Interview with singer-songwriter Stephanie Forryan

Photography by Axel Kowollik


                   "You are in so much pain, I did not inflict it, I cannot take it away" Stephanie Forryan sings in Helpless, a song that says so much in the simplest, most purest of ways. Forryan talks us through how letting the moment inspire us, creatively, bends its branches into our daily life as well, "Let the way you feel right now inform and change the choices you make as you sing and play" Stephanie writes, and "as you get better at doing that with music you also get better at doing that in life."


AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way?
 
Stephanie: Again and again, music teaches me the importance of being present in the now. The best way to capture a song: Let the moment inspire you. The best way to perform: Let the way you feel right now inform and change the choices you make as you sing and play. As I get better at doing that with music I also get better at doing that in life. 

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them?
 
Stephanie: The moment I first heard Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" was like taking my first breath. I didn't really know what a musician was; I just knew that whatever it was those guys were doing, I had to do it too.
 
AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? 
 
Stephanie: About five minutes after hearing "Sound of Silence", I asked my mother if I could borrow her guitar so I could learn how to play it. She gave me a book with tabs, taught me how to read them, and I literally played until my fingers bled. I spent every spare moment I had playing that guitar. Then I heard that there would be an open mic night at my school and I really wanted to perform. The only problem: I couldn't really play yet - my fingers couldn't move fast enough to change chords quickly. I signed up anyway and by the time the open mic night rolled around, I figured out that if I wrote my own song with chords I could already play, then I'd be ok. That was when I realized how much easier it was for me to write a song than to learn one. I don't think that realization was very good for my learning curve on the guitar, but it jump-started my creativity and started me on the path I'm on now.

AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc.? 
 
Stephanie: The things that teach me the most are the ones that surprise me. Like Anna Meredith's "HandsFree," where orchestra members play music with their bodies instead of their instruments. Or when Francesco Taskayali's made his Wintergatan Marble Machine to make music with marbles. Songwriters like Tori Amos with "The Waitress" or Imogen Heap with "Bad Body Double" used unexpected glimpses into relatable moments and quirky perspectives to teach me that there are no rules. Steve Reich's "Proverb" taught me how to paint with nothing but sound. And Beck's "Loser" was a great lesson in how to write effortless stream-of-consciousness lyrics. 

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? 
 
Stephanie: When I work on the first draft of a song, I don't record or write down any music. If I can still remember it the next day, then it's worth working on. It's so much fun to wake up the next day and discover that it's still there, waiting. 

6) Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener?
 
Stephanie: Music is a connection to something bigger. When I'm writing or performing a song, I feel like I'm channeling something that resonates with who I am and with that bigger something at the same time.
 
 AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?
 
Stephanie: Much of my childhood was spent on Cape Cod, near a seaside town named Chatham. A local big band played at the bandstand every Friday night all summer long. My family would often stroll through town, munching on penny candy, and end our walk at the village green to listen to the band play as the sun set.  Those moments captured everything that's great about being a kid.
 
 AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell?
 
Stephanie: My songs tend to stay at a more intimate, personal level but personal stories are a microcosm of the world - they make up the culture we live in, and that culture writes the script for our politics and world events. So yes, I set out to write songs about where the world is - I just do it at a quantum level.

AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process?
 
Stephanie: If you're doubting yourself: Get a job you hate. It will drive you to do what you love. Because you will spend every moment at that job dreaming of what you'd rather be doing. Then make music and remember that old job any time you think about giving up; it's great motivation.
 
 AHC: Do you have any new projects you'd like to mention?
 
Stephanie: Right now I am working on "The Living Album Project" - an album that grows and changes because it shares the whole creative process. I post songs at their earliest stages and then update them as I go so that people can hear how songs grow and change. Then my online audience will help me choose the final song selection for the album at the end of 2017. You can watch and listen to the process at my homepage stephanieforryan.com and on social media.


stephanieforryan.bandcamp.com/