An Interview With Scott Lippincott

I had the opportunity recently to visit Jobstown, New Jersey and spend some quality time with Scott Lippincott, an exceptional musician and songwriter.

On this crisp, still March morning under sky blue as a robin’s egg, the sun shining brightly across freshly fallen snow, we crunched our way across the frozen ground cover to his recording studio. Around us, age old trees barren of all foliage, stood majestically, their naked limbs stirred only by the occasional scarlet cardinal hopping from one branch to another.

 CNH: This is an incredible place, tucked out of the way like it is.  You must get a lot of inspiration here.

     SL: Yeah…(laughs, shrugging self-consciously)…my inspiration mainly comes when it is ready…it all depends.  I don’t really get up in the morning and have a burning desire to write songs…don’t plan for it either.  Sometimes I just sit at the piano or pick up a guitar and something literally comes into my head.  Other times I could be standing in the shower, sitting on the john, walking down the lane bringing the garbage cans back up — there’s just sky everywhere — that can be inspiring.  But the music, even the lyrics, can come from anywhere. 

 CNH: Your music paints very vivid pictures in the mind, some emotional, some stories of everyday interaction.  Where do these pictures or stories come from?

     SL: I can’t honestly say every single one of my songs has a story to go with it.  Like inspiration, songs take on their own life as they evolve.  I’ve had people ask me why “Gordelia” is named Gordelia.  I have absolutely no idea, other than that’s the name that popped into my head.  There was no divine inspiration behind it or a great story.  But a song like “Allison’s Room” took form after my friend, Ken David, gave me a book to read.  The main character was a heroin addict, and that lyrically inspired the song.

The studio, just a short distance from the 100-year-old family farmhouse, is a two-story converted combination woodshop and horse barn, white wood with forest green trim.  It was dubbed “the nursery” shortly after its metamorphosis, when Scott began creating and recording his musical babies there. 

 CNH: What is your favorite part of the process of writing music?

    SL: I love it when I can sit down at a piano with NOTHING in mind, and suddenly a song comes from out of nowhere.  Also a close second…when I am driving or doing something nonmusical and I get an idea for a song.  I can sing the whole thing sometimes, or at least imagine the parts and musical phrases.

 CNH: Having lived here for so long, built your recording studio and a way of life, do you think you could be as fruitful musically off the farm?

     SL: Definitely.  Every moment is an opportunity.  Circumstances can be inspirational as well.  I write a lot of my songs in front of my bass and guitar students.  I’ll just be noodling on something they’re working on and all of a sudden they go, ‘Hey what is that?’  So, I would say 7 out of every 10 of my songs have been played in front of a student of mine before anyone else, even the band, heard them.  My students are kind of my first line of ‘Does this suck?’ 

After cautioning me to watch my step, we enter the studio through the former woodshop, a windowed expanse housing various knickknacks ranging from garage sale treasures to general-purpose tools, shelves chock full of transport gear for various instruments, as well as miscellaneous bric-a-brac.  A large tar-black, barrel-bellied wood stove stands to our right beside a door leading to the remains of a green house long ago destroyed by tree limbs fallen by seasonal storms.  As we walk through this spacious room of exposed white cinder block walls and paned windows, we pass the recreation area heading toward another door adorned with a well-worn dartboard, darts stand ready on a cabinet to our right.  To our left is a bar-sized pool table racked for another game, cues stacked along the wall, blue chalk ready.  The atmosphere is comfortable and inviting despite the chill in the air; a sense that many a good time has been had between rehearsals or after a long night on stage.

 CNH: And what inspired you to convert a horse barn into a recording studio?

     SL: The horse barn was always here, just an empty building.  Sabre, a band I had in college, used to jam in the loft upstairs and downstairs here in the woodshop.  We didn’t have the pool table then. 

Scott opens the large whitewashed wooden door with the dartboard for me and we enter the best part of this transformed structure, the rehearsal studio. 

SL (cont’d):This rehearsal studio was partitioned off with stalls for horses and piping for water trawls.

