THE SYNCREATE PODCAST: EMPOWERING CREATIVITY
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY,AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
HOSTED BY MELINDA ROTHOUSE, PHD
WELCOME TO SYNCREATE, WHERE WE EXPLORE THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN CREATIVITY,
PSYCHOLOGY,AND SPIRITUALITY. OUR GOAL IS TO DEMYSTIFY THE CREATIVE PROCESS,
AND EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CREATIVE.
SUBSCRIBE / FOLLOW US ON SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE
OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO EPISODE HERE:
watch the full video episode here:
EPISODE 14: ANATOMY OF A SONG
WITH SINGER/SONGWRITER GEORGE McCORMACK
Songwriting, like many creative pursuits, can be a mysterious process. There’s no set formula for writing a song, and each songwriter approaches it in their own unique way. Some start with lyrics, others start with a chord progression or a bass line or a melody. My guest today is George McCormack, a British singer-songwriter who performs as Son of Cormack. George and I were introduced by a mutual friend last year and started collaborating musically. You’ll hear us playing together during the episode, with George on guitar and lead vocals, and me on bass and backing vocals. Our focus in the conversation today is his songwriting process, with a focus on the song, ”Accelerate to a Standstill,” which is essentially a metaphor for the climate crisis and our collective inability to respond or take full responsibility for it.
We talk about the importance of play in the creative process, along with letting go of perfectionism, which can be paralyzing. As we know, the creative process is not linear, and it’s often messy. It’s important to allow ourselves to play and experiment and make a mess and see what arises out of that place.
George’s tagline is “An Irish boy, with an English Voice.” With Irish roots, George grew up in English pubs to jukebox lullabies in the 80s and went to a British boarding school. He lived in London for a decade and now lives in Austin, Texas, where he is writing and finally self-publishing his music. BBC INTRODUCING has picked up some of his songs and has been playing them on the radio. He appeared on the BBC Introducing stage at Lakefest Festival in the grounds of Eastnor Castle in 2022 and has been a guest live on air with BBC Hereford & Worcester.
Our Creativity Pro-Tip today encourages us to dig into our own creative process by letting go and making a mess. Yep, whatever that looks like for you. Get out some paints and smear them around with your fingers. Or do some stream-of-consciousness freewriting to get some words onto the page without judgment. Or take a pottery class. Or just try out a completely new medium you know nothing about, where you don’t have to be an expert. Just allow yourself to enjoy the process and the messiness and the not-knowingness of it. See what happens. You might be surprised. Let us know what you discover!
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced by Christian Haigis with assistance from Michael Osborne in Austin, Texas. Creative development and video production by Shuja Uddin and Devon Foster at Tishna Films. Artwork by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode, you might also like our conversations in Episode 3: Creative Polymathy with Musician and Multi-Creative Michael Walker, Episode 8: Grief, Healing, and the Artist’s Life with Anne Myers Cleary, and Episode 10: Imagination and Creativity with Psychologist and Creativity Coach Dr. Diana Rivera.
We talk about the importance of play in the creative process, along with letting go of perfectionism, which can be paralyzing. As we know, the creative process is not linear, and it’s often messy. It’s important to allow ourselves to play and experiment and make a mess and see what arises out of that place.
George’s tagline is “An Irish boy, with an English Voice.” With Irish roots, George grew up in English pubs to jukebox lullabies in the 80s and went to a British boarding school. He lived in London for a decade and now lives in Austin, Texas, where he is writing and finally self-publishing his music. BBC INTRODUCING has picked up some of his songs and has been playing them on the radio. He appeared on the BBC Introducing stage at Lakefest Festival in the grounds of Eastnor Castle in 2022 and has been a guest live on air with BBC Hereford & Worcester.
Our Creativity Pro-Tip today encourages us to dig into our own creative process by letting go and making a mess. Yep, whatever that looks like for you. Get out some paints and smear them around with your fingers. Or do some stream-of-consciousness freewriting to get some words onto the page without judgment. Or take a pottery class. Or just try out a completely new medium you know nothing about, where you don’t have to be an expert. Just allow yourself to enjoy the process and the messiness and the not-knowingness of it. See what happens. You might be surprised. Let us know what you discover!
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced by Christian Haigis with assistance from Michael Osborne in Austin, Texas. Creative development and video production by Shuja Uddin and Devon Foster at Tishna Films. Artwork by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode, you might also like our conversations in Episode 3: Creative Polymathy with Musician and Multi-Creative Michael Walker, Episode 8: Grief, Healing, and the Artist’s Life with Anne Myers Cleary, and Episode 10: Imagination and Creativity with Psychologist and Creativity Coach Dr. Diana Rivera.
EPISODE VIDEO CLIP:
GEORGE & MELINDA PERFORMING ACCELERATE TO A STANDSTILL
EPISODE-SPECIFIC HYPERLINKS
Son of Cormack Website
Son of Cormack on Spotify
Son of Cormack on YouTube
Son of Cormack on Instagram
Son of Cormack on Bandcamp
Son of Cormack on TikTok
BBC Introducing
Writer Anne Lamott
Son of Cormack on Spotify
Son of Cormack on YouTube
Son of Cormack on Instagram
Son of Cormack on Bandcamp
Son of Cormack on TikTok
BBC Introducing
Writer Anne Lamott
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process, and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. I’m Melinda Rothouse, and I help individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life.
