Roland Faunte (Liam Donahue) speaks with The Note's Charlie Blasberg about the purpose and impact of his seminal project Sewing Kit.
CB: Tell us about your process making the Sewing Kit record.
RF: I just made it in my bedroom, and it was an absolute nightmare honestly. I had a lot of songs that I really liked and knew they were significant enough that they had to be released, but truly had no idea how to start. It felt like I was starting from scratch in a lot of ways. Singing into a microphone and being able to hear yourself is drastically different from singing normally, as is playing the instruments you thought you knew so well. I also had to figure out how drums work as well as bass which was certainly not as easy as I had imagined. I think my main issue is that
I was entirely alone in the process until the very end so I made a lot of rookie mistakes that could have been easily avoided in a normal recording scenario wherein people familiar with the process are involved. I had more or less unlimited time which ended up being really bad. If you listen to “Levers” you’ll notice that there are subtle changes in the way the voice sounds from verse-to-verse. That’s because most of those bits were recorded at different times because I would endlessly go over and over the vocal takes and delete and then re-do things. Each one of those lines probably has a minimum of thirty takes behind it and some of them probably have over 90. I would just sit there and more or less drive myself completely insane over every little detail. Once it was released there were so many times I almost pulled it and just wanted to delete everything. The frustration was absolutely overwhelming sometimes.
CB: When not playing music, what do you like to do with your time?
RF: There isn’t anything that’s even close to music when it comes to my time expenditure, but since I managed to get the bipolar stuff under control I spend most of my free time doing things that I think will benefit my health in some way. I also used to be a big “non-conformist” guy but have come to realize that normal people are pretty happy so now I just try to do normal people stuff and be a part of things. When you spend a lot of time unhappy you start to hate the world and everyone in it in a very resentful and bitter way, but now that I’m healthy again I’m just trying to watch what happy people do and do that.
CB: How did you first get into music?
RF: I don’t really know honestly, it’s been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. I never much cared for other people’s music until I was introduced to Radiohead so I would mostly just write songs and play them for myself. Once I had an iPhone this tendency was exacerbated because the voice memos app allowed me to just record my own songs and then listen to them whenever I was out and about.
CB: You are clearly a terrific lyricist. How do you do it?
RF: I have no idea how it works. It feels as though there’s this really picky and arbitrary animal on the inside that will sometimes take me over for a little bit and I’ll type out what it has to say and then it retreats and I don’t really know what happened. I think my best lyrics are those in “Levers.” I wrote that opening riff and would just sit and play it for hours hoping to coax the animal into giving me some lyrics to go along with it but for a while it didn’t seem interested. Then I was sitting at my kitchen table and the lyrics just started pouring in, kinda like that scene
in the first Harry Potter when the letters are pouring in from the chimney. I ran upstairs and closed the door and let them fall out of me. I read them as they came out and was just like “Holy fuck these are fucking great” but it literally didn’t feel like I was responsible. It felt like I was a scribe. I have no idea how creativity works.
CB: What are the next steps for Roland Faunte?
RF: I’ve had a couple people message me and say that the music helps them combat their suicidal thoughts and even a few say they think it may have saved their lives. That’s not something I ever could have anticipated but now that it has happened I have my purpose in life. I’m going to try to get this music to as many people as possible in the hopes that it will help even more. I have about three of four albums worth of material that’s just as good if not better than the Sewing Kit stuff so hopefully the project will grow and I’ll be able to get those out before too long. I’m writing a little book about the whole journey through depression that I think will help people. I’ve had a few people mention how they always hear stories of people being depressed and then getting better but have a hard time believing that those people were ever as depressed as they are now, but I have art that substantiates my claim that I wanted to die and I can definitely say that I don’t want to do that anymore, so I’d like to get that message out there. The big dream is to turn the project into an international rallying point for people with diseased brains, and then make enough money to start a foundation that makes sure people are getting the healthcare they need when if they can’t afford it. Without my medicines I’d definitely be dead and I know there are people that exist that are in the same boat but can’t get the help they need.
