SPILL FEATURE: SING EVERY SINGLE SONG UNTIL IT HURTS – A CONVERSATION WITH ANDY STOCHANSKY

SING EVERY SINGLE SONG UNTIL IT HURTS

A CONVERSATION WITH ANDY STOCHANSKY

Andy Stochansky has been around the music scene for quite a while. And although he has put out many incredible solo albums, perhaps he is best known for the company he keeps. He has worked with Annie Lennox (who was producing her daughter Lola Lennox’s music), The Goo Goo Dolls (lead singer Johnny Rzeznik produced Stochansky’s solo album 100), and Ani DeFranco, with whom he toured for several years.

Now, Stochansky is releasing a new album, his first in many years. His last album, Debut, which was not his debut album, was released in 2020. His new album, Poetry Of Birds, which he has worked on for the last few years, is a different sound for Stochansky.

“I think it was a cross between co-writing for years and finally realizing I dearly missed just having my own voice. It all came from, well, it all came just pouring out,” said Stochansky about the new album. “Co-writing is like finding a voice for other people and what they want to say, trying to figure that part out. Then for myself, it was like being on vacation or something. This is me time now.”

And it has been a few years since Stochansky struck out on his own. But his experience co-writing and being in Los Angeles helped him develop and learn a great deal. “I moved to L.A. to just co-write for a few months, and the next thing you know we were there for years. In hindsight, I really wish I had kept up with the solo stuff. But, you know, I learned a lot down there as well. It’s like any major city, New York, Toronto…L.A. is, like, packed with a lot of good writers, they just raise the bar on you. So even demos I was making for other people had to be great or they just would not be heard.”

The song, and album, Poetry Of Birds is a very personal song for Stochansky. “It actually is, well, my brother is a therapist and our jobs are aligned. People will come to him and just talk and not realize what they are talking about. It is freeform talk. Then they realize ‘oh, that’s what this is about’. “Poetry Of Birds” is that song. It’s like I was writing it and suddenly I realized I was writing about my grandmother, who had my back when other people tried to push me into other jobs or worlds or anything else besides music. She always kind of had my back. And that song is, I realized, when the title of the song became the title of the album. It all kind of ties up. I was happy with that end result.”

Although the album is not a folk album, in the pure sense of the word, it is an album that takes a look at the cost of technology and where humans belong within that world. Stochansky explained that part of the album carries that theme. “The theme pops up a lot, when you realize you are overwhelmed by technology. You just have to get outside and chill out sometimes. Get off the net and just find your voice again. It can be overwhelming for me, anyway. That pops up a few times on the record. I am just one of those people that need to monitor how much time is spent in the studio or online.”

POETRY OF BIRDS AVAILABLE AUGUST 1, 2025

There is also a sense of hope throughout the album. “You have to have hope. Otherwise, I won’t get up. I am the ‘glass is half full’ guy. It is like I have been given this voice, this magic thing, where I get to write songs. I think hope, and stuff like that, is part of my job. I don’t take it for granted.”

One song on the album, “I Hope”, is clearly a song about thinking and hoping for the best.

“In the case of ‘I Hope’, my wife and I went up to San Francisco. We just decided to have a weekend off, it was my birthday. We went up there, and I had no idea, somehow, I missed the news spot about the 50,000 homeless people up there. In L.A., if I go downtown, I see it, everyone sees it in every major town. But I had never experienced this in San Francisco. It is one of my favourite cities, the art and music, and to see that amount of people…after we left, after a couple of days, I wrote that song in the back of the car. As if it is a prayer. I know I can’t change anything with a song, but it is like a prayer for these people. I hope to God things change for them. I can’t imagine…the nightmare of all that.”

Another song, “Beautiful Sky” is a wonderful song about the beauty around us, if we look.

“It’s really just, that all you need is just a view of the sky. You really don’t need anything else. Just be able to be thankful and take in the beauty of that. It’s not photo apps on an iPhone, it’s not anything else. It is the realness of that beauty. And the simplicity of nature.”

Stochansky treated the album with a great deal of sparse arrangements and let the songs dictate what they required. But one thing is for sure, Poetry of Birds is not overproduced. “I somehow gravitate towards the non-clutter part. I have gone both ways, lots of noise or whatever. But I gravitate to making sure the story comes out first and is front and centre. Nothing else should take away from that, because that would be clutter.”

Over the years, working with other artists has had a significant impact on Stochansky. “People whom I have worked with who have such respect for songwriting and that, to me, that raises the bar to no end. When you are with someone like that and you are in a room together and you create this thing…you have no idea where it comes from. If people say they know where songs come from, they are lying. It is a magical thing that happens, and there are those people who I work with who are still enamoured with music and trying to get something special. There are those people where…if there is a lyric I am writing I hold to the bar to the Leonard Cohens of the world, Nick Cave, Joni Mitchell, the lyrical stuff. For me, it has to be that good before I can get it in my head completely. I want to get the goosebumps I got from listening to Blue or any Leonard Cohen stuff. The magic happens when you try to write something for yourself. You are in a room, and you have this song. That’s the weird part of this thing.”

“I hope people think I created something beautiful, that would be an amazing thing. Finding beauty in it, finding sadness, being moved, anything.

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Photo Credit: David Patino