Backstage Of A Musician's Masquerade: Interview with Kaleb Cronan

Written By Karly Smith

Artist: Kaleb Cronan (Vivvyin) https://vivvyin.bandcamp.com/

Is ultimate freedom the double-edged sword of solo creative pursuits? Why is it: the more you work on something, the more you grow to dislike the very thing you put so much time into creating?

The musician's life can be a masquerade; masked is the version of yourself you've dedicated so much time into recreating. As soon as the first note is strummed and the hand is on the big twelve: you're vulnerable and the magical illusion is stripped away. It's just you, the listener, and the way you make them feel. The artist hopes the sound waves transform into glass shoes and there's someone out there dancing along.

For Kaleb Cronan, the goal isn't necessarily who will be listening, but what will they do after they hear his songs. He aspires to make others feel good about their personal situations and to encourage others to go create something: "That's the whole point."

Cronan's rediscovered musical identity, Vivvyin, infuses indie rock and folk-inspired story-telling, culminating imaginative worlds that weave and flow between layers of alluring grooves. Even the instrumental versions of demos have painted soundscapes composed of fabricated stories awaiting to be explored by daydreaming listeners.

Editor's Song Spotlight

All My Graces, Vivvyin

"If it doesn't come from the heart and it doesn't come from true passion, none of it will ever sound good And none of it will ever be good. So you have to have that little bit of wanting to do it for people And also wanting to do it for yourself."

-Kaleb Cronan.

Q: What are your inspirations for your solo music?

A lot of the rock style stuff comes from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and John Frusciante's style. The psychedelic-synthy music comes from Tame Impala and the regular guitar work is definitely heavily inspired by Jimi Hendrix.

I try my best to make all three of them until there's an amalgamation of sounds that I feel like capture my personality. I don't think it comes off too well; I don't think the music is as bad, but I just don't think it comes off like the inspiration as much as I would like them to.

It's mainly just a lot of jammy and funky music, which is very different than the type of stuff that we do in Defunct.

Q: When you’re making your songs, it just you jamming out?

Just me.

I'll start in the morning or in the afternoon with a basic base riff. Then it just kind of transitions from there, but it is usually just me for 8 to 9 hours sitting down and staring at a computer, working on music.

I got an electric drum kit that I do most of the drum work on. I've got like 2 or 3 guitars that I do most of the guitar work on, then I've got like a singular bass that I just pick up.

Most of the time, it is usually just me sitting in front of a computer for hours on end, just recording and mixing and mastering, and engineering, and all of this stuff that goes along with the whole music production.

Q: What does a typical day in the life look like?

When I was younger, it was every single day I would come home after school, and I would work on music from 2 or 3 o'clock. I wouldn't finish until one in the morning. Then I'd go to sleep, repeat.

More so now, as I've gotten older, the time really does vary. For a lot of the recent stuff that I've made, it's 3 or 4 days where I'm working on the same thing and then I'll take a little break.

Most of the time it's just writing. I write a lot, and the stuff that stands out to me is what I’ll record and I'll work on that for the next couple of days until it's finished.

Q: Do you have any other outside obligations besides making music?

I did have a job, but then I quit that job to focus on music. And then rent came, and then more bills came, and then I was like, well, I should get a job, and then do music.

Q: What is your favorite and least favorite part about being a solo musician?

I would say my favorite part about making solo music is that there isn't one person who's like, "I don't like that idea, change that, do that." It really just becomes the freedom to make different noises and different sounds with the instruments and different style of music. That's definitely the best thing is just the fact that it's ultimate freedom for what you want to make when you want to make it.

That also kind of leads into the worst part. The worst part is you work on a song for so long, sometimes it can go up to months where you're working on the same song and you're just like, dude, this is just sounding more and more worse the more that I work on it.

You'll finish a song and listen to it and you'll go, "I hate this song. I spent the last 8 hours working on it and I absolutely just hated it. The vocals are garbage."

It's nice to have other friends who work on music and when you're in a relationship, I can just send my music to my girlfriend or my friends and ask, does this sound good? Like genuinely, is it good or not?

And it's nice to have them be like, hey, that's actually really good. Then I think, okay, maybe I am just losing my mind here.

Q: How do you know when a song’s finished?

Well, I used to smoke cigarettes. So what I would do was I would take a break and I would go for like a little smoke break or I would sit down and I would watch TV or something for maybe an hour or so and then I would come back to it.

