In Conversation with Adam Melchor

A patron of a restaurant that specializes in singer-songwriters would be delighted to read the ingredients of the Adam Melchor dish; innovative yet accessible, Melchor combines the deft vocal and guitar playing ability of a seasoned pro with melodies that sound like something your friend would hum at the end of your bed. He’s an opera trained musician who not only writes and sings but also produces his own work, and his warm, intimate sonic landscape stands out amongst modern peers.

I spoke with Melchor on how he concocts his signature sound, and his journey to find it.

When you write, do you like to set aside time and do it? It just kinda happens right when I drink a cup of coffee. You know? (Laughs.) I should make some specific time for it, but I usually am just doing it 24/7.

What’s your usual songwriting process? I have a whole list of titles…if I see or if I hear somebody say something interestingly, I’m just like, “oh, this would be really cool, and how would I do this?” … Sometimes, some songs last longer than others. I’m dealing with this one song … I love the verse and the pre-chorus … everything I’m coming up with for the chorus just sucks. It’s been eating at me for a couple months now … I just have to wait. I have to wait to live life and come up with something lyrically … A song can get finished three years after you start it, or sometimes it’s three minutes after you start it … I’m friends with Marshall [Vore] who [Phoebe Bridgers] has written a lot with, and he’ll be like, dude, sometimes Phoebe will write one line a month. But it’s the best line you’ve ever heard. She’s one of my songwriting heroes.

Do you have a favorite song? Wow. I mean, I love “Killer.” I love “Motion Sickness.” That EP that she took down from Spotify, I used to listen to that all the time.

Oh, with like, “Steamroller”? Yes! It’s so good! And then she took it down and I was like, rest in peace. Maybe I’ll get it on vinyl … I was lucky enough to meet Phoebe finally. I met her through Billie Eilish. .. she happened to be backstage at one of the shows I was also backstage at and I was like, “hey, we’ve never met”… We’d just been Instagram friends for a while … People love great songs, and she makes great songs.

I love the production on [Real Estate]. It says on the credits that you produced it. I did! That was one of the first songs that really made a lot of sense to me where I was like, okay, this is a song I would listen to if I didn’t write it. That was a really big step for me in my songwriting. I had written a bunch of songs before then that I was always pretty self aware, I was like, no one besides me would listen to this. You know what I mean?

Yeah! What do you think the difference was, if you can pinpoint it? I don’t know … I have this friend who always was like, look, you’re like, a seven out of ten songwriter, you should just be writing a hundred songs a year. And you’ll get mostly bad ones, a couple good ones, and then, if you’re lucky, maybe some great ones. With that one, I wasn’t really sure if it was either good or great, I just had a really great feeling about it, and it just resonates with people. So I was very lucky.

Did it all pour out at once, or was it a lot of editing and sitting with it? That one wasn’t too much editing, that one sort of made a lot of sense like, right off the jump. And the production too, I immediately was like, oh yeah, this is kinda how I want to do this. I just want to keep it pretty simple … that’s how I lean most with my production … Honestly, each song usually calls for something a little bit different. You don’t really know until you start recording … I usually produce all of my stuff. I like recording it like I would hear it live, essentially.

What mic do you use? For that one, it was a Neumann TLM 103. It’s a really cool mic, it’s not that expensive. I became friends with FINNEAS and he was like, we recorded so many Billie [Eilish] songs [with that mic].

The melodies in the chorus sound like a song you’ve heard before. Did that just pop in your head, did you have an influence? I always like to take progressions that are common and just whatever feels right to me … that was probably one of the first things I’d sung. At first I was like, I think this is a good sign. ‘Cause when you’re like, is this something already? It’s always a good sign because if it’s just a little bit off, then you’re like, oh, this might actually work. Basically, instead of asking for permission you ask for forgiveness … It all works out that way!

It’s so good. Awe, thank you so much, thank you!

Do you have any advice? The one thing I would definitely do, there’s a book called How To Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco. I just read it, and I was never more inspired in my life … A gig is always a gig, and it’s always a good thing, playing live in front of people. I would try to say yes to as many of those as possible … Only do the things that speak true to you. Because, if you start doing shit that doesn’t speak true to you, and it starts working, then you literally have to do that stuff to keep it working. It’s a win-win situation. If you’re doing something you love, even if no one listens, you’re still going to love that song.