The room has its own smaller rectangular wood stove standing in the corner across from us to the right, small flames burping from its two knob-like door flues.  The room is a comfortable toasty, filled with the warmth of a fire stoked an hour before my arrival; its aromatic wood smells adding to the charm of the building and this very special room. 

SL (cont’d):The area where the wood stove now stands was all windows with a rain barrel outside.  The overhang outside where we store wood for the stove was used to store cars and trucks.

Behind us to our right beyond the wood stove is an open door with stairs winding upward.

SL (cont’d):The upstairs, where the hayloft was originally, was fixed up by my brother, Brian, and Ken so they could hide away, smoke expensive cigarettes and just hang. 

Yellow acoustic foam almost entirely flanking three of the room’s walls, coupled with recessed lighting over the bass amps and drum riser to our left (once home of trampled hay and feed trawls), the vocal booth diagonal from us in the left corner, and the keyboards and more amps in front of us, add to the coziness and energy of the room. 

SL (cont’d):Eventually, with Ken’s help, I dry-walled the ceiling in here, installed the recessed lighting, built the vocal booth — literally built that around the specs of a door we found out back — and he and I started recording demos.

He smiles.  This is his sanctuary.  A place he goes for peace, clarity and to write his music.  In here the intangible becomes tangible.  He offers me a well-worn 50s-style kitchen chair and we sit down to thaw our toes by the stove.

 CNH: Where did music begin for you?

     SL: Music began for me the day we moved to Jobstown, actually.  I was in second grade.  Mercerville School (a suburb of Trenton) didn’t have much of a music department.  But, my first day at Springfield Township Elementary School, I met Mrs. Bennett, the music teacher.  She had me singing that same day.  Within a week, she established that I had perfect pitch and got me involved in anything and everything she could.  Her husband was the musical director at Northern Burlington High School, where I later went.  So they kept me involved in music from day one.  In 6^th grade, I was playing bass in the junior high stage band with the 7^th & 8^th graders.  I was also one of maybe 3 kids ever that went to senior high band through junior and senior high school.  Took the early bus in everyday with the senior high students.  It was rough, especially because I weighed 80 lbs. back then.

 CNH: Was music a primary focus in your family?

     SL: With my mother being a musician, there was always music in our lives.  Now, my father can’t play a radio…but they have never told me that I should have been a doctor.  They’ve let me live my life without trying to put any kind of boundaries on me.

 CNH: How did you transition from singing with Mrs. Bennett to playing bass, acoustic and electric guitar, and keyboard.  What piqued your interest in these instruments?

     SL: I started playing keyboards when I was 5.  We had a piano and organ in our house. But, I hated keys back then.  I played them in the bands I was in later, more or less to fill in the parts.  I never really used them seriously until I started writing my own songs.

 CNH: What was the turning point?

     SL: I got into keyboards for two reasons.  My girlfriend at the time took me to see Elton John.  Dark stage, single spot and those first few notes of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” just simply knocked the audience over...goose bumps!  That blew my mind.  It was a performance great enough to get that kind of emotional response from 70,000 people — first concert I ever cried at.  Shortly afterward, I was hired to play bass with a Hollywood-based Americana band from Iowa called the Qkumbrz.  Dale Fisher, one of its two founding members, gave me a whole different perspective on keys.  At that point, I embraced the idea of writing on that instrument.  That was also the end of my heavy rock days.

 CNH: When did you start playing bass?

     SL: I started playing bass in 3^rd grade…(laughs)…I thought it would be a great way to meet chicks.

 CNH: And was it?

     SL: Well, that’s WHY I started.  The guy who played bass at Springfield was the coolest person in school, no matter what.  And it just stuck with me.

 CNH: And guitar?