My guest today is George McCormack, a British singer-songwriter who performs as Son of Cormack. George and I were introduced by a mutual friend last year and started collaborating musically. You’ll hear us playing together later in the episode, with George on guitar and lead vocals, and me on bass and backing vocals.
His tagline is “An Irish boy, with an English Voice.” With Irish roots, George grew up in English pubs to jukebox lullabies in the 80s and went to a British boarding school. He lived in London for a decade and now lives in Austin, Texas, where he is writing and finally self-publishing his music.
BBC INTRODUCING, a popular show in the UK, has picked up some of his songs and has been playing them on the radio. He appeared on the BBC Introducing stage at Lakefest Festival in the grounds of Eastnor Castle in 2022 and has been a guest live on air with BBC Hereford & Worcester. In the conversation, we talked about his songwriting process, with a focus on the song, Accelerate to a Standstill, which is essentially a metaphor for the climate crisis and our collective inability to respond or take full responsibility for it.
We recorded the conversation at Mystic Oaks, my creative studio in the Texas Hill Country.
Melinda: So, George, really excited to have you on the show.
George: Yeah, it's great. Thank you.
Melinda: Yeah, and just to share a little bit more about you with our listeners. So, you are Irish, but you grew up in the UK, went to boarding school, lived in London, and now you're living here in Austin, Texas.
George: Yeah, I met my wife in London, in an Irish bar, you know, the old-fashioned way, in person. And, uh, she kidnapped me and brought me here. So, here we are. Yeah.
Melinda: Kidnapped and brought to Texas.
George: Yeah, yeah. A false bill of sale. She brought me in the winter. I thought it was going to be cooler. Yeah. I’d bought the ticket by then.
Melinda: Yes, but now we're having the most brutal summer ever.
George: Yeah. It's good to be out in Wimberley for the weekend, so.
Melinda: Yeah, good. So, I want to hear more about your songwriting process and we're starting to collaborate to write some songs together.
George: Yeah, it's, you've been introducing me to your music friends. And it's been, really rewarding. So it's great to have fellow musicians to play with.
Melinda: Yeah, it's all about collaboration.
George: It is. Yeah, getting out there. Yeah, it really is. It's taken me a long time to figure that out. I've been a bit slow off the mark. It is for sure. It makes a big difference. Takes the pressure off yourself and it's fun.
Melinda: So I kind of wanted to start in with a particular song of yours and kind of dive into the song itself and your songwriting process around it. So the song is called Accelerate to a Standstill. And it's kind of about how as a society and as a culture, we seem to be hurtling toward this very problematic place.
George: Yeah, so Accelerate to a Standstill. I think I had this image in the back of my head about a car, you know, driving down a long road and at the end of the road, there's a traffic light and it's, it's red. And, in my mind's eye, instead of, you know, tapping the brakes, just floored it. And that feels like, you know, what we're doing as a society, we're kind of just headlong, you know, headlong off the end of a cliff, and we're gonna have a bill to pay at some point, but we're gonna abuse the credit card while it's out there. So that's kind of the song and it's about not facing up to difficult situations. So it's kind of a mixture of the both, a mixture of the two.
Melinda: Yeah. Kind of a metaphor for climate change.
George: Yeah. Not facing up to difficult situations, climate change specifically. Yeah. So that's where it came from. And I think the music was there and then it was just kind of, just playing the music and then ad libbing over the top of that. And I think it comes out quite straightforward to start with. And then, and it's usually the last 20 percent that takes me forever to sort out. The initial creative burst happens and then, yeah, really honing it down and giving it some shape.
Melinda: Definitely. Yeah. Well, I wanted to share some of the lyrics from the song, and then we can actually hear the song itself. So, part of the lyrics go:
She comes around telling everybody what they want to hear.
She's been coming around here for years.
Her candle's burning bright, it's about to disappear.
Let sleeping dogs lie, color between the lines.
Don't look her in the eye, she'll eat you alive.
We absolve your responsibility.
Pity the young, ignore the old. Accelerate.
Accelerate to a standstill.
So, tell us a little more about how the lyrics kind of came to you.
George: You know, it's a tough one. Uh, she's coming around; It's more of a kind of being told what we want to hear. We've just been like, we're all ignoring the climate thing. I mean, I was taught about climate change when I was eight. So that's the late 80s. And here we are in 2023.
Melinda: Right.
George: And, yeah. Still umming and ahhing about what we're going to do.So it's kind of, we've all been kind of burying our heads in the sand and it's about, it's basically ignoring the obvious, you know, and just getting on, you know, the easy way. We're just, we're all a bit of hedonistic and taking it easy. We don't want to make any difficult choices. And facing up to it. So it's like, you know, let sleeping dogs lie. Don't look it in the eye, you know, just ignore it. It'll be alright.
Melinda: It'll go away.
George: It'll go away. It'll sort itself out. Which it won't.
Melinda: Let’s hear the song, Accelerate to a Standstill.
[Music: George and Melinda playing Accelerate to a Standstill live]
Melinda: So one of the things I want to ask you about is, you know, you have a line and kind of a tagline, you know: Irish boy, English voice, living in the States. And I'm just curious, like how these particular identities have shaped you and shaped your creative work.
George: Yeah. Well, I grew up in a, I suppose I got a kind of a mix of a background. I grew up in, my family's, my mother's Northern Irish Protestant father, Southern Irish Catholic. So there's this kind of, and then I grew up in England, so I end up with an English accent. So I kind of, there's a bit of Scottish.
Melinda: And there's kind of always tension between, the English, and Irish.
