Destin musician tours the Emerald Coast
Recording an album is hard work, but not as hard as working with the results afterward, Destin singer/ songwriter Reed Waddle says.
"Making an album can be a difficult thing," Waddle told The Log. "During it there's many times you want to pull your hair out ... The toughest part is mixing it after everything's recorded: It takes a whole fresh set of ears and a fresh mind to really do it properly, it just takes of a lot of time and patience."
Waddle should know: "Piece by Piece," his fourth CD in five years, will be released Labor Day, according to reedwaddle. com.
Creating so much music in a relatively short time "really doesn't seem that hard," Waddle said, "but it's a difficult process - at least the way that I've done it, which is literally piece by piece ... This album was done without a band, I had to find people (to play) and kind of do one part at a time."
Waddle, a 2004 University of Florida graduate, has gone far beyond the Destin home studio where he started recording. He said after traveling to Aspen to "fix up" a song that he'd recorded in Destin, he wound up recording the entire album at a professional studio there, as well as meeting John Oates of the Hall and Oates duo.
Waddle said some people may find his music "disjointed" because he draws musical influences from "lots of different pools ... depending on where I'm at in my life" rather than following one particular style. He said that if he had to "pigeonhole" his work, he'd describe much of it as "Americana indie pop with a bit of soul."
The musicians he particular admires, he said, include Neil Young, "because he always did whatever he wanted"; Van Morrison, who's "always done different things, even though he's an older age"; and Tom Petty, "probably the most underrated musician for the amount of great songs he's written, just for that fact and that he's still doing it.
"Anyone who's still doing interesting songs and can still make music, be respected and be true to what they set out to be in the first place, I respect a great deal."