     SL: My mother brought me home a nylon stringed classical guitar when I was in 7^th grade. Classical!  Sheeesh!  I took the strings off and replaced them with steel acoustic strings — why not? — and it ruined the guitar, warped the bowl.  But I learned some chords and started playing guitar in high school, in a band called The Psyc.  The band already had a bass player, named Keith Morrison.  Martin Pitcherello played drums, Ken played sax and vocals, Tim Bowen (who I’ve known since 4^th grade) on guitar and vocals.  I played guitar and sang vocals.  Tim and I switched off playing keys, depending on the song.  That was my first “real” band.  It was 80s covers, and some generic 80s rock originals, not metal.  We played whatever…it was such a joy just to be playing…(smiles)…we did a slammin’ version of “Carry on Wayward Son” by Kansas…did the 3-part vocals in the beginning, dead on.  That was our ‘holy shit’ tune.  I didn’t really pick up the guitar again until I met Joey Karsten (the other co-founding member of the Qkumbrz). 

 CNH: When did it become a songwriting tool for you?

     SL: During my time with the Qkumbrz, I watched Joey pretty closely.  He had to work hard at his craft, played very basic guitar, but he made it all look easy.  And his showmanship made the simplicity of his songs unique and fun…made everything shine.  I just loved how he could take over a room.  He was very comfortable.  That inspired me.  It wasn’t until after I left the Qkumbrz that I used the guitar as a songwriting tool.  It was more due to frustrations with guitar players I was working with at the time.  I’d hear parts in my head that I’d written and sometimes it was just easier for me to play it myself rather than try to talk my way through conveying the parts the way I wanted them to be played. 

 CNH: What became of The Psyc?

     SL: The Psyc turned into Sabre when I entered Glassboro State College (south Jersey), now Rowan University.  Sabre was much more dedicated and we were older and really good, for back then.  Bought my first set of keys for that band, even though it wasn’t a big part of our presentation at the time.  Sabre won a Battle of the Bands or two.  We had a different guitar player; a guy named Ed Glass, (smiles) who’s now a pretty good stock car racer.  Tim played bass.  Ken sang.  I was playing guitar plus writing the bulk of the originals that were getting played.  While in Sabre I was also in Grand Dominion with a group of guys from Glassboro.  That was the first band I played bass, other than junior high and high school.  Also, the first band I was the singer/front man. 

 CNH: How did you like being the singer/front man?

     SL: I got a lot of attention, but it was frustrating carrying the entire load.  It was a good experience for me though.

 CNH: And somewhere down the line you returned to bass.

     SL: Yes.  I was frustrated at Rowan.  It was more of a jazz-oriented music performance school at the time, and everything they were teaching me seemed irrelevant to where I wanted to be as a musician.  Meanwhile...(laughs)…I was playing guitar in the bands I was in, despite the fact that I was all-state bass player at that time.  My mom caught a piece on CNN about MIT (Music Institute of Technology) and called and got the video and suggested I go to BIT (Bass Institute of Technology).  I was really good at bass and it was obvious that’s what I should be doing.  So I quit Rowan and moved to California to attend BIT in Hollywood for a year.

 CNH: Tell me about BIT.

     SL: BIT was a very chops-oriented school when I was going there.  Playing technique.  The faster the better.  Being a shredasaurus was the thing to do and I bought into it big time.  I wanted to be the best bass player I could be, so I was really focused on that rather than looking for a band to join.  I used to play in their Rock Performance class.  Met a great singer in that class named Tony Oros (Egodogs), who later transferred to their vocal school.  Tony was in a band called Monolith at the time. 

  CNH: And after you graduated?

     SL: The month I graduated, I moved in with two east coast guys from BIT.  These guys were amazing, and I mean, amazing musicians — probably the best I’ve ever met on their particular instrument.  They had a band called Red Rooster and needed a bass player.  On paper that band was downright SCARY, even though it never did much.  We all worked at NRG (National Research Group) doing movie surveys.  Mark DeKalb, drummer for the Qkumbrz, called us the Rock Gods.  Mark asked me to come down to The Hermosa Beach Saloon and fill in for their bass player for a two-night swing.  I ended up staying on.  Working the band circuit, I learned how NOT to treat my band members, but I also learned a lot about songwriting and working a crowd…and that it’s okay to smile when you play.  After the Qkumbrz, I joined Tony Oros’ band, Monolith, then called Animation, later called Newspeak.  I literally filled in when their bass player left the band.  This was 1994, the whole 80s hard rock icon singer was done.  I went from the Qkumbrz, this mellow acoustic Americana project, to being in this very heavy, angry band where the singer was just singing so high.  Tony was an amazing singer, but the band’s material was dated, and they changed game plans every 6 weeks. 

