Tom Verberne, wandering around LA and discussing his new album: “I’ll Watch You Do Anything”
by Liv Bjorgum
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Tom Verberne takes his self-described somber pop music to new heights with his sophomore album I’ll Watch You Do Anything. The blue album melds his signature melancholy hope with spinning instrumentals to create a defined sound.
His project of longing reflects a perennial question from the beginning of Verberne’s favorite novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife: “Why is love intensified by absence?” Vereberne can explore a flurry of feelings in just one song. You’re just as likely to feel like you’re floating as you are to jump up and dance. IWYDA is dreamy and delicate, yet not drowsy.
The instrumental “Action” opens the album with shimmering notes. The following songs float on this foundation, adding hip-hop-influenced drum beats, twinkling guitars and piano alongside soft vocals. The bridges of Verberne’s songs are especially unique, as each creates its own experience that manifests the main emotion of the song. It is an album of melancholy and hope, not despondency.
The album is a meditation on Verberne’s unrelenting hope and wonder, and his yearning for love. Even after Verberne’s story has arced, the listener is left suspended in the most recent, meticulously-composed chapter of Verberne’s musical catalog. Whether his songs make you feel like you are spinning, underwater, or in space, Verberne again showcases his ability to make sound tangible on IWYDA.
Just after his album’s release and 6,531 miles apart, I chatted with Tom about hope, love stories, and I’ll Watch You Do Anything, his new time capsule of an album.
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Liv Bjorgum: Hi! How are you?
Tom Verberne: I’m good! New Zealand is doing well. There’s hope in the world. Honestly, I’m so stoked to be back to normal.
Congrats on the album! It’s so immersive. I especially love all the transitions. Why did you choose now to release it?
Honestly, I was trying to release it last year and have it out right at the end of 2019. I just wanted to do it properly, and I ended up getting some help from Manu and Janice who worked with me for the release which really helped out a lot. It’s made this release way less stressful and more exciting. I just wanted to wait until I could do it properly.
What’s it like to release something right now?
Really weird. It feels weird asking for people's attention and distracting from the Black Lives Matter movement. I don’t want to take up attention when it should be directed to other places. However, it’s been in the works now for a long time, so I couldn’t really postpone it. Hopefully the movement just keeps on gaining momentum and doesn’t stop … It’s way more mellow here. We’ve had a few protests and walks with a good turnout. I feel a bit more helpless in New Zealand but donating, speaking and getting more educated on the topics are still things we can do.
You described this as your first ‘forever album.’ What does that mean to you?
I hope that it means that I can enjoy, or stand behind, this album forever. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. At this point, every song holds a spot in my heart. Stuff will age badly, like some of the production and some of the lyrics, but I’ll always be able to understand where it came from and why I did it. And it all means something. Whereas with my last release [2018’s LP All Kinds of Red], some of the songs didn’t serve as much of a purpose for me. This one feels more defined.
It feels confident and vulnerable at the same time. You talked a lot about being ‘hopelessly hopeful’ as a theme of this album. Was that mindset a change for you, or is that the way you’ve always approached life?
I think it was quite a change for me. I spent the whole year being stupidly, unrealistically optimistic about relationships and hoping that stuff would work out when the odds were not in my favor. It ended up with me dwelling on that stuff for way too long, which I would like to say I don’t do anymore, but I’m not sure that’s the case [laughs]. It’s a work in progress ... I was going to call the album Hopelessly Hopeful, but I like the title I’ll Watch You Do Anything more.
It’s more mysterious.
Yeah, a little bit edgier and it means something obvious at face value, but also it kind of summed up the desperation and longing that are big themes in the album.
“People can see the difference from my last album to this one, and I want to have the same for the next thing. I want to see the improvement, hopefully.”
Was there a specific approach you took with your first album?
All Kinds of Red was just songs that I’d made throughout high school and my first year of university, and I was just like, ‘I should put these in an album and release it.’ It was more of a compilation of songs that I’d made rather than an album. The main difference with this one is that it feels like a time period in my life, and it feels more coherent. All the songs are better as well [laughs].
Like an album as a time capsule.
I feel like an album to me is a summation of a period of time. It’s really annoying, though. I said I was going to make some EPs at the start of 2019, but I realized that I’d made way too many songs, so I thought I should make another album. They felt like they should all be on the same body of work instead of splitting them up. I ended up running with an album, and I’m pretty happy that I did that. It feels more right for me, definitely.
Are you working on anything now? Did you work on anything during isolation?
It was hard during isolation. I was great for two weeks, like, ‘Man, I have so much free time,’ but by week three I was like where do I draw my inspiration for anymore since I was experiencing nothing but boredom.
So much of art is about experience, and now it’s all stripped away. Do you have any big takeaways or things you’ve learned from this album?
I think that anything I make, I learn from. I want to constantly be improving. In this day and age, people can release new music from the very beginning of their career. You display all your learning on your Spotify account. People can see the difference from my last album to this one, and I want to have the same for the next thing. I want to see the improvement, hopefully.
