Sophia Pfister is a Los Angeles based multi-faceted artist who works in several mediums, and we were taken by her debut EP which was sold on Bandcamp as a download, and on a self financed vinyl pressing. Sophia recorded a full length LP, Birdcage, which quite frankly, blew us away. It is available for purchase directly from her website. Along with being a talented songwriter and recording artist, Sophia is visual artist, model, and writer. She graciously agreed to an interview.
1) Can you give our readers a personal history, and a bit about your early musical influences?
I don’t come from a family of musicians. No one can play an instrument or sing but my Dad swears the Irish “shanachie” storytelling blood runs in our family. My Dad baptized me and my brother in old movies growing up. Film combines music, writing, acting and visuals which played a bit part in my creative development. Movies like Moby Dick, The Cowboys, The African Queen and The Blind Samurai allowed me to observe the human experience from the safety of my home until I had my own experiences to write about.
I consider myself a writer first, a singer second and a musician third. I didn’t have fancy taste growing up, I wasn’t spinning Thelonious Monk records in high school and learning about classic musicians. However I do remember my earliest experiences of becoming addicted to choruses. I distinctly remember as a child becoming obsessed with “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics,“Tennessee Hound Dog” by the Osbourne Brothers and “Everywhere” by Michelle Branch [Which was a bizarre experience writing a song on my new album 20 years later with John Shanks who wrote that song.]
2) We love your EP. To our ears is a wonderful slice of baroque pop, with use of trumpet, pedal steel, banjo, and other interesting brush strokes. The mix is really great too. How was it recorded?
I like the term “Baroque pop” I might have to steal that from you when people ask me what my my genre is! My mother who was born in Mexico loves bluegrass music for some unknown reason and hearing those harmonies, banjos and upright basses that appear in bluegrass music influenced me. I also started playing folk instruments when I was younger but I’m from a small town in which banjos, autoharps and dulcimers aren’t as uncommon as they are in Los Angeles. I also just have this inherent fascination of instruments from around the world and the weirder the better in my opinion. I think classic cars and musical instruments are the closest thing inanimate objects get to having a soul.
The people behind the instruments on my EP and album were hired through the studio I recorded at. Tom Weir who owns Studio City Sound is a veteran audio-engineer and he hooked me up