George: There's lot of history lot going on there. Um, so I grew up in England, so I ended up with an English accent. So, you know, when I go home to Ireland, you know, always on the outside. Because, you know, the accent. The family obviously, you're part of the family and that's no problem. But the English accent kind of just puts you on the outside instantly. English Irish relations are always problematic, to say the least.
Melinda: Do you feel like that's a tension that lives inside of you in some way?
George: Not too bad, but I think it's in the back of my head. It's kind of like you don't really, slightly on the outside, because I'm not, obviously English accent, I spent a lot of time in England, went to boarding school in England, but I'm not, I don't feel English. So I suppose it was easy for me to move to the States as well, you know, I've moved around a lot.
Melinda: Yeah.
George: I spent my summers in Ireland, Christmases in Scotland, and kind of moved around a lot. Parents were around pubs, so it was a very diverse background. So I've walked in a few walks of life. So I wouldn't be able to tell you how that comes through, but it's, uh, it's interesting. It's an unusual background, I suppose.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
George: So the boarding school was, um, interesting. Went when I was seven, until 18. It's kind of like, maybe, Harry Potter but without the magic.
Melinda: Right. Yeah.
George: So it's an interesting one.
Melinda: So kind of growing up in this confluence of, like, English pub culture and boarding school, when did you start writing songs and, and what inspired that?
George: Well, I think I grew up early on in the pubs. I think, you know, the jukebox was always the background to my life. Um, so like, I probably don't know all the 80 music, but like their names, but I know them subconsciously. So I think music was always around. It was live music. I remember seeing a band when I was pretty young and just, pretty taken by it. We were surrounded by lots of musicians as well. But my parents aren't musical at all.
Melinda: And did you have any musical training in particular?
George: Not really. I think at school I kind of got into singing. It just, well, it just gave me a lot of joy. And that you just, I just followed that really. Um, and then played the guitar for a while. I think it was my French teacher. So it's a very random lessons and eventually, yeah, just a progression through eventually finding that you have an interest for it. And it becomes just an important part of your life. It's like a port in the storm. It's always been something that I go back to.
Melinda: Absolutely. So people are always asking me, as a songwriter, like, how do you write songs? Like, how do you go about it? You know, do you have a specific way that you start? And like, for me, I'm a bass player, so I'm often coming up with a bass line, but sometimes I just have a lyric that I've written. Or like I write a lot of poetry, and so I'll have a lyric idea and I'll start to set it to music. Or maybe I'll have a melody and then the rest kind of comes out of that. But It's always a little different, like there's no one way, and I think it's different for every songwriter.
So what's that like for you, like when you sit down to write a song?
George: I usually end up, usually start with a nugget of an idea. I think even driving here today, it’s usually when your brain, my brain, is not totally in its own way. And I came up with an idea and I just got the voice memos out and took the voice memo. That's usually where it starts and then that nugget gets built on. And sometimes it's a lyric like that, or sometimes it's a riff that I like. And then I might play that riff and then ad lib over the top of that and go from there. I like to do it in the house when nobody's there, so I can make terrible noises and, just make, yeah, there's no pressure to, for it to be perfect.
I had an art teacher, and he would always try and encourage you to make something ugly, to stop being so obsessed about making something perfect. It's too much pressure. If you're okay with making something that you can discard, I think sometimes it has more chance of success. So I think I invent all these tricks, methods to get unstuck maybe, might be a way of putting it.
Melinda: Yeah, so much of it is I think about just getting out of our own way, right? Like the writer Anne Lamott talks about writing, just giving yourself permission to write shitty first drafts. You know, we get so perfectionistic. We're trying to edit while we're just getting the ideas out and yeah.
George: I think I started doing some in the morning in the evening is quite good for me. I'm like, maybe it's slightly tired and then I can be a bit more, there's more free flow to it I can get out of my own way a little bit. I mean, to be honest, most of the time I'm, you know, you'll probably ask me to leave in a second, but it's mostly walking around the dark. Trying to find puzzle pieces and sticking it together and just coming up with tricks. So I don't really have any formal classical training.
And, uh, famous musicians or, you know, people who are classical musicians, they're composers. And, you know, they're composing. I always feel like I'm mostly playing. So I think, I think recently I've given it more credence and respect, and I've been honing my skills and my craft, I think.
Melinda: Yeah, that's where it all starts. I mean, the creative process starts with play. I mean, you know, for me, so often it's about just kind of going back to that childlike place. You know, getting out of the linear mind and the to-do list ,and just allowing yourself to experiment and see what happens.
George: Yeah. And asking people for help will always be helpful. Not trying to do, I think the recent, recent thing I've tried to stop doing everything myself and then realize that, you know, you can ask people to do the things that you're not strong at. Like figuring out your strengths, working with that, and then, I mean, I could probably change the oil in my car, but I'd choose not to.
Melinda: Right, exactly.
George: It's just like, sometimes you need to, especially with recording, it's been great, getting an engineer / producer to take it to the next level, get that extra, few extra percent out of it.
Melinda: So you've been spending a bit of time in the studio and we were talking the other day. I'm curious what's it been like for you to work with a producer, like you come in with some songs and, what's that collaboration like?
George: This collaboration is fantastic. It's taken me a long time to get into a studio. And I asked a friend to introduce me to somebody 'cause he was a professional musician and I was, what I really didn't want was to go into the studio and made to feel like I didn't know what I was doing, right? Cause I knew that already. I didn't, I needed somebody to help me get to where I wanted to get to, to get a good finished product.
