Sharpshooter Soundworks Turns the Studio Into a Cinema
Punk Head: Marching Orders started with snare rolls and the idea of a marching song. What made that little rhythmic experiment worth chasing?
Sharpshooter Soundworks: I just really love that style of drumming, it’s like ear candy to me and I felt that it would be the same to a potential audience, it also just matched the vibe I was trying to create with this track in general.
Punk Head: The idea of “finding yourself on a journey” can be interpreted in a lot of ways. When you listen back to Marching Orders now, do you hear a specific journey in it, or has the song become something more open-ended even to you?
Sharpshooter Soundworks: Well, I’ve been going through a lot of struggles in life over the past few years and this track takes you through that experience in audio form. You start with the verses, they feel introspective and they get you wandering in your head and then once you reach the bridge/solo portion with the synths you’ve found a moment of clarity and then finally when the outro is playing out you’ve discovered new found faith and hope for tomorrow. I envisioned in my mind exactly what’s pictured on the song’s cover, a person at the end of a film and the triumphant walk away from the camera with credits rolling. Not knowing where you’re going but having confidence that God will take you where you need to be in due time.
Punk Head: You describe the solo and outro as particularly important. What did you want those sections to say that the rest of the song couldn’t?
Sharpshooter Soundworks: The solo is a break in the action from the forward marching, it’s a point where you can stop and clear your head, and the outro is the battle having been won and ends with you marching forward, no longer being anxious about where you’re going.
Punk Head: You wanted the ending to feel like movie credits rolling. What kind of imaginary film does Marching Orders belong to?
Sharpshooter Soundworks: I would say it’s a classic heroes journey, it starts out with the underdog character thrust into situations that seem untenable and thinking “how can I overcome this? Am I really the right one for the job here?” and there is a great battle to be won against some powerful enemy and even their own self. Despite all that though, by the end they’ve seized upon a power greater than they ever thought possible and overcome it all. I think this is a common theme in our current times in most people’s lives in general not just in film, people are looking for hope. That hope for me comes from Jesus Christ and his promise of salvation to those who believe and follow him, if I had to rely on my own strength I would have given up a long time ago, but he sustains me no matter how difficult things get. The idea is, anything you cling to that is temporary (people and things) can and will let you down, but an eternal God won’t.
Punk Head: Your approach seems to sit outside the usual indie-artist narrative. You’re not building the project around touring, live shows, or the traditional frontperson identity. What do you think becomes possible when the studio itself is the center of the artistic project?
Sharpshooter Soundworks: Every song I write is meant to be open-ended, I write mainly instrumental music so that it can potentially be used by other artists to add vocals to or for use in films, tv, etc. With this particular project though, I have been planning to put out an album with my own recorded vocals and including Marching Orders as one of the tracks. For now I just have a few instrumentals for that album in the works and no lyrics yet, stay tuned.