 CNH: When did you start writing music for yourself?

     SL: It was mainly a series of minor events that motivated me in that direction.  Red Rooster was a very skilled band and had been very technically oriented, but we didn't have a clue about writing a song and that was our downfall.  I wasn't really a songwriter until I got out of the Qkumbrz.  I'd written songs before, but I never really got into the whole Zen of writing.  As a bass player, BIT taught me how to play 64th notes and Joey Karsten taught me how to play whole notes.  I would play these amazing parts for the Qkumbrz songs, but Joey wanted the songs kept simple.  They didn’t require the chops that I had mastered at BIT.  I went from shred to song.  Meanwhile, Newspeak began transforming from rocker band to a more song-conscious band.  They respected me as a songwriter, even though I was just beginning to get my feet wet in the songwriting arena.  They’d ask for my input.  I was growing frustrated with bass as a songwriting instrument, so, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar back then, just an electric and keys, I decided to set up the key and write.  I started looking at song structure more closely — what made a hit song a hit song.  I'd been around good songwriters.  I knew about hooks…(smiles)…I also knew I still had a lot to learn.  Some of my own songs were presented to the band, but they said, 'There's no way we can do this dude.  Not heavy enough.'  I started writing songs for myself, songs from inspiration rather than to fit a particular band’s model.  I enjoyed the creative process; seeing and hearing my inspirations turn into complete songs.  It was happier, fun, easy-going stuff that became the basis for the Karma Factory, the first band I started on my own.   

 CNH: Besides the bands you performed with, what were your musical influences back then?

     SL: I was into Jellyfish and Supertramp early on.  After that first concert, I got into Elton John a lot.  I’d started making solid songwriting a priority, finding out what it was about a particular song that made my hair rise.  I’d learned enough about being a good musician by then to know what made songs special…the right changes, the hooks.  I was always transcribing the songs to learn how to play their stuff.  I knew a lot about harmonic structure and I could hear the elements of their music that created each of their trademark sounds.  Lots of inversions.  Lots of sevenths.  The way all three used inversions and chords, there were a lot of parallels.  I love the production of Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk.  I read an article talking about how that CD is used to test speakers for new stereo systems.  (grins; awed)  Says a lot about quality.

 CNH: How did your musical influences begin to evolve?

     SL: When I began writing on my keyboard, Supertramp and the Beatles were prevalent.  Later, I became a fan of the Jayhawks’ Tomorrow the Green Grass.  It’s one of those CDs where you love every one of the songs on it.  They are definitely my favorite Americana band.  There is a relaxing simplicity to their songs that makes them so charming.   I like the phrased harmonies of the Indigo Girls, not in traditional thirds and a lot harder to sing yet so natural.  James Taylor’s songwriting has always amazed me; his phrases at the end of his acoustic lines are brilliant.  Tom Petty.  Train.  Toad the Wet Sprocket and my experiences with the Qkumbrz were strong influences on the Going Places tape.  I was a big Phish fan after I left LA.  Later, a friend named Tom Reock turned me onto Elliott Smith.  Here was a singer-songwriter with the elements of the Beatles, acoustic, alternate tunings, everything as a musician that was hip.  More recently I’ve enjoyed Vertical Horizon, Nine Days, Five For Fighting, Radiohead, David Gray, the new Wallflowers and Lifehouse.  There are certain things I like about other bands, for example, Korn or Pink Floyd, but I don’t want to sound like any of them. 

 CNH: It is easy to grasp your technical appreciation for these influences in your music.