And I luckily got introduced to a great guy, a local man. And he's, he's been working with me and very patient and, yeah, it's been very rewarding. But a new thing to learn unto itself. It's kind of like, there's so many aspects of music. There's a lot of composing, and then there's the performing. And recording almost seems like another thing. There's a...
Melinda: It is. It's a whole thing unto itself.
George: It's a whole new skill set. And, for me, I'm sure other people are very good at doing all three, but it's best, for me, it's been good to get outside help on the recording and it's been beneficial. Collaboration is what we were talking, where we started. Really has made a big difference.
Melinda: Absolutely. Yeah. And sometimes just having someone tell you like, no, go do it again. Like you can do better. Or why don't you try this? Or, you know, just bringing a different ear to it.
George: And I think, yeah, songwriters, I think we're notorious for not using a click track and just being free. Too free. We need to be a bit more rigid because we need to play with a band. So it's been educational, a real joy to have somebody point out all the things that I'm getting wrong.
Melinda: Yeah. So, I know that back in the UK, you were featured on BBC Introducing, which is a program that, kind of, introduces musicians that maybe haven't been discovered yet. And a couple summers ago you played at a festival over there. Tell us about that.
George: So, I released a few songs and, you know, you put them out into the world and, uh, have...
Melinda: And you never know what's going to happen.
George: And you never know. You put it out there and hopefully, somebody other than your mother likes it. So I got a few playlists, nothing local in Texas. I put it out to the BBC, which is where I lived in the UK. And, uh, they picked it up and they played it on the radio. All three songs actually, before I even released them. They weren't even on Spotify at that point. And I got a great response and they were really enthusiastic about all the songs and they played them regularly. And then they had me on the radio to do an interview and did some sort of unusual swap song swap, you meet another local artist and then you trade songs and you have to do a cover of each song.
Melinda: Oh, wow.
George: And they were really mean. They gave me a rap artist. That was super hard. Uh, that was difficult, but it turned out great. And they invited me to do the BBC Introducing stage at Lakefest festival in the Midlands. And, yeah, we went over and had a great time. It was really rewarding.
Melinda: So speaking of which, we're trying an experiment of writing together, and we share a love of, kind-of, sad songs and minor keys. So we've challenged ourselves to write something in a major key.
George: Right, right, let's write a major key. It's like, oh my gosh, what are you saying? This is crazy talk. Um, yeah, so that has been, well it's actually, we're... not showing it to anybody at the moment.
Melinda: Yeah, not ready for prime time just yet.
George: It's a nugget and it's taken shape. You know, we may pull it off. I have confidence that we can do this.
Melinda: And it's fun. It's so much fun to collaborate. So, I'm curious, you know, kind of as a songwriter, as a creative, do you have any advice you would give to someone just starting out or, or what's the most important thing you've learned about your own creative process along the way?
George: I mean, just take your words and put it back to the - it is your own creative process and I don't think there's one way, I think you have to find your way and I think there's, y, you could steal and borrow other people's, but if it works for you, if it doesn't, just discard it and move on.
I think sometimes it's easy to get het up about, you need to do it a certain way. You know, it needs to be, you know, I can't, when I write, I don't compose music, I don't, I'm not there with, you know, writing actual musical notes. But there's, there's method to the madness, and just, yeah, find what works for you, keep challenging yourself, and talk to other musicians, you know, open mic nights is always a good, a good way to cut your teeth, and performing wise, creative writing, there's lots of ways, and there's lots of information out there, but you really do need to find your own. Your own method, I think.
Melinda: Yeah. And I think it's just one of those things also, for me, like, the more you do it... You know, the first time I wrote a song, it was kind of like, I don't even know how I did that. It just sort of happened, you know, I had a bass line and then I started coming up with a melody and then some lyrics came out of that and like I said, you know, obviously it's not the same way every time. And maybe like you said, we start out and we're kind of mimicking someone else's style, but then over time we sort of start to develop our own.
George: But it is a method. I think they're like there is sometimes there is a magic, and I think that probably the magic gets talked about a lot. And there's always this creative, there's always a myth around, you know, rock songs or whatever it might be. There's a lot of urban legends about things. And I think, you know, that's great, but I think, you know, like anything,as I get older, I really do believe, you know, hard work, you know, sitting down and actually doing it is a big part of, it's actually the biggest part of it.
Melinda: Yeah, you gotta put the time in.
George: Yeah, you gotta put the time in. Magical thinking will only get you so far.
Melinda: Right, exactly.
George: Learn new skills. Chord theory or song structure. Um, pick something that you feel weak on and delve into it. There's always something to learn.
Melinda: Yeah, I remember some years back, I took a songwriting class with a friend of mine. She was teaching this songwriting method that was totally new to me. It was basically like, you just do a bunch of free writing around an idea or an image or something like that, and you don't think censor yourself. You just, whatever comes out, and then afterwards you kind of go back and you circle or highlight, you know, certain words or phrases or just evocative images. And then you start to build a lyric around that, which I just found like really refreshing approach.
George: I've used that a few, few times recently, and it has been really, really helpful. And yeah, that's a great way of, especially if you, maybe if you're missing a verse or something. And you need more material, you just, you pick the topic and then you just free write on that topic, or that emotion and see where it takes you. And then you've got material to work with. If you don't have any material, you've got nothing to work with. So you need to, even if it ends up in the bin, that's great.
Melinda: Right, right. And that's the thing I always talk to my writing clients about, you know, if you're a sculptor, for example, you have a block of marble or whatever it is, you have a raw material. But as writers, whether, you know, Novelists, or songwriters, or whatever it might be like, we have to create our own raw materials. And then we can sort of shape them.
