How did you come up with the name? What inspired it/what does it mean to you?

Fishboy was a name I came up with almost randomly as a teen. I liked the idea of being in a band with stage-names so I gave myself one for the eventual band I would start. Over the years I've had to come up with different reasons behind it. Some of those stories have been published in newspapers and cited as fact which is always nice to see. I've had the same name for so long (over 25 years) that I'm really just proud to exist under one moniker, no matter what it ended up being.

 

Location is huge for me. I wrote two albums themed around Texas (Little d, Albatross) in the mid 2000s and then drifted away from hyper local things for ten years and then circled back to the idea big time in 2017 with Art Guards and 2021 with Waitsgiving because I realized a few things. 1) As we entered the social media age it became very tough to come up with an original idea based on anything already published on the internet. My album 2014 An Elephant accidentally mirrored an episode of Bob's Burgers because the writer and I probably both read the same article on Thomas Edison. 2) The more specific yI get with the details in my hometown the more universal the message becomes to the listener and there are a ton of great unique things in Denton sitting outside my door. 3) Many people outside of Texas, especially Europeans, have a mythical perception of the state which I think is fun to lean into.

 

Tell me about your comics! - which comes first, the music or the illustrations? How does your music/lyrics affect your illustrations and vice versa? 

Most of my albums have some sort of comic representation. For An Elephant there's a full 150 small graphic novel that fills in gaps of the story where the lyrics may be a little more poetic or unclear. For these comics I typically have the album done before I just retell the story in the lyrics with pictures. I wrote short 2-4 panel diary comics for many years and stopped when I became a parent because I didn't want to be cooped up in a room alone without my family all the time. The past few years I've pivoted that storytelling to posting short form videos. I do have big dreams to circle back and re-adapted all my albums into longer form more detailed comics. Especially the ones that dont have any adaptation yet like Waitsgiving.

 

Would you consider yourself more of a writer or a musician? - Many of your songs are very story driven, talk me through the process! How do you come up with these stories & what is the process like writing them out into music?

I consider myself a songwriter first. I dont necessarily have strong instrument chops to freestyle jam with people. My writing process consists of making up long lists of ideas in different categories (melodic, lyrical, thematic, local inspiration things I like) and giving myself as narrow of a possible structure to work with to force myself into slotting things in sudoku style. For Waitsgiving I wanted all the songs to be about patience and I wanted every character to be connected to two other characters and I wanted all the characters to end up in a heist scene at the end of the album. So I'm choosing little bits from each category and piecing things together with a greater vision in mind. Some songs will inspire other songs. I use a lot of sticky notes and have several different notebooks going at once.

 

describe your creative process in general! Is it more organized/session based or fleeting and sporadic? Where do you tend to draw inspiration from?

This is kind of addressed above! Also, I kind of obsess on one song at a time and iron it out in whatever free time I have. This last week I've been ironing out lyrics on this very short song I started last year. Being a parent with a full time job I have to just take whatever moments I can get.

 

you’ve been in the music scene for quite some time! What are some of the biggest changes you’ve noticed throughout the years? How have crowds, ideas, your surroundings, the internet, your own work, YOU, etc. changed since you started?

It's tough to know if the scene has changed or if it's myself getting older. I'm guessing its more the latter. I was much more into house shows 10 years ago when there was shortage of venues in town. I don't have any current house show connections at the moment which was one of the reasons for started the Waitsgiving event and invited everyone to the courthouse lawn every May 17th. The great thing about Denton is that there will always be a crop of young musicians in bands making art out of thin air and finding a way to play shows.

 

If you could give your past self advice, what would it be? - What advice/useful lesson would you give to artists just starting out, or struggling to find the next steps in their creative future?  

I would try to get into physical art earlier. I have been painting more the past few years since I stopped regularly drawing digital comics and not only is it very satisfying as an artist, and gives fans a supplemental physical thing to purchase, I feel like it really emphasizes to the world that you are making music for artistic purposes above all else. I think it's important for young artists to try and own their own visual style as early as possible, which is tough because a lot of people are musicians because they feel like they can't draw or paint, but everything gets better with practice over time.

 

How do you deal with creative block? What gets you through those times, what has proven to help get you back on track the most?

I can very easily get decision paralysis which is why I have to make these narrow goals for myself. It's also very easy for me to get sidetracked. I have a journal that I treat like a boring diary where I just keep a daily list of anything I have done to move my creative work forward. Even if it's just something I thought about that day, it helps keep me motivated to have something to write down. I don't consistently do this but when I feel like I'm not getting anything done, it helps keep me on track.