     SL: When I sit down to write songs, even when they pop into my head, I don’t set out to write a song that sounds like someone else’s.  (smiles)  But there is no mistaking my musical influences are evident in my songs.

 CNH: Let’s talk a little bit about the Karma Factory.

     SL: I was in LA, fine-tuning my songwriting craft, learning a lot about what I was able to do and how to stretch myself creatively.  I played some of the songs I was working on for one of my friends.  He said, ‘You know this music is very happy.  You have a load of good karma when you get done listening to this stuff.’  And — light bulb — that's where the name for the Karma Factory was born.  Tim (The Psyc) lived in LA by now, so I went over to his apartment with a demo tape I’d knocked out and said ‘if we do nothing, I want to record these four songs.’  It was totally cool because the songs we recorded were my first babies and they came out really well.  Around that time, I was invited to move onto my grandmother’s farm, and I was pretty burned out on LA.  Back in New Jersey, I started writing with Ken.  I also fell into a 9-5 gig, teaching bass and guitar at a local music shop and out of my home.  Everything just took off from there.  Martin (The Psyc) came on board with his drums, and one of my students, Matt Twers, joined us on bass.  Ken played acoustic and sang vocals.  I played electric, my first guitar gig since Sabre, and sang vocals.  Eventually John Lewandowski replaced Martin.  We began gigging around the area, building a following.  Everyone was asking for copies of our stuff, so, we recorded a couple of songs we performed regularly and gave them away.  Later we formally recorded the Going Places tape and sold copies at gigs for a dollar or two apiece, just to break even on our investment (laughs) — made so long beforehand, we’d already rationalized it away.

 CNH: And the self-named CD?

     SL: Karma Factory was recorded and mastered on the west coast with Tim’s help.  I still consider the CD a demo CD because of the quality we were able to get.  It’s a better recording the Going Places, but I know it could sound better with better tools.

We then headed upstairs to where he pulls all the elements of his music together into song.  As we ascended the narrow wooden stairs twisting up into what had long ago been a sizeable hayloft, I couldn’t help but be struck by the excitement of ground zero as I surveyed walls formed by the peak of the roof, lined with mementos of his musical performance and private recording history, shelves and surfaces arranged with tools of his trade from CDs, DATs and demo cassettes to colored cables of all lengths, guitar picks, pencils and pens in and around the computer, and papers of varying sizes containing lyrics, editing notes, song lists and the like in purposeful stacks along his slanted work bench.

 CNH: Of the songs you’ve written and will introduce on your new website, subjectively, where do you think you hang your hat most often? 

     SL: A lot of my lyrics are post confrontational — you get in an argument with somebody, you’re mad, confused, maybe fearful — “Deep in My Heart” and “Together Alone” are like that.  “Where Have You Gone?”, a new song, is completely post-confrontational.  Another premise I’ve been writing about more lately is when you’re looking inside a bubble like the story in “Allison’s Room”.  I just augment the story from there.   “Gordelia” is when you’re just ‘whoa’ — you’re mind blown by somebody — you just can’t believe it’s that good.  So you’re kind of looking in your own bubble for that one.  It just depends.  Every inspiration comes from a different situation. 

 CNH: You’re songs are, for the most part, very positive; “Deep in My Heart” and “Together Alone”, hope; “Gordelia”, awe; and, songs like “Everything Runs Together”, pure fun.

     SL: (smiles) Yeah, I’m not very good at writing ‘I hate you.’  I’m not an angry person and I don’t like dwelling on unpleasantness.  I have my soapboxes, though.  I don’t consider myself a politician or an activist.  If you’re going to be a politician or an activist, be a politician or an activist.  Artists that pick a road like that with their music can be awesome, but they literally write themselves into a corner.  If they ever wanted to write a song other than something like ‘fuck you I won’t do what you tell me,’ they can’t.  They’d disassociate themselves from what they worked so hard to achieve; they literally live and die by that stance.  To me, that’s like painting with only 3 colors.  If you’re going to be a singer and write music, be a singer and write music.