That is one of the hardest things that I that I find is, is just finishing the song. I never really know how to end it.

Sometimes I just get so frustrated where I'm just like, oh, screw it. That's it. That's the end of the song. I'm done with this with the song, it's over.

On that same page, I do have tons of songs where only 30 seconds to a minute and a half are done, and I think, I gotta finish this someday. It can't just be sitting here on my computer, unfinished for this long.

So that is nice. You can go back to them because if you step away from it, especially for a while, like a week or a month or so, when you come back to it, you have a fresh idea. A fresh brain, a fresh set of eyes, I guess, is the right phrase to say.

I never know. I just kind of go with a gut feeling, I would say, to simplify the answer. I just kind of go with a gut feeling depending on how the song sounds.

Q: How do you take feedback and stay true to your own expression?

I think that is the best thing that you can do as a creative. Obviously you gotta have a little bit of ego and pretentiousness about it because it's your music and you work so hard on it, but you have to be able to take in outside forces. If you're just stuck in your own way about a specific thing, then it's not gonna sound good to anyone else, 'cause it's what you want, not what anyone else wants.

If someone will say, I don't really like the that specific vocal, then I'll go back into it and I'll redo the vocals. Maybe I'll rewrite something, maybe I'll figure something else out. When it comes to the guitar music per se, I would usually be like, well, if it doesn't sound rocky to you, then what does it sound like to you? They'll say it sounds indie or Folky and I take a lot of inspiration from those things.

It is hard sometimes to hear it, especially if you work on a song for a long time and someone just goes, "I don't really like it, it's not that good." You ask them what would they change about it and they don't know, they just say it just doesn't sound very good. And that's usually when I know I'll scrap that song. I thought it was a good song, but I don't know what to fix if I thought it was good.

Q: Would you say you create for yourself, or do you create more for other people?

It's definitely for me. I started making music because I had an uncle who played guitar and I grew up listening to him play guitar and and do all that stuff. As I got older, I just kind of came to the realization that a lot of people didn't really think the same way that I thought or feel the same way that I feel about some things. I feel like being a creative, whether that's painting or doing art or making music, is a great way for me to express how I feel.

Some people like it, some people will gravitate towards it and they'll be like, hey, this is like really good. I really like this. And then obviously you have some people who are like, I don't really get it. I don't really understand what it means.

And I'm like, well, if you don't understand what it means, then I guess it's not for you to understand what it means.

I was having this conversation with Andrew and I asked him, would you rather have commercial success or a dedicated loyal fan base? And we both agreed on the fact that having a nice, dedicated, loyal fan base that understands what you're trying to get at and understands what you're about is way better than making your art for people to enjoy because strictly you want them to enjoy it. Not because you enjoy it or it's something you want to do, just because you are obligated to make this because you have found commercial success.

So I would say definitely for me. I think most of most of it is for me and then there are some times when people were like, you should try this and I will be like, okay, I'll try that. I'll see if I can do this little thing for you. Maybe it'll sound good, maybe it won't sound good.

Obviously, if it doesn't come from the heart and it doesn't come from true passion, none of it will ever sound good and none of it will ever be good. So you have to have that little bit of wanting to do it for people and also wanting to do it for yourself. But I would say I would say mostly you've got to do it for yourself, if not, it doesn't really mean anything.

Q: What's your message as an artist?

I try to write weird lyrics that have double meanings. It could mean nothing, it could mean everything. It could mean a specific thing. I would like to maybe just tell people that this is just how I feel. It doesn't really have to mean anything to you, technically. This is just how I feel right now in this moment and in this sort of society lifestyle, whatever you want to call it. This is how I feel. This is how I interpret things, and I just want everyone to enjoy what they have when they have it, you know, because it's a very, very limited time on Earth.

So if I can get some people just inspired by the music and I can maybe tell them hey, it's good out here. Like can be good, life can be fun. Life can be intriguing and interesting and exotic and different than what it usually is for the everyday 9 to 5, you know?

I guess just enjoy life is what I try to tell people in my music, 'cause it's really scary trying to navigate this adulthood and being a teenager. Just being anything is very hard to navigate without something to fall back on or guide you, like a lot of famous musicians before my time, and that'll come after me.

The whole point is to make people feel good about any of the things that they are going through.

Q: If you could attend any show from the past, who would you go see?