Did you have any cinematic inspirations for IWYDA?
Yeah. The first track, “Action,” started off as a film score that I was making. I really liked it and I worked on it some more, and thought it was a nice introduction to the album. I feel like a lot of my music is kind of inspired by film scores. It all has layers of ambience that would be able to set the mood of a film.
Do you ever think what movie it would be?
Yeah, honestly. Probably Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Everything about it is amazing.
There’s a lyric in “Up 4 2” that says “I’m still a dreamer.” What does being a dreamer mean to you?
That whole song is “I wish I didn’t care” and whatnot, and it plays along with that. I wish I didn’t care, but I do, and I’m still a dreamer, which is why it’s the last line, because as much as I wish I wasn’t, I still am a dreamer.
There are more gentle songs than in All Kinds of Red.
It was a pretty new thing for me since usually I would add drums to the songs… “Wish I (Reprise)” was just the start of “Up 4 2.” After I had made “Up 4 2,” I listened to the original demo I had on Photobooth and I thought it was cool and kinda had gotten lost a bit in “Up 4 2,” so I decided to give it its own space on the album as “Wish I (Reprise).” It’s scary putting out raw songs, where I haven’t Autotuned my vocals or anything. It feels definitely like one of the most vulnerable songs in that album. But it captures what I was feeling, so I thought I would leave it like that.
Who did you work with on the album, or was this more of a solo project?
I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it all by myself, but I did have some help from my friends. “Gimme My Time” was a collab with Hugo, or Yuki… I also had a lot of help from my friend Baxter Perrie, who I flatted with last year in Wellington… I also had other help writing little bits from Billy La Signy and Maxwell [Young]. My brother Charlie likes to say he’s my executive producer because I run everything by him. I ask him ‘is this good or is this shit?’ and he’ll tell me. But the majority of it was me for this one.
This album has less hip-hop tones than All Kinds of Red. Were there any specific artists or genres that influenced the new album?
One of the most life-changing experiences for me was at a festival in Auckland. I had never heard of this guy, but my friends told me to go watch Jon Hopkins. I was like ‘oh God,’ since it was Jon Hopkins or Florence and the Machine. I saw a few Florence and the Machine songs and then went to see Jon Hopkins. It changed my life. He’s an electronic music producer but he makes really emotional songs. It opened a whole different world of production and music for me.
It felt like a better way for me to produce more emotional, songwriting songs, rather than use the hip-hop kind of stuff. It’s just a combination of the two in the album. I’ve also just always been into songs. John Mayer is one of my top three artists ever on Spotify’s stats. I drew a bit more from that side of my musical tastes, but I think there’s still a fair amount of hip-hop influence throughout the album.
“The main difference with this [album] is that it feels like a time period in my life, and it feels more coherent.”
What makes a Tom Verberne song a Tom Verberne song?
That’s a great question! I’d say a layer of ambience — something ambient — way too many drum tracks so that my computer is breaking down, and some emo lyrics.
What was the last song that was completed on the album?
The last song was “I’ll Watch You do Anything” apart from some sprinkles to other songs. I had it pretty much and knew it would be the last on the album, as it left me a lot of room for where I would end up taking my music next.
Imagine that you could make a festival with four artists. What would be your dream lineup?
Jon Hopkins, the 1975, Coldplay, and... Radiohead. I’d love to see Radiohead.
Do you like to read? Has a book ever influenced your songwriting?
I should read more, but I do love it. My favorite book is probably The Time Traveler’s Wife [by Audrey Niffenegger]. As corny as it sounds, it’s great. I think anything that makes me feel anything influences my songwriting, so, for sure some books have. It’s also cool because it’s a love story.
So, you love love stories?
I think so. I think that’s it. All of my favorite movies and stuff are just love stories. I think I just love love and long for it.
If you could time travel, where would you go?
I would go forward, like two hundred — no, a thousand — years into the future to see what’s going on and if the world is still functioning or if we fucked it. If I had to go backwards, I don’t really know. Maybe just ages ago, like two thousand years to see if Jesus Christ was around and say ‘what’s up.’
How do you write your songs? Do you have a specific process?
It varies every time. Sometimes I make an instrumental and sing over it, or sometimes I’ll write something on my guitar and try to turn it into a song. It varies. I don’t like having a set way to do stuff because it seems less fun and exciting.
Is most of your music based on real life?
Pretty much all of it is. Some of it can be exaggerated because you have to get a three-minute song out of one feeling. You have to expand a lot. But sometimes it’s super easy, though, like I could write an hour-long song out of one thing.
Finally, what’s your sign?
My star sign is a Capricorn. I have some friends who are super into it, but I know nothing. I love getting the daily quotes from Costar, though [laughs]. What was my one from today? “Live twice, more diligently.” So ambiguous, but I’ll take it!
listen to the album inspiration here:
Video and photos shot by Garrett Seamans and Liv Bjorgum. Editing by Tom Verberne and Liv Bjorgum.
Thank you to Tom for hanging out with Pure Nowhere!
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