RF: I just made it in my bedroom, and it was an absolute nightmare honestly. I had a lot of songs that I really liked and knew they were significant enough that they had to be released, but truly had no idea how to start. It felt like I was starting from scratch in a lot of ways. Singing into a microphone and being able to hear yourself is drastically different from singing normally, as is playing the instruments you thought you knew so well. I also had to figure out how drums work as well as bass which was certainly not as easy as I had imagined. I think my main issue is that
I was entirely alone in the process until the very end so I made a lot of rookie mistakes that could have been easily avoided in a normal recording scenario wherein people familiar with the process are involved. I had more or less unlimited time which ended up being really bad. If you listen to “Levers” you’ll notice that there are subtle changes in the way the voice sounds from verse-to-verse. That’s because most of those bits were recorded at different times because I would endlessly go over and over the vocal takes and delete and then re-do things. Each one of those lines probably has a minimum of thirty takes behind it and some of them probably have over 90. I would just sit there and more or less drive myself completely insane over every little detail. Once it was released there were so many times I almost pulled it and just wanted to delete everything. The frustration was absolutely overwhelming sometimes.
CB: When not playing music, what do you like to do with your time?
RF: There isn’t anything that’s even close to music when it comes to my time expenditure, but since I managed to get the bipolar stuff under control I spend most of my free time doing things that I think will benefit my health in some way. I also used to be a big “non-conformist” guy but have come to realize that normal people are pretty happy so now I just try to do normal people stuff and be a part of things. When you spend a lot of time unhappy you start to hate the world and everyone in it in a very resentful and bitter way, but now that I’m healthy again I’m just trying to watch what happy people do and do that.
CB: How did you first get into music?
RF: I don’t really know honestly, it’s been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. I never much cared for other people’s music until I was introduced to Radiohead so I would mostly just write songs and play them for myself. Once I had an iPhone this tendency was exacerbated because the voice memos app allowed me to just record my own songs and then listen to them whenever I was out and about.
CB: You are clearly a terrific lyricist. How do you do it?
RF: I have no idea how it works. It feels as though there’s this really picky and arbitrary animal on the inside that will sometimes take me over for a little bit and I’ll type out what it has to say and then it retreats and I don’t really know what happened. I think my best lyrics are those in “Levers.” I wrote that opening riff and would just sit and play it for hours hoping to coax the animal into giving me some lyrics to go along with it but for a while it didn’t seem interested. Then I was sitting at my kitchen table and the lyrics just started pouring in, kinda like that scene
in the first Harry Potter when the letters are pouring in from the chimney. I ran upstairs and closed the door and let them fall out of me. I read them as they came out and was just like “Holy fuck these are fucking great” but it literally didn’t feel like I was responsible. It felt like I was a scribe. I have no idea how creativity works.
CB: What are the next steps for Roland Faunte?
RF: I’ve had a couple people message me and say that the music helps them combat their suicidal thoughts and even a few say they think it may have saved their lives. That’s not something I ever could have anticipated but now that it has happened I have my purpose in life. I’m going to try to get this music to as many people as possible in the hopes that it will help even more. I have about three of four albums worth of material that’s just as good if not better than the Sewing Kit stuff so hopefully the project will grow and I’ll be able to get those out before too long. I’m writing a little book about the whole journey through depression that I think will help people. I’ve had a few people mention how they always hear stories of people being depressed and then getting better but have a hard time believing that those people were ever as depressed as they are now, but I have art that substantiates my claim that I wanted to die and I can definitely say that I don’t want to do that anymore, so I’d like to get that message out there. The big dream is to turn the project into an international rallying point for people with diseased brains, and then make enough money to start a foundation that makes sure people are getting the healthcare they need when if they can’t afford it. Without my medicines I’d definitely be dead and I know there are people that exist that are in the same boat but can’t get the help they need.