George: Yeah, I feel compelled to do it for whatever mad reason. And it's, it's, it's very rewarding. I think we both feel that way and we'll just keep, keep going whether anybody likes what we're doing.
Melinda: Exactly. Well, there's something to be said for doing what you do, doing your creative work, for the pure joy of it. You know, as a means unto itself.
George: Yeah. Anything else is a lovely benefit. Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
George: Well, it's been a pleasure to come and share my music.
Melinda: Yeah, so where can people find you online if they want to hear more?
George: Well, I'm on all the music platforms. So Spotify, Son of Cormack. So it's C O R M A C K at the end. And, you can find me on YouTube, Bandcamp, Spotify, have my own website. Follow those and I'll try not to inundate you with too much spam.
Melinda: Okay. Fair enough. Well, thank you so much for being with us today and we'll share links to all of your sites in the show notes, for the show, and looking forward to more collaborations.
George: You too.
Melinda: Songwriting, like many creative pursuits, can be a mysterious process. There’s no set formula for writing a song, and each songwriter approaches it in their own unique way. Some start with lyrics, others start with a chord progression, or a bass line, or a melody. For example, I once came up with a melody and rhythm for a set of lyrics I was working on while walking down the street, based on the rhythm of my walking and the ambient sounds in the environment.
One of the things we talked about today is the importance of play in the creative process, along with letting go of perfectionism, which can be paralyzing. As we know, the creative process is not linear, and it’s often quite messy. It’s important to allow ourselves to play, and experiment, and make a mess, and see what arises out of that place, but often we get stuck in our own perfectionism.
So for our Creativity Pro-Tip today, I encourage you to make a mess. Yep, whatever that looks like for you. Get out some paints and smear them around with your fingers. Or do some stream-of-consciousness freewriting to get some words onto the page without judgment. Or take a pottery class. Or just try out a completely new medium you know nothing about, where you don’t have to be an expert. Just allow yourself to enjoy the process and the messiness and the not-knowingness of it. See what happens. You might be surprised. Let us know what you discover.
At Syncreate, we’re here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea and you’re interested in our help, please reach out to us about 1x1 coaching, or join our Syncreate Six-Month Coaching Group starting in April of 2024. We’ll be guiding you through our Syncreate process to help bring a creative project to life. You can learn more at syncreate.org.
This episode was produced by Christian Haigis with assistance by Mike Osborne. Follow Syncreate on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, where you can also find out more about all we do at Syncreate. Thanks for listening. We’ll leave you today with another song of George’s, I Feel Your Shade.
[Music: George and Melinda playing I Feel Your Shade live]
My guest today is George McCormack, a British singer-songwriter who performs as Son of Cormack. George and I were introduced by a mutual friend last year and started collaborating musically. You’ll hear us playing together later in the episode, with George on guitar and lead vocals, and me on bass and backing vocals.
His tagline is “An Irish boy, with an English Voice.” With Irish roots, George grew up in English pubs to jukebox lullabies in the 80s and went to a British boarding school. He lived in London for a decade and now lives in Austin, Texas, where he is writing and finally self-publishing his music.
BBC INTRODUCING, a popular show in the UK, has picked up some of his songs and has been playing them on the radio. He appeared on the BBC Introducing stage at Lakefest Festival in the grounds of Eastnor Castle in 2022 and has been a guest live on air with BBC Hereford & Worcester. In the conversation, we talked about his songwriting process, with a focus on the song, Accelerate to a Standstill, which is essentially a metaphor for the climate crisis and our collective inability to respond or take full responsibility for it.
We recorded the conversation at Mystic Oaks, my creative studio in the Texas Hill Country.
Melinda: So, George, really excited to have you on the show.
George: Yeah, it's great. Thank you.
Melinda: Yeah, and just to share a little bit more about you with our listeners. So, you are Irish, but you grew up in the UK, went to boarding school, lived in London, and now you're living here in Austin, Texas.
George: Yeah, I met my wife in London, in an Irish bar, you know, the old-fashioned way, in person. And, uh, she kidnapped me and brought me here. So, here we are. Yeah.
Melinda: Kidnapped and brought to Texas.
George: Yeah, yeah. A false bill of sale. She brought me in the winter. I thought it was going to be cooler. Yeah. I’d bought the ticket by then.
Melinda: Yes, but now we're having the most brutal summer ever.
George: Yeah. It's good to be out in Wimberley for the weekend, so.
Melinda: Yeah, good. So, I want to hear more about your songwriting process and we're starting to collaborate to write some songs together.
George: Yeah, it's, you've been introducing me to your music friends. And it's been, really rewarding. So it's great to have fellow musicians to play with.
Melinda: Yeah, it's all about collaboration.
George: It is. Yeah, getting out there. Yeah, it really is. It's taken me a long time to figure that out. I've been a bit slow off the mark. It is for sure. It makes a big difference. Takes the pressure off yourself and it's fun.
Melinda: So I kind of wanted to start in with a particular song of yours and kind of dive into the song itself and your songwriting process around it. So the song is called Accelerate to a Standstill. And it's kind of about how as a society and as a culture, we seem to be hurtling toward this very problematic place.