 CNH: Do you prefer the intimacy of studio work or the variables of playing live?

     SL: Each has its own pleasures.  Recording in the studio lends itself to a magical experience where you see your ideas go from thought to paper to sound.  It’s great to listen to an idea in your head, and then have it augmented by all the other textures and parts you can lay down in the studio.  Then you take that out to a live gig and the next magical thing happens.  You take your babies, the songs, and you play them, and you watch the emotional connection you make with your audience.  What used to be your private joy is now shared with a multitude of people.

 CNH: Do you have a favorite song that you’ve written?

     SL: That would probably be “Deep in My Heart” because it contains so many of the elements that I admire in songs I like, yet the whole thing came out very naturally to me.  Every time you write a song, it becomes initially sacred to you, and you are very defensive about it for a while.  Then, as time passes, you can look at it more objectively.  “Deep in My Heart” is one of those songs that has not ever lost any charm or meaning for me.

 CNH: What kind of romance does Jobstown hold for you?

     SL: It’s more like sentiment, because I grew up here.   I was born in Princeton, grew up in Mercerville, and then moved to Jobstown.  I love living on my grandmother’s farm.  I’ve played in this barn for as long as I can imagine and it’s never let me down.  It’s not perfect but it’s still grandma’s barn.  Everything, musically, started here. 

 CNH: If you could live anywhere doing anything, where would you be right now?

     SL: I don’t really have a ‘perfect place’ in mind.  I would try to stay in NJ, if money was no object, tour and be in the studio recording a song in every town I stop in.  I prefer not living in LA.  Been there.  Done that.  I’m really into staying out of the rat race.  All that does is shorten your life.  I’m not into that 11-mile drive taking 45 minutes.  Why would anybody want to live like that and pay twice as much to have earthquakes, fires, floods, gangs?  What are you paying for?  Scenery?  Santa Ana winds?  I like it here because I’m disconnected from the big city scene but I can get there very easily when I need to. 

 CNH: How do you feel about putting Jobstown on the map?

     SL: (grins) Jobstock?  I have no problem with it.  It’s a great little community.

 CNH: What projects are you currently working on?

     SL: Right now I am concentrating on writing and demoing more songs. I feel like I'm starting to really get into a groove as a songwriter, finding my stride if you will.  So, I want to capitalize on that. There is a soundtrack that I will be writing some songs for, I am very excited about that.  Just always trying to grow as a songwriter and a musician.

 CNH: Your new website is a great vehicle for your fans to get to know you better.  What can they look forward to when they visit?

     SL: It's a great place to explore what I have going on over here.  Very visitor-friendly.  (laughs)  No 20-minute downloads or endless hoops to hop through.  The site has demos of some of my songs that you can listen to and download.  I’ve been in the studio quite a bit lately, so there’ll be new songs introduced often.  It’s an interactive site as well.  You can vote for the songs you’d like to hear on my next CD.  Sign up for our mailing list.  Plus you can read all about my band, check out some pictures from the studio, all kinds of cool stuff.  We’re having a lot of fun with it, updating it regularly. (smiles) Check it out.

Scott Lippincott is an extraordinary singer-songwriter with an incredibly intuitive skill for exquisite harmonies, sincere lyric and layered instrumentation that makes each of his songs rich with musical texture and dimension.  From the affecting power-pop single “Deep in My Heart” and pop rock anthem, “Gordelia”, to the evocative “Allison’s Room”, Scott uses catchy melodic hooks and expressive lyrics to captivate your senses.  The beautifully simplistic acoustic ballad, “Together Alone” cuts straight to the heart.  And the whimsical word folly and energy of  “Everything Runs Together” is guaranteed to crack a smile.  This really is contagious stuff — fun to listen to and fun to sing along with.  I encourage you to visit Scott’s website and experience his music first hand at www.scottlippincott.com.  You’ll be glad you did!

C. N. Holland is a nationally published freelance writer currently residing in Burbank, California.