Bay Area songwriter, producer, and visual artist Valley Taylor produced and mixed his album himself, having elaborated on his existing lo-fi, nostalgic, and sometimes strange indie sound. He combines intimate song writing with guitars, programmed drums, loops, home recordings, and heavily manipulates digital textures. Rough around the edges but undeniably and unapologetically unique, the perfect time to get to know Taylor.
Hi! Could you introduce yourself, your genre, and your musical influences?
“Hi! I’m Valley Taylor. I’m an independent artist based in El Cerrito, California. I usually have a hard time describing the genre because I pull from a lot of different places, but I’d probably call it lo-fi indie rock or alternative music with a pretty cinematic and nostalgic side to it.
I’m influenced by a lot of indie and experimental music, but also by things outside of music. Artists like Bon Iver and Orchid Mantis have definitely influenced me, and I’m really drawn to music that feels imperfect, intimate, or like you’re finding some old recording that wasn’t necessarily meant for you. Even things like the Minecraft soundtrack have been weirdly influential to me because of the atmosphere and the feeling of being alone in this huge space.”
What inspired you to start making music and what inspires you to keep going?
“I started making music pretty young and I think initially it was just because I loved it and wanted to figure out how people made the things I was listening to. Eventually it became the easiest way for me to make sense of whatever was happening in my life. What keeps me going now is probably that I still feel like I haven’t figured it out. Every record feels like I get a little closer to making the thing that exists in my head, but then by the time I finish it I’ve already thought of ten other things I want to try. I don’t really have a finish line for it. I just like making things.”
Where do you, in general, get inspiration for your music and song-writing?
“A lot of it comes from memory. Relationships, places I’ve lived, people I haven’t talked to in years, small things that suddenly remind me of another period of my life. I’m really interested in the way your memory changes things over time and how something can feel incredibly important even if you can’t remember it perfectly anymore.
I also get a lot of inspiration from visual art and film. Sometimes I’ll have an image or a color or a scene in my head before I really understand what the song is about. The music, artwork and videos all tend to bleed into each other for me.”
Who would you like to work with in the near future and where would you like to perform in the next three years?
“I’d really like to keep working with more artists who approach music in an unconventional way. I love collaboration when someone brings something to a song that I never would have thought of myself.
As far as performing, I’d love to play more outside of California and eventually do some proper touring again. I’m less interested in having one specific dream venue than I am in getting to play in different cities and slowly finding little communities of people who connect with the music. That sounds more exciting to me.”
Which musical achievements are you most proud of?
“Finishing records is probably still the thing I’m most proud of. It sounds simple, but making an album independently is such an absurd amount of work. Writing it, recording it, making the artwork, videos, putting everything together and then actually releasing it into the world feels like a little miracle every time.
I’ve also gotten to play some shows that younger me would have been completely shocked by, including playing with bands like Underoath, Have Mercy and The Dangerous Summer. But I think I’m equally proud that I’ve managed to keep making music for this long and that I’m still excited about it. I’ve also been lucky enough to work on music for film and tv and this year I even got a song on a movie that played in theatres which felt really special to me.”
What do you hope to achieve by releasing music with followers old and new?
“Mostly I hope somebody finds something in it that feels like it belongs to them. Obviously I want the audience to grow and I’d love for more people to discover the music, but I try not to think about releases entirely in terms of numbers. Some of my favourite music has been incredibly important to me during very specific periods of my life. If one of my songs can have that kind of relationship with somebody else, even on a small scale, that feels meaningful. I also really like the idea that people who have followed me for a long time can hear how the project has changed over the years while new people can enter wherever they happen to find it.”
What are your plans for the new year and what are some of your goals and dreams?
“Right now the biggest thing is releasing my new album, One Hundred Billion Points of Light, and giving it as much of a life as I can after it comes out. After that I want to play more shows, continue developing the live version of the project, make more visual work, and start figuring out whatever comes next musically. I’ve gotten much better about treating all of this as something I’m building over a long period of time instead of expecting one release to suddenly change everything. The dream is really just to keep expanding the little world around Valley Taylor. I want to make more records, more shows, more art. I want more people finding it while still being able to make things in a way that feels like me.”
Aside from music, what are some of your hobbies and interests, we’d love to know more about you as a person!
“I’m really into visual art, photography and video, which ends up overlapping with the music a lot because I make a lot of the artwork and visuals for Valley Taylor myself. I love learning new creative tools and figuring out ways to make things myself that I probably have no business knowing how to do. I’m also really into video games, movies, technology and just generally tinkering with things. I’m the kind of person who will get interested in some completely unrelated subject and then disappear down a rabbit hole learning everything I can about it. I think that curiosity ends up feeding back into the music eventually too.”
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