George: Yeah, so Accelerate to a Standstill. I think I had this image in the back of my head about a car, you know, driving down a long road and at the end of the road, there's a traffic light and it's, it's red. And, in my mind's eye, instead of, you know, tapping the brakes, just floored it. And that feels like, you know, what we're doing as a society, we're kind of just headlong, you know, headlong off the end of a cliff, and we're gonna have a bill to pay at some point, but we're gonna abuse the credit card while it's out there. So that's kind of the song and it's about not facing up to difficult situations. So it's kind of a mixture of the both, a mixture of the two.
Melinda: Yeah. Kind of a metaphor for climate change.
George: Yeah. Not facing up to difficult situations, climate change specifically. Yeah. So that's where it came from. And I think the music was there and then it was just kind of, just playing the music and then ad libbing over the top of that. And I think it comes out quite straightforward to start with. And then, and it's usually the last 20 percent that takes me forever to sort out. The initial creative burst happens and then, yeah, really honing it down and giving it some shape.
Melinda: Definitely. Yeah. Well, I wanted to share some of the lyrics from the song, and then we can actually hear the song itself. So, part of the lyrics go:
She comes around telling everybody what they want to hear.
She's been coming around here for years.
Her candle's burning bright, it's about to disappear.
Let sleeping dogs lie, color between the lines.
Don't look her in the eye, she'll eat you alive.
We absolve your responsibility.
Pity the young, ignore the old. Accelerate.
Accelerate to a standstill.
So, tell us a little more about how the lyrics kind of came to you.
George: You know, it's a tough one. Uh, she's coming around; It's more of a kind of being told what we want to hear. We've just been like, we're all ignoring the climate thing. I mean, I was taught about climate change when I was eight. So that's the late 80s. And here we are in 2023.
Melinda: Right.
George: And, yeah. Still umming and ahhing about what we're going to do.So it's kind of, we've all been kind of burying our heads in the sand and it's about, it's basically ignoring the obvious, you know, and just getting on, you know, the easy way. We're just, we're all a bit of hedonistic and taking it easy. We don't want to make any difficult choices. And facing up to it. So it's like, you know, let sleeping dogs lie. Don't look it in the eye, you know, just ignore it. It'll be alright.
Melinda: It'll go away.
George: It'll go away. It'll sort itself out. Which it won't.
Melinda: Let’s hear the song, Accelerate to a Standstill.
[Music: George and Melinda playing Accelerate to a Standstill live]
Melinda: So one of the things I want to ask you about is, you know, you have a line and kind of a tagline, you know: Irish boy, English voice, living in the States. And I'm just curious, like how these particular identities have shaped you and shaped your creative work.
George: Yeah. Well, I grew up in a, I suppose I got a kind of a mix of a background. I grew up in, my family's, my mother's Northern Irish Protestant father, Southern Irish Catholic. So there's this kind of, and then I grew up in England, so I end up with an English accent. So I kind of, there's a bit of Scottish.
Melinda: And there's kind of always tension between, the English, and Irish.
George: There's lot of history lot going on there. Um, so I grew up in England, so I ended up with an English accent. So, you know, when I go home to Ireland, you know, always on the outside. Because, you know, the accent. The family obviously, you're part of the family and that's no problem. But the English accent kind of just puts you on the outside instantly. English Irish relations are always problematic, to say the least.
Melinda: Do you feel like that's a tension that lives inside of you in some way?
George: Not too bad, but I think it's in the back of my head. It's kind of like you don't really, slightly on the outside, because I'm not, obviously English accent, I spent a lot of time in England, went to boarding school in England, but I'm not, I don't feel English. So I suppose it was easy for me to move to the States as well, you know, I've moved around a lot.
Melinda: Yeah.
George: I spent my summers in Ireland, Christmases in Scotland, and kind of moved around a lot. Parents were around pubs, so it was a very diverse background. So I've walked in a few walks of life. So I wouldn't be able to tell you how that comes through, but it's, uh, it's interesting. It's an unusual background, I suppose.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
George: So the boarding school was, um, interesting. Went when I was seven, until 18. It's kind of like, maybe, Harry Potter but without the magic.
Melinda: Right. Yeah.
George: So it's an interesting one.
Melinda: So kind of growing up in this confluence of, like, English pub culture and boarding school, when did you start writing songs and, and what inspired that?
George: Well, I think I grew up early on in the pubs. I think, you know, the jukebox was always the background to my life. Um, so like, I probably don't know all the 80 music, but like their names, but I know them subconsciously. So I think music was always around. It was live music. I remember seeing a band when I was pretty young and just, pretty taken by it. We were surrounded by lots of musicians as well. But my parents aren't musical at all.
Melinda: And did you have any musical training in particular?
George: Not really. I think at school I kind of got into singing. It just, well, it just gave me a lot of joy. And that you just, I just followed that really. Um, and then played the guitar for a while. I think it was my French teacher. So it's a very random lessons and eventually, yeah, just a progression through eventually finding that you have an interest for it. And it becomes just an important part of your life. It's like a port in the storm. It's always been something that I go back to.
Melinda: Absolutely. So people are always asking me, as a songwriter, like, how do you write songs? Like, how do you go about it? You know, do you have a specific way that you start? And like, for me, I'm a bass player, so I'm often coming up with a bass line, but sometimes I just have a lyric that I've written. Or like I write a lot of poetry, and so I'll have a lyric idea and I'll start to set it to music. Or maybe I'll have a melody and then the rest kind of comes out of that. But It's always a little different, like there's no one way, and I think it's different for every songwriter.
So what's that like for you, like when you sit down to write a song?