If I only had one chance to see someone from a previous generation, I would love to be front row at a Jimmy Hendrix concert. Especially if you go back and you watch a lot of old footage of him playing live. He just cranks the amps up and he's just spinning the guitar around and hitting that whammy bar and then you're just like, what kind of noises are he even making, what is this coming out of the amp right now? Like there's no way.

Q: If you could open with your solo music for any current artist, who would you want to open for?

I would love to open up for Geese, 'cause I like to fill my head up with air sometimes. I feel like people who like Geese would probably like my music, so it might transition well if I could open up for them.

Q: What was the story behind the decision of your artist name?

It's actually a really nice story. It was two or three in the morning and I was hanging out with Andrew. We were talking about artist names and I told him I've been thinking about going by Vivvyin for some reason, and all they said was, "Well, that's nice." That was all I needed, just one person to think it was nice.

I wasn't really sure about it for the longest time. It seems like a weird name kind of to go by, but thank God for my girlfriend because I would ask her all the time if she'd listen to an artist named Vivvyin. She thought the name matched the sound of music that I make. Also, my name is just a very orthodox name, so I can't just go by my regular name.

Q: How do you self-promote your music to help build and engage with your fan base?

That's actually really hard because I'm not necessarily good at talking to people. So it's hard to promote myself. I will get in these weird moods where I'll post on Instagram or I'll post on TikTok for a good solid week or two, and then I just kind of step away from it and I forget about it for the longest time.

Then I've got all these songs and they're not promoted anywhere, and no one knows that I'm releasing anything. Right now, I'm going by word of mouth. I just hope that it falls on the right algorithm and someone adds it to their playlist.

There's a Rick Rubin quote, I think he did on a podcast he went on and he said, "Being a musician, a famous musician, is 40% talent and 60% being able to market yourself and being a salesman because if you can't go out there and market yourself, then what is the talent even really for?"

I guess I get that, but at the same time, I'm one of those people that I feel like the music should speak for itself. I feel like I shouldn't have to go out to people and be like, "Hey, listen to my music it's so good." I feel like they should just hear it and be like, hey, this is all right, it's not bad.

Q: Do you have any plans for a live show?

I get so terrified if I were to do it live on stage, it would be stripped back versions of most of the songs, and I guess that just kind of scares me sometimes, is the fact that some of it is so complex, and I would just have to gather so many people to make it sound like the way I want it to sound.

On the same side of that coin, I feel like a stripped back version, especially when you do it live, gives you more room to improvise and make it more intimate for the audience. The point is, no, unfortunately, no, I don't have any live shows set up just yet, but I'm hoping to get some soon.

Q: How was the show with Defunct, your 1st time performing?

It went awesome, my very first time ever performing in front of a group of people. It was so weird because I wasn't scared or nervous or until, like, five seconds before we went on. We were hanging out at the back, I was talking to Andrew and my girlfriend, and I thought, actually, I'm starting to get a little nervous. I just care about music so much that I don't want to get up on stage and just ruin it for all these people who came here to see and hear live music, and I don't want to mess up the music and mess up Dave's flow and Dave's vision for the band.

So for the five seconds before we went on, it was so in my head, but after you get on stage and and you strum that first chord, or you hit that first note, it all kind of zeroes in your head and you remember that you know what you're doing, that you've practiced this song thousands of times, heard it thousands of times. You think, I know exactly what I'm doing here, and if you're going to mess up well, this is part of the show, it's part of the song. There you go, you get a little something different every time.

Q: What’s one of your favorite shows or concerts that you've attended?

I saw Men I Trust a couple months ago, and they were amazing. They were so good live. If we're just talking about some of my favorite performances that I've seen, there's this artist who opened up for us when we were playing that show on the 25th. His name's Timothy and he does folk music and it was so beautiful. It made me tear up. He has this song, I think it's called Going for the Gold, and it was just such a beautiful song. Genuinely one of the prettiest songs I think I've ever heard. He just has a phenomenal voice, a phenomenal singing voice.

Q: How would you say you feel your environment shapes you as an artist?

When I was younger, I was living in a small town kind and a lot of the music I was making that I wasn't really sharing with anybody at the time was kind your basic 4 chord indie music, it was the starting point for the music that I've made

As of recently, a couple years ago, I was living with my grandma in a very rural town in southwest Georgia. I was making a lot of like weird acoustic music at the time.

