Still Woozy on His New Album “If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is”
Although Still Woozy, formerly part of the math-rock band Feed Me Jack, has been making music as an independent artist since his first single, “Vacation” in 2017, the artist has released his debut album, “If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is” as of Friday, August 13.
Of the songs on the album, “Kenny”, “Woof”, “Rocky”, and others have released music videos, featuring either Still Woozy or artistic renditions. “I always wanted to work with this artist, Felicia Chiao. I could go on her Instagram and spend an hour just looking at her [art],” he explained. Although Still Woozy originally wanted to work with her for “Rocky”’s music video, the timing ended up being better with “Kenny” and she did the illustration and art direction for the music video which follows a nameless fleshy character often found in her work.
Still Woozy cites Peter Drake as inspiration for his folksy, acoustic guitar song “Drake”. “He has this song called ‘Forever’, a really beautiful old 50s song. It’s in six eight, which has a swingy feel (compared to most pop songs in four four)... It's kind of like Motown-y and super dreamy.”
Among his favorite songs on the album is “These Days”. “I remember writing the guitar part and I just played it on repeat, just listening to it when I was stressed out or upset- and it just helped me so much, just to relax. It's like my own therapy, it's just immediate to me.”
He hopes that listeners can find that solace from listening to his music and “take themselves less seriously because sometimes it can feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.”
Unlike previous songs that were mostly self-produced, Still Woozy collaborated on the album with producer and friend Lars Stalfors, who would visit him in Portland and quarantine with him in an Airbnb. “He was basically the drill sergeant who kept me on task and kept me organized, which is something nice that I didn't even know I needed.”
“[Quarantine] definitely forced me to really hone in my own process,” Still Woozy said. “It's so hard to be productive when you're on tour… you get home and you have like two days off and you just want to sleep and you don't want to even move, so it's not like the best environment to be making music.”
When making music, Still Woozy swears by writing the melodies first. “The framework is the melody and the instrumentation for me. Then I spend a lot of time after that, bringing in the lyrics and just taking time to intertwine the two.”
Every song process is different, but “WTF” was actually four years in the making. Early on in his career, Still Woozy was asked to do a live set despite only having a few songs. “I had to look through my projects and basically create a set out of nothing.”
Although he didn’t have any plans to release it, Still Woozy shared it with Stalfors who really liked it. “We just talked about it and kind of figured out what it needed and it just clicked.”
“It was important and necessary for me to [publish the album] because it allowed me to release songs that maybe weren't these big single songs, but those sides of me exist,” Still Woozy explained. “They usually just sit on my computer, so [the album] was kind of a venue for these songs and I think the downside is probably that some songs will get neglected probably because they're not singles.”
With thirteen songs, “If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is” is a balance of surrealist compositions with heavier themes of mental health. “A lot of times when I make music, I make it from this place of longing or my own turbulent emotions, so it would be kind of misleading if all the songs were like happy… so it's this weird dichotomy.”
The album also has a lot of “Easter eggs” sprinkled in. “The Easter egg is just something that's like candy to my ears,” Still Woozy explains. “Every song has little moments like that, there's obviously little sound bites and stuff like in ‘Window’.’”
“When I listen to ‘Get By,’ the harmonies that come in the second chorus make me super excited. And that feels to me like it's an Easter egg for myself but maybe people just feel it and they don't know it. it's something that you feel, you don't have to necessarily acknowledge.”
Find these Easter eggs in his new album now, out on all platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. For other Still Woozy content, follow him on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.