The Unpredictable Gianni Capri

Gianni Capri launches his new single, Unpredictable, with his first live gig showcasing his original music at the Rosemount Hotel on Thursday, May 22. He talks with BOB GORDON about the art of pop songwriting.

I believe you started playing your first musical instrument when you were just five years old. Tell me about your background, was it a musical family?

It goes all the way back to my grandfather. My nono, he’s an Italian immigrant from back in the ‘50s. So he came over, and basically one of the only things he had with him was a guitar. He was a guitarist and while he was working, doing labouring jobs around Perth, he also had a band and was performing in the Italian scene around that time.

Then obviously my dad, as a child, would go to his gigs, and he became invested in music and grew a love for it as well, and he became a drummer. And to this day, my dad still gigs and performs as well as teaches. He’s been teaching drums for the last 40 years. So it was a very musical family, and I was brought up going to my dad’s gigs as well. So it’s kind of a generational thing.

Was it guitar that you first learned?

No, so my first instrument was violin, actually. I enjoyed the violin, but I think once I started playing piano when I was eight, my love for music really grew. And whilst I was learning piano and learning classical pieces and stuff, I started kind of writing little songs, even as just as a joke, when I was like 10-11, years old.

So the piano really opened music up for you?

Yeah, I didn’t so much enjoy performing piano as a solo instrument, but I loved singing and playing piano, so I guess that was the first sort of gateway into songwriting. And then I got into Garage Band and that was like another like ‘woah!’ moment.

When did you realise you could sing?

Probably not until I was out of high school, because I was very shy about singing. My dad always used to make me audition for Telethon and little talent shows when I was a kid, and I never used to get through so it kind of didn’t really do too much for my confidence. I kind of learned singing as I was recording and producing my music, sort of developing my style from that, which is quite common with producers and songwriters.

So I guess playing a lot of classical music and on piano, you became very aware of structure. It makes a real difference, isn’t it? When you have that awareness, and then the awareness of structure becomes intuitive as well…

Yeah, I’d say that, coupled with my dad’s love for music and playing me songs in the car of like, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, singer/songwriter songs. So I probably had the classical music in the background but then, like one of his favourite artists is Billy Joel, and still one of my favourite artists to this day is Billy Joel. It was just a combination of listening to classic singer/songwriters, but also learning technique and musicianship through classical music,

In your teens with those classical, 70s/80s songwriters and contemporary artists, who are other ones that really made an impact or influence on you?

I would say, through my teens, I still loved the old school stuff, but then I started to discover newer artists like John Mayer and I kind of started listening to modern pop music. And I started getting interested in how they would produce and make songs. So as I got older, you know, as a teenager, you kind of listened to what’s on the radio more. But I always, even to this day, I still love Billy Joel or the Bee Gees. I think melodically, I always hark back to older artists, because I feel like the melodies back then were stronger. Melodically, I always reference older tracks.

And it’s pop music that you were drawn to as an artist…

Yeah, it’s always been pop music for me, but I also am still influenced by any song that comes on my Spotify. I’ll always kind of listen out for something that is interesting or something they’ve done with the music production. So even a jazz song or a classical piece, if there’s something interesting I can take away from it, then I’ll always have my ears open.

It sounds like you were very committed from early on to recording and being a producer?

I probably started when I was in late high school with production, because I figured, ‘well, I can write songs, but I don’t want to have to rely on someone else to produce the songs for me’. I think it was, it was around the time when, DJs like Aviici and David Guetta, who were all kind of making their songs on their laptop. So I was like, ‘Oh, I reckon I could probably give this a crack too’. So I bought my first Logic Pro, like, application started just using like basic sounds. Bought my first microphone, and then kind of from there, I levelled up, and ever since then, I’ve just been trying to improve my production. There’s always so much to learn with music production, it’s kind of endless.

So tell me about the new single…

The lyrics for the chorus of Unpredictable – ‘say you love me, then you walk away. Say you hate me, then you want to stay’. I’d just written that down somewhere at a moment where I probably was just feeling that way. I had it sort of to the side and then just being open to my surroundings, I was in a cafe one day with my dad, and I kind of heard this really cool rhythmic guitar pattern, which is what you can hear in the chorus. I didn’t take the chords. I just kind of took the strumming pattern of that from another song. And I think it was just a combination of having these lyrics, listening to other songs that kind of influenced this song, and then the out of that, this song was sort of born.

So once I had that, those two lines lyrically, it was just kind of like the contrast between love and hate and how a relationship can be unpredictable with its ups and downs. It was really easy to write down the rest of the chorus and the rest of the song.

What side of you do you think it evokes?

For me, it’s a really fun way to put across quite a strong and emotional roller coaster when you’re when you’re talking about the ups and downs of a relationship, because it’s still presented in a way that’s kind of positive and happy and almost takes the mickey out of it a bit, which I really like. I think it’s one of my melodically stronger songs. There’s a lot of catchy little hooks that come in and out throughout the whole song. And I’m all about that, I really love creating catchy, simple songs.

What do you feel drawn to write about with songs?

As I’ve gotten older, I find that I’m able to write music even when I’m not feeling a certain emotional way. I can look at it as more of a like a nine to five. I go in and I’ll listen to an instrumental, and I’ll let that evoke the emotion and the lyrics of the songs. Whereas some people, I know they kind of wait for emotion to hit to then write music, I’m kind of the opposite.  I get into the studio, start making music, and then hopefully I figure out a way that the lyrics can really match the music.

When I when I was younger, I found I was waiting on my emotion, but then I found I kind of used it as an excuse to not make music. I’d just say, ‘oh, nothing’s really happening in my life. My life isn’t interesting, so I’m not going to write any music’. Whereas now I’m like, ‘after work, you’re going to go to the studio, regardless of how you feel, and then  you’ll probably start to feel something once you’ve played a few notes and keys, or once you’ve heard a few samples that you like’. So that’s kind of been my method now.