Being here in the city has kind of opened my mind up a little bit to the different ideas and effects. I wrote a song one time about an unhoused man that I used to see a lot. I would see him walking up and down the streets all the time, and it's just a lot more inspiration when you're in the city because you see and hear a lot of different things. Like I said, when I was smoking cigarettes, I would step outside and I would go for walks, or I would just sit on my patio, and I would just listen to the people, and I would just listen to the cars going by. It would kind of weirdly inspire me a little bit.

The only issue I would say about my zone right now is that there are no stars. There's tons of light pollution going on in the city, and you try to look up at the stars, and you can't really see anything except for orange glow. That also kind of inspires me because I think, well, this kind of sucks. Like, what the heck? Why can't I see anything?

I write a lot about that as well. My environment really does impact the type of music I'm making and how it inspires me in a certain way.

Q: When you're writing your music, do you typically have a deadline for yourself?

I try and give myself deadlines, but the issue with that is there's one album I have that hopefully I can release it soon. I just haven't worked on any goal before. 3 or 4 of the unreleased songs that I sent you earlier today are supposed to be on that record.

I've been working on that one for 5 years, and I keep telling myself, I'll have it done by next month. Then next month comes, and I'm like, maybe next month, and then that month comes. 4 of the songs have been released already on Bandcamp.

What I'm trying to do is really bubble down and be like, listen, I gotta put something out. I haven't released any music in 6 years since I've genuinely released a song. It's been a while.

So I told myself that I'm gonna work on this little miniature 8 track album and I'm gonna try and put some stuff out there that is representative of who I am today. And if I don't get it done by hopefully the beginning or the middle of August this year then I'm just gonna put out whatever I have out and that's it.

The thing about that is that it's kind of growing. I started off with 6, and then I was like, well, now I have more to add, so I started. Then I put 8 on there, and now I have a couple more songs that I want to put on there, so now it's gone up to like 10. I think that it's kind of my way of procrastinating a little bit. I'm like, "What? I'm not finished yet because I'm putting more songs on that album."

I'm telling myself right now that the deadline is the beginning of August. This record is supposed to come out and I'm gonna have it done, whether or not I have that many songs on it. Whatever's done is done and it's gonna be on the album.

I wish I had one of those proactive minds, someone who can really sit down and focus on something and get it done. I just get so distracted sometimes because I'll work on a song and then I'll switch over to a different song and then I don't know which one to do or which one to finish. So I think, oh, screw it, I'm just gonna go watch South Park. I watch South Park for hours, and then I'm like, well, I didn't finish anything today. So, whatever.

Q: What’s your favorite released song?

Speak Kindly.

For the longest time, one of my favorite songs that I ever made is called, "The Garden."[Unreleased.]

That was my favorite song just because I really liked all the different layers, all the different synths, and all the different guitar parts in it. As soon as I released Grateful, I thought this is probably my favorite song I've ever written because I just like the way it sounds, but now I made Speak Kindly, which I just finished over the weekend, 2 or 3 days ago.

I really tried to go outside of my normal comfort zone in this song and project my vocals a bit more to make it sound a bit more finalized and polished. All of the people I've shown thought it's really good, that they can tell I'm getting a lot better at the stuff I'm doing.

Hearing all of that validation made me think this is a good direction for me to go in. I feel like this is something that is actually healthy for me in a way. So I would say definitely Speak Kindly is one of my favorite songs that I've written, or that is released up to this point.

Q: Would you like to talk more about the lyrics behind the song?

Every musician does this a lot differently. Everyone has their different ways of doing things.

For the longest time, I would write a lot of lyrics down and then I would just kind of take them and piece them with riffs or whatever I wrote.

As of recently, all of the songs that are on Bandcamp, I recorded the music for and then I just sat in front of a microphone. I would just spit out different words. I would just freestyle it a little bit, and then I would listen to it, and then refine it.

Then, I would kind of find the story as it went. As for Speak Kindly, when I started writing it, I had this idea of rewriting the whole Icarus story. He built the wings and he flies a little too close to the sun. As I was writing it, it became more about this guy who has an ego and the ego is getting a little too big for him to handle himself. So he's confused about it.

That's really where the chorus comes from, "Speak kindly of me when I'm down, speak kindly of me when I drown," is because I wanted to relate it back to how you can get so caught up in how you feel and how you're doing, and you get lost in all this other stuff that's going on around you. When you think of that as having a big ego, you can somewhat drown in the ego that you have.

From the perspective of the person in this song, he's begging the other person that he's speaking to to just be kind to him whenever he kind of goes down that hole because that's really what he needs at the moment.

Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.