A Conversation with Jack Hisatomi
When looking at the cover art for Jack Hisatomi’s album Fishbowl Feelings I immediately recognized signs of how quarantine inspired his music. I later found out through our conversation that this is true. Jack explained that our homes, our personal relationships and the world itself can feel like a fishbowl in the times we live in, and the seven tracks of the album convey this message. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Jack via a zoom call to discuss his musical journey as well as break down how he creates the essence of a song.
Like most up and coming artists, Jack is entirely self-produced, utilizing bedroom recording techniques such as an adapter from a video game that he uses to record his guitar. Jack’s use of his guitar is beautiful, feeling relaxed and sounding like it was recorded below the surface of the fishbowl that dawns the album’s cover. On other songs such as the introductory track the guitar is distorted, creating a moody, melancholic atmosphere. Although the album has a consistent audio aesthetic, each song delves into a relatively different topic. “Slowly Dying” for example deals with the existential feelings that came out of graduating from high school. My personal favorite song on the album is a reflection on how relationships are formed and how people communicate their affection over the internet, titled “Pick up the Phone.” There is a song for everyone on Fishbowl Feelings.
Please enjoy my interview with Jack Hisatomi.
Nik: What would you say your earliest music related memory is?
Jack: I changed schools when I was younger, and they had a music class, but I remember that I always hated it. I don't know why, I guess the teacher just got on my nerves. I eventually went back to music because I love playing the guitar. I thought that the guitar was really cool, and I eventually got a good guitar after begging my parents. I got one Christmas sat on it for a bit. I learned the basics, and then picked it up more in depth in high school.
N: Would you say there way any formative concert or a musical event that had a profound effect on you?
J: My first concert ever was Coldplay. I loved Coldplay, and I always memorized all the songs on their albums, especially songs like “Viva la Vida,” and I played it at a talent show when I was younger. I actually haven't been to a lot of concerts. I did see ASAP Rocky and the showmanship of that was an awesome display. The last concert I went to was Rich Brian and his songs were amazing live, they just had so much power and build up that wasn't captured originally since there's so much more power in feeling the bass and having him actually be there. But that was an amazing experience. Probably my favorite concert was Mac DeMarco when I saw him at the Greek theatre. He's kind of an idol to me so seeing him in live in person was kind of like seeing your hero or seeing Santa. His improvisations of songs and his covers are amazing.
N: Did you write your first song in high school after learning the guitar more? Or did the songwriting come later?
J: Yeah, the first songs I wrote were in high school, I was messing around with GarageBand and it helped me learn the basics of audio editing.
N: Are those songs the foundation for what you've put out now with Fishbowl Feelings?
J: For the first songs that I made, I crammed four songs within a week of me really getting into it. No lyrics, it was more electronic and more of the GarageBand MIDI sounds that you can use. After watching a bunch of videos about Steve Lacy about him using his phone to record his guitar, I figured out how to plug my guitar into my computer with this little adapter I got from an Xbox game calledRocksmith. You could plug in your guitar with a USB, and I figured it should work with the computer and it did, so I was able to record with that. I think I recorded guitar on “Slowly Dying” with the Rocksmith adapter.
N: Since you are a film student, what is the relationship between music and film like for you?
J: I'd say they're pretty balanced right now. I'm always working on school which has to do with a bunch of film classes. I guess you'd say it’s my job right now. School is everybody's job right now if you don't have a real job. That's what I fill my life with, all film stuff. I’m always watching films for classes, but in my free time I'm always making music and trying to create new sounds.
N: Where do you find yourself starting when you are working on a song?
J: I've been asked about my process, and I feel like it changes. When I first want to get into the groove, I’ll turn on the computer and I kind of warm up with a bunch of guitar chords.
I'll come up with a progression, and then I'll add start adding to it. I'll record that loop and then add another instrument. It could be like a bass since I can also record bass guitar with my guitar through the audio units in Logic. They have a bunch of MIDI sounds and I have some plugins and a MIDI keyboard. You can really throw anything in. Then I kind of just make this huge clump of music, then I start dissecting it into different parts of a song. And if it doesn't work out, I mute all the tracks except for one. Sometimes it's a drum track, because maybe I'll find out that the guitar is kind of off rhythm. So, I'll just re-record the whole guitar part. And it's just a process of me coming up with a rough draft and then re-recording all the other parts so that it fits together more melodically.
