Q & A with Mark Sholtez

It’s no secret that I’ve been enamoured of late with the new singles from homegrown singer-songwriter Mark Sholtez. So it was a bit of a thrill to chat to the man himself today about recording his new album The Distance Between Two Truths, his songwriting process, and his brand new sound.

I saw you live several years ago when your music had more of a jazz flavour, but these days your sound has a mellow acoustic pop-rock feel. Has that been a natural evolution for you?
It really has. I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit, and I think ultimately it stems out of the fact that I wrote most of these tunes on the road and being in hotel rooms with acoustic guitars, and not really being anywhere near pianos. And then when it came time to record these tunes, at the heart of all the songwriting was just these really simply acoustic guitar vocal performances. So that’s at the heart of this new record.

It seems like a rather dramatic shift to an outsider considering this is only your second album. How have your fans reacted to the new direction your music has taken?
I just finished doing a little tour around the country, and I purposely played acoustically and kept it really simple. And I was really surprised that people are connecting to this new stuff really positively. And I think that it probably helped that I played the majority of this new album on that tour and as well I played about half of that first record, but in that acoustic format. You can really see that at the heart of both records is that same singer-songwriter, but it’s just dressed up slightly differently.

I believe you contacted producer Larry Klein to work on The Distance Between Two Truths because you were a fan of his work. Did he live up to your expectations?
He really did. I love Larry’s work on a few levels. One, he’s an amazing musician and he has a great attention to detail in arrangements, and he’s a really song-focused producer. And secondly, he seems to be able to reference all of these beautiful old records. With Madeleine Peyroux he references old Billie Holiday stuff. And then the singer-songwriter stuff he does, he manages to reference things like Neil Young and JJ Cale, but the album’s come out sounding contemporary. And that’s one of the things I wanted to do. I wanted to make something that felt like a classic singer-songwriter record but still was very much contemporary work, and Larry really delivered in that department I think.
You recorded the album in Los Angeles at the famous Sunset Sounds studios. Given your own love of classic music, what was it like to get in there were so many iconic albums were made?
Pretty cool. As a kid I was a massive Van Halen fan, and knowing the first couple of Van Halen records were recorded in the same room that we were in, and The Doors, and The Beach Boys, Zeppelin. You walk around the halls and think “If the smallest amount of this rubs off on us, then we’re going to be making a good album.”

Was it intimidating at all?
Just exciting I think. You really definitely feel the history in a place like that, and it’s just really inspiring to want to do good work. I remember walking in actually, the first day, and there’s a basketball hoop up on top of the wall out in the courtyard, and the first thing I see is Santana out there shooting hoops. That’s just nuts. The guys from My Chemical Romance were in one of the other rooms working on their record. So it’s just a melting pot of interesting people in there.

Having recorded your first album in New York, how does recording on the other side of the States compare?
It’s interesting when you listen to the two things. To me that New York record sounds cold and slick and compressed like Manhattan is. And the West Coast record has the space and the dust and the pace more consistent with LA. [Los Angeles] just inspires you to take your time and to leave bits in the intersections and to not fill everything up with stuff, to leave some space in there.

What really struck me about this album is how strong the lyrics are. I’ve heard different musicians talk about songwriting as a way of keeping diary or a form of therapy. What’s the process like for you?
I think ultimately I like to start with something very much connected to me personally in some way. And whether it be the tiniest little idea; some days you just wake up and feel strange in your own skin, and I’ll try and write about that. I think “Far Enough Away” on the record just came out of waking up and feeling weird and wondering what it would be like to be somewhere else, and then trying to get to the heart and trying to tell that story. Or just observing someone or something and wondering what it would be like to be that person, and just finding a way to tell that story. So it’s very much, although it’s not always autobiographical, I’m connected to it, There’s some kind of core truth that connects back to me in all of the songs.

You collaborated with some really interesting songwriters on this album, including Alex Lloyd and Shane Nicholson, yet we never feel like we lose your voice. Is it difficult to find that balance when working with other artists?
It can be. I think it’s a testimony to those other guys that are just really great songwriters in their own rights and don’t let their own agendas as artists get in the way. I know that when I co-write for other people I really try to just get to the heart of what they want to say as an artist. And writing with great writers – I think Shane Nicholson’s probably one of the best songwriters we have in Australia – it’s the same. We talk about what I want to say and kind of the heart of what I’m doing as an artist and try and write that. So it was great. I had such a great time working on those songs in particular. And because they didn’t kind of come out of any place – a lot of artists will try and work with hit makers and come up with the next pop smash, but if I collaborate with someone it’s because I really respect what they do as an artist or as a writer, and just want to make music. Not chasing a hit, just trying to tell a story.

Are there any other songwriters you’d love to work with in future?
That list is so long. If I localise it to Australia, top of the list would be Paul Kelly, and from there is expands out fairly rapidly. But I definitely think Paul. And probably Neil and Tim Finn would be a huge one, to keep it relatively local.

I heard your song “We Could Get Lost” on the season finale of Private Practice the other week. Does that mean things are happening for you in the US too?
Yeah. As soon as we sort of finished mixing and mastering this album and a few little preliminary copies started to float around the reaction in the US has been really good. There’s quite a few seemingly interested parties. And the connection with the Private Practice thing has certainly helped kickstart things over there.

So are you going to head over there and try to capitalise on it?
The initial point of focus is to get things going in the homeland, and that’s really important to me to spend time here and get this album to connect here, and then as soon as that’s up and running the very next thing on the agenda will be to get over to the UK and US and start to really work those opportunities.

Will we see you playing some shows soon to support the album’s release?
Yeah, the album’s out in a couple of week’s time and we’re hoping any day now to lock in a full band tour, which will be a run all around the country to reinforce that, and to celebrate that release more importantly.

The Distance Between Two Truths is available to pre-order now ahead of its July 9 release.

Image source: The Harbour Agency