George: I usually end up, usually start with a nugget of an idea. I think even driving here today, it’s usually when your brain, my brain, is not totally in its own way. And I came up with an idea and I just got the voice memos out and took the voice memo. That's usually where it starts and then that nugget gets built on. And sometimes it's a lyric like that, or sometimes it's a riff that I like. And then I might play that riff and then ad lib over the top of that and go from there. I like to do it in the house when nobody's there, so I can make terrible noises and, just make, yeah, there's no pressure to, for it to be perfect.
I had an art teacher, and he would always try and encourage you to make something ugly, to stop being so obsessed about making something perfect. It's too much pressure. If you're okay with making something that you can discard, I think sometimes it has more chance of success. So I think I invent all these tricks, methods to get unstuck maybe, might be a way of putting it.
Melinda: Yeah, so much of it is I think about just getting out of our own way, right? Like the writer Anne Lamott talks about writing, just giving yourself permission to write shitty first drafts. You know, we get so perfectionistic. We're trying to edit while we're just getting the ideas out and yeah.
George: I think I started doing some in the morning in the evening is quite good for me. I'm like, maybe it's slightly tired and then I can be a bit more, there's more free flow to it I can get out of my own way a little bit. I mean, to be honest, most of the time I'm, you know, you'll probably ask me to leave in a second, but it's mostly walking around the dark. Trying to find puzzle pieces and sticking it together and just coming up with tricks. So I don't really have any formal classical training.
And, uh, famous musicians or, you know, people who are classical musicians, they're composers. And, you know, they're composing. I always feel like I'm mostly playing. So I think, I think recently I've given it more credence and respect, and I've been honing my skills and my craft, I think.
Melinda: Yeah, that's where it all starts. I mean, the creative process starts with play. I mean, you know, for me, so often it's about just kind of going back to that childlike place. You know, getting out of the linear mind and the to-do list ,and just allowing yourself to experiment and see what happens.
George: Yeah. And asking people for help will always be helpful. Not trying to do, I think the recent, recent thing I've tried to stop doing everything myself and then realize that, you know, you can ask people to do the things that you're not strong at. Like figuring out your strengths, working with that, and then, I mean, I could probably change the oil in my car, but I'd choose not to.
Melinda: Right, exactly.
George: It's just like, sometimes you need to, especially with recording, it's been great, getting an engineer / producer to take it to the next level, get that extra, few extra percent out of it.
Melinda: So you've been spending a bit of time in the studio and we were talking the other day. I'm curious what's it been like for you to work with a producer, like you come in with some songs and, what's that collaboration like?
George: This collaboration is fantastic. It's taken me a long time to get into a studio. And I asked a friend to introduce me to somebody 'cause he was a professional musician and I was, what I really didn't want was to go into the studio and made to feel like I didn't know what I was doing, right? Cause I knew that already. I didn't, I needed somebody to help me get to where I wanted to get to, to get a good finished product.
And I luckily got introduced to a great guy, a local man. And he's, he's been working with me and very patient and, yeah, it's been very rewarding. But a new thing to learn unto itself. It's kind of like, there's so many aspects of music. There's a lot of composing, and then there's the performing. And recording almost seems like another thing. There's a...
Melinda: It is. It's a whole thing unto itself.
George: It's a whole new skill set. And, for me, I'm sure other people are very good at doing all three, but it's best, for me, it's been good to get outside help on the recording and it's been beneficial. Collaboration is what we were talking, where we started. Really has made a big difference.
Melinda: Absolutely. Yeah. And sometimes just having someone tell you like, no, go do it again. Like you can do better. Or why don't you try this? Or, you know, just bringing a different ear to it.
George: And I think, yeah, songwriters, I think we're notorious for not using a click track and just being free. Too free. We need to be a bit more rigid because we need to play with a band. So it's been educational, a real joy to have somebody point out all the things that I'm getting wrong.
Melinda: Yeah. So, I know that back in the UK, you were featured on BBC Introducing, which is a program that, kind of, introduces musicians that maybe haven't been discovered yet. And a couple summers ago you played at a festival over there. Tell us about that.
George: So, I released a few songs and, you know, you put them out into the world and, uh, have...
Melinda: And you never know what's going to happen.
George: And you never know. You put it out there and hopefully, somebody other than your mother likes it. So I got a few playlists, nothing local in Texas. I put it out to the BBC, which is where I lived in the UK. And, uh, they picked it up and they played it on the radio. All three songs actually, before I even released them. They weren't even on Spotify at that point. And I got a great response and they were really enthusiastic about all the songs and they played them regularly. And then they had me on the radio to do an interview and did some sort of unusual swap song swap, you meet another local artist and then you trade songs and you have to do a cover of each song.
Melinda: Oh, wow.
George: And they were really mean. They gave me a rap artist. That was super hard. Uh, that was difficult, but it turned out great. And they invited me to do the BBC Introducing stage at Lakefest festival in the Midlands. And, yeah, we went over and had a great time. It was really rewarding.
Melinda: So speaking of which, we're trying an experiment of writing together, and we share a love of, kind-of, sad songs and minor keys. So we've challenged ourselves to write something in a major key.
George: Right, right, let's write a major key. It's like, oh my gosh, what are you saying? This is crazy talk. Um, yeah, so that has been, well it's actually, we're... not showing it to anybody at the moment.
Melinda: Yeah, not ready for prime time just yet.
George: It's a nugget and it's taken shape. You know, we may pull it off. I have confidence that we can do this.
Melinda: And it's fun. It's so much fun to collaborate. So, I'm curious, you know, kind of as a songwriter, as a creative, do you have any advice you would give to someone just starting out or, or what's the most important thing you've learned about your own creative process along the way?
George: I mean, just take your words and put it back to the - it is your own creative process and I don't think there's one way, I think you have to find your way and I think there's, y, you could steal and borrow other people's, but if it works for you, if it doesn't, just discard it and move on.
I think sometimes it's easy to get het up about, you need to do it a certain way. You know, it needs to be, you know, I can't, when I write, I don't compose music, I don't, I'm not there with, you know, writing actual musical notes. But there's, there's method to the madness, and just, yeah, find what works for you, keep challenging yourself, and talk to other musicians, you know, open mic nights is always a good, a good way to cut your teeth, and performing wise, creative writing, there's lots of ways, and there's lots of information out there, but you really do need to find your own. Your own method, I think.
Melinda: Yeah. And I think it's just one of those things also, for me, like, the more you do it... You know, the first time I wrote a song, it was kind of like, I don't even know how I did that. It just sort of happened, you know, I had a bass line and then I started coming up with a melody and then some lyrics came out of that and like I said, you know, obviously it's not the same way every time. And maybe like you said, we start out and we're kind of mimicking someone else's style, but then over time we sort of start to develop our own.
George: But it is a method. I think they're like there is sometimes there is a magic, and I think that probably the magic gets talked about a lot. And there's always this creative, there's always a myth around, you know, rock songs or whatever it might be. There's a lot of urban legends about things. And I think, you know, that's great, but I think, you know, like anything,as I get older, I really do believe, you know, hard work, you know, sitting down and actually doing it is a big part of, it's actually the biggest part of it.
Melinda: Yeah, you gotta put the time in.
George: Yeah, you gotta put the time in. Magical thinking will only get you so far.
Melinda: Right, exactly.
George: Learn new skills. Chord theory or song structure. Um, pick something that you feel weak on and delve into it. There's always something to learn.
Melinda: Yeah, I remember some years back, I took a songwriting class with a friend of mine. She was teaching this songwriting method that was totally new to me. It was basically like, you just do a bunch of free writing around an idea or an image or something like that, and you don't think censor yourself. You just, whatever comes out, and then afterwards you kind of go back and you circle or highlight, you know, certain words or phrases or just evocative images. And then you start to build a lyric around that, which I just found like really refreshing approach.
George: I've used that a few, few times recently, and it has been really, really helpful. And yeah, that's a great way of, especially if you, maybe if you're missing a verse or something. And you need more material, you just, you pick the topic and then you just free write on that topic, or that emotion and see where it takes you. And then you've got material to work with. If you don't have any material, you've got nothing to work with. So you need to, even if it ends up in the bin, that's great.
Melinda: Right, right. And that's the thing I always talk to my writing clients about, you know, if you're a sculptor, for example, you have a block of marble or whatever it is, you have a raw material. But as writers, whether, you know, Novelists, or songwriters, or whatever it might be like, we have to create our own raw materials. And then we can sort of shape them.
George: Yeah, I feel compelled to do it for whatever mad reason. And it's, it's, it's very rewarding. I think we both feel that way and we'll just keep, keep going whether anybody likes what we're doing.
Melinda: Exactly. Well, there's something to be said for doing what you do, doing your creative work, for the pure joy of it. You know, as a means unto itself.
George: Yeah. Anything else is a lovely benefit. Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
George: Well, it's been a pleasure to come and share my music.
Melinda: Yeah, so where can people find you online if they want to hear more?
George: Well, I'm on all the music platforms. So Spotify, Son of Cormack. So it's C O R M A C K at the end. And, you can find me on YouTube, Bandcamp, Spotify, have my own website. Follow those and I'll try not to inundate you with too much spam.
Melinda: Okay. Fair enough. Well, thank you so much for being with us today and we'll share links to all of your sites in the show notes, for the show, and looking forward to more collaborations.
George: You too.
Melinda: Songwriting, like many creative pursuits, can be a mysterious process. There’s no set formula for writing a song, and each songwriter approaches it in their own unique way. Some start with lyrics, others start with a chord progression, or a bass line, or a melody. For example, I once came up with a melody and rhythm for a set of lyrics I was working on while walking down the street, based on the rhythm of my walking and the ambient sounds in the environment.
One of the things we talked about today is the importance of play in the creative process, along with letting go of perfectionism, which can be paralyzing. As we know, the creative process is not linear, and it’s often quite messy. It’s important to allow ourselves to play, and experiment, and make a mess, and see what arises out of that place, but often we get stuck in our own perfectionism.
So for our Creativity Pro-Tip today, I encourage you to make a mess. Yep, whatever that looks like for you. Get out some paints and smear them around with your fingers. Or do some stream-of-consciousness freewriting to get some words onto the page without judgment. Or take a pottery class. Or just try out a completely new medium you know nothing about, where you don’t have to be an expert. Just allow yourself to enjoy the process and the messiness and the not-knowingness of it. See what happens. You might be surprised. Let us know what you discover.
At Syncreate, we’re here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea and you’re interested in our help, please reach out to us about 1x1 coaching, or join our Syncreate Six-Month Coaching Group starting in April of 2024. We’ll be guiding you through our Syncreate process to help bring a creative project to life. You can learn more at syncreate.org.
This episode was produced by Christian Haigis with assistance by Mike Osborne. Follow Syncreate on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, where you can also find out more about all we do at Syncreate. Thanks for listening. We’ll leave you today with another song of George’s, I Feel Your Shade.
[Music: George and Melinda playing I Feel Your Shade live]
