally lay on my bed and just stare at the ceiling listening to it, like, ‘wow.’
How has music shaped your life?
Before, music was a hobby and something I enjoyed doing. Now, I can’t function without doing it. Like, when I have something to say, I pick up my guitar. It is my outlet and my intake at the same time.
It’s the in and out, like the ocean.
Yeah! It’s definitely like pushing back. I take a lot and get a lot from music, so at the same time, my way to give back is through music.
What was the process of making your EP like?
Wow. The first song I had started working on was the title track, “Pastel Mood.” From there, I had written “In The Glass,” and from there, I had written “Till Then.” I didn’t even realize until months later that the guitar riff for “Till Then” was the exact same guitar riff [as “Pastel Mood”], the same notes but I was playing them in two completely different spots on the guitar. I realized I’m unfolding something here. I had written “Tapes” in between the process of writing the EP, but I realized that it didn’t belong. This EP is a story in itself, it is something of its own.
Even when I wrote the vocals and lyrics I noticed they were all geared around the same concept and mood. One of the lyrics in “Pastel Mood” says, Mirror on the wall / I wanna know you, and in “In The Glass,” they say, Aren’t you part of me in the glass? I would be looking in the mirror and looking at myself like, How much do I really know about you? How much time do we actually sit and take in and conversate and accept our flaws and accept our dreams and aspirations? How much time do I really spend with you, getting to know you? That’s kind of how the EP came to be. And then I actually put the songs together and rearranged them a couple of times, and then I knew: this is the flow to me, this is how it is. It was the re-recording process where I actually polished things up.
“Before, music was a hobby and something I enjoyed doing. Now, I can’t function without doing it.”
The organization is very much a part of it. It feels like a story.
Thank you! Exactly. Yes. If I had arranged them differently, it wouldn’t be the same. When you listen to it start-to-finish, I like to tell people that it is essentially a day in the life of me. It’s from waking up in the morning to midday going out, grabbing a cup of coffee, when I go to maybe a show at night or I’m hanging out with my friends, to when I get home and it’s just me hanging out by myself and I’m getting ready for bed and contemplating and reflecting. It is start-to-finish.
What have you been up to lately?
I’ve honestly just been working on new music. I was supposed to take a break, but that didn’t work. The second I got started on this new song, I was like, ‘Nah, this song’s good. I’ve got to finish it.’ I got another recording set-up for live videos! Hopefully, we’ll be shooting some live track videos with some of the songs from the EP with a full band, set up, and video-edited by myself, within the next month or so. That will hopefully be really cool. I want people to know that I am so excited to play live shows. I love playing live. Until we get the green light, it is not going to happen. But the minute we get the green light, I am there. I have a band ready. I hope that’s what these live videos say. This is going to be fun. We’re all going to feel something. Half of us will probably cry, but we will all have a great time.
There is hope for the future! Hopefully.
That’s it. There is hope, hopefully. I read something earlier and it resonated heavily with me, so it will probably be something that I continue to recite to myself as I’m writing. Speak truth in love.
Thank you so much to Valley Palace for taking the time to speak with Pure Nowhere!