David Pomeranz
November 2000

E: It seems that you’ve been quiet for the past few years. What have you been up to?
D: Before Born For You, those years I was writing a lot for movies, for the theater, for other artists and performing. But I haven’t actually made a solo album of my own for several years.

E: How was that like, writing for theater?
D: Well, the theater is fun. As a writer, it’s heaven. For a composer, man, it’s like a big playpen. What I mean is you just have free range to create anything you want. You’re writing for characters, for funny characters and angry characters. So I’m tapping different parts of myself. So it’s a lot of fun.

E: How different are writing for theater or films from writing pop songs?
D: It’s different that in films and plays, they’re from characters’ viewpoints. As a pop artist, I’m usually usually writing from my own viewpoint, my personal viewpoint, which makes it different. And what makes it the same is that it’s all songs. It’s songs and it’s songs in my style, I suppose, whatever that is. When I’m writing for myself as a singer I’m having a look and see what I want to say. What’s important to me, what means something to me. If I’m writing as a composer or lyricist for a movie or TV or something, I have to serve what’s on screen or stage. I have to find out what would that character say. It’s more of imagination, you know, but it’s still got to be real for it to be good.

E: How do you write music?
D: I make it like an assignment. Okay today I write a song. Or today I work on the song or I spend these three hours in my chair, working. Because I know at first it’s not going to be there. It’s not going to be good or it’s going to sound like something I did before. Or some other person’s song. But if I stick in there, just stay in there, it will come to me. Also if I get all jammed up I take a walk. I just put it away, I’d put my attention on something else and listen to other music. I don’t try to force it.

E: Where do you get your ideas?
D: Sometimes when I’m sleeping, I get an idea for a melody. I have a little tape recorder and I’ll get up in the morning, 3 in the morning and go vlavla vla vla and put the tape recorder down. When I listen to it the next morning I’d go “what was I thinking, I thought that was good.” And every once in a while I actually dream of a good melody. So sometimes it will come like that. Or sometimes when I’m feeling carefree, when I’m walking on the beach, when I don’t have cares and I’m just relaxed.

E: Do you ever get writer’s block?
D: It usually means that I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what I’m talking about. So my solution is to find out more about what I want to say. Sometimes I take a piece of paper and I’ll write what this guy or what I want to say. I just write it whether it’s in the form of poetry or in lyric or anything. Blah blah blah this is what I think, I just write, write and write. I sort of get in to it, into the subject. And I start to learn about what I think about what I’m thinking about. Then it’s easier to write a lyric. Then I don’t get the writer’s block. As long as I know what I’m saying it can come out okay.

E: Do you think of your audience when you write?
D: Yeah, a litle bit. As a singer there are certain things that are expected of me by my audience. So I have to keep that in mind. Because I don’t want to alienate people. However, what they’re expecting in combination with what it is I would like to say or what’s important to me, these I have to put together when I’m writing for myself. Recently, the Filipino audience is important to what I’m writing, and the Asian audience as well. But being a New Yorker, ah, I’m always going to inform that to what I’m writing. So it always a combination of what I think that sounds American with some of the Asian sensibilities, you know, which is a lot of emotion and heart and warmth. Which is something I love to do anyway. I’ve always written that way. So it’s kind of a nice marriage.

E: Is there any Filipino trait you’ve acquired?
D: Love of mangoes, ripe sweet ones. Oh baby! (laughs) I’ve been reminded constantly that family is important. A lot of people forget, I forget it, from time to time. When I come here I am reminded of that.

E: Any influences?
D: The song writing masters like the Gershwins and Rodgers and Hammerstein and Irvin Berlin. They were my heroes, songwriting wise. And then as I grew up and I started getting into rock music and getting into rock bands (I played the drums in rock bands) I started listening to contemporary music. Paul McCartney and the Beatles were “it” for every young guy growing up in that time. And in terms of great singers, well, there’s 2 great contemporary singers for me. Kenny Loggins, I adore. And also Vince Gil, he’s got one of the sweetet voices on the planet. I just have favorites as I go along. When Billy Joel was happening, and in my mind he still is, he’s one of my favorite singers. Any singer that invests in emotions and invests themselves in their singing and doesn’t sound phoney, doesn’t just toss it off, you know or just try to sound cool. I don’t like singers who like try to sound cool becuase it’s hip. They kind of do something with their voices or with the pronunciation. I don’t like it because it’s not them, it’s not essentially them. I like guys who are honest.

E: Are you romantic like your songs?
D: I don’t know that I’m so romantic. I know that I like honesty, I like people who tell the truth. I like kindness. I like love. I like sex. And I guess when you put it all together it’s romantic. That would probably be what romantic is. But I’m not mushy or sentimental. I don’t like that kind of thing much

E: How do you want to be remembered?
D: I don’t know. I like to think that I left some message in my music. That kindness and caring for other people is an important thing. It’s not corny to be honestly expressing love to other people. I like to think maybe I sprinkled a little sweetness into the world. That would have been a good goal for me. It’s a tough world. It’s a jaded, sarcastic, I’ve-seen-it-all world . Yet there are certain simple beauties in people that I love to remind them of. If I could do that, I’ve accomplished a great deal.

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