N: When do lyrics come into that process? Do you find yourself sitting down to write lyrics or do they kind of come to you after you've made the instrumental?
J: Yeah, if I am not thinking about lyrics while I'm making the song, it usually happens after it's all completed. I play it through again and again and again and try and sing to it.
I rarely write lyrics before the song. I'll have lyrics sometimes where I just write to a random beat and then I'll add it to one of my songs. I have notes with lyrics that I've written in the past and I can use those sometimes. Sometimes it's helpful, but I don't really start with the lyrics at all, I think it kind of constrains me since I don't really know what type of melodies I'll get because I'm not that experienced with the guitar. I have a good ear, so I can hear what I want specifically in the melody.
N: What was it like putting together the project from beginning to end? Is there a specific narrative that the album follows?
J: There was no real plan to make an album until I already had a bunch of songs that I didn't know what to do with. I actually had a big collection of songs, and I still do that are unreleased. I started playing them for my friends, and the one song that they all liked was “Slowly Dying.” They all talked me into releasing it and that's what eventually happened. And after that I released more singles. I figured singles are fun, but I wanted to have an opportunity to show how broad my music is without compounding it into smaller projects. And I've always wanted to have an album, it's kind of cool. So, I found some of the songs that I'd made that would be suitable and tweaked them a bit. I made a few new songs, “Take Apart” was the most recent song on the album. I feel like I put the most work into that song. Eventually I decided it was enough songs and I put in the previous recordings, but I left out “Fold” because I felt like it didn't fit. It's kind of an experiment with the 80’s pop genre. I want to I definitely want to dabble back into some more 80’s sounds.
N: What does the title Fishbowl Feelings mean to you? What is the origin behind that name?
J: I can make up so many different you know things about what it could be. Whatever a fishbowl brings to mind to you is what it means. Some fishbowls are restraining, some fishbowls are occupied by a lot of people, some fishbowls you feel trapped in. I feel like quarantine specifically was a big influence on that. Everybody is in their little bubbles. We're all in our little fishbowls and our social groups. The stress of COVID has also affected a lot of relationships people have.
N: When you are writing a song, are you drawing only from personal experiences or are you also stepping in someone else's shoes?
J: I think all the songs that I've written so far are from my own emotion. I definitely want to start expanding on what how I write because a lot of it just comes from my own head, and how I'm feeling that day. Some days I'm happy, some days I'm not. And I find the real heart of each song is made in one day. So, I'll come up with the true like essence of that song, if this is going to be a fast-paced song, if this is a sad song, it'll happen in one day or one afternoon. Every day after that is just working it to make it like as best as I can. It's all from my own emotion.
N: Could you describe the day that “Slowly Dying” came about?
J: I wrote that song during senior year of high school, and it was meant to be like this display of excitement for the future and to live every moment of your life. But it might also be your last because the clock's ticking every second we just sit around, so let's not waste it. Let's do something fun, let's do something adventurous, and going off to college for me was that. It was that wave of excitement of getting away from where I've grown up and lived for so long and getting pushed out into the real world. There are so many things to do in California and there's so much possibility. So, that is what is all behind that song.
N: “Pick up the Phone” is a song that I really like off the album, it’s definitely my favorite. What was it like making that song?
J: This one was definitely about that moment that every relationship starts with, somebody shooting their shot and the anxiety that goes with that. The world is dominated by technology and we're way more comfortable to just text or use Snapchat. But during COVID I don't think people have had a lot of human contact and it has been hard to have the chance to meet new people. So, a lot of stuff just goes to the DMs, and people really don't want to shoot their shot because they might be anxious about it. But “Pick up the Phone” is that that feeling of waiting after, and you just want them to pick it up. But it is also not wanting to do it yourself.
Such as every interview, I asked Jack Hisatomi if there was any piece of advice he’d like to share. I told him it could be anything he’d like.
“When you're using a dishwasher, make sure to use prewash because you get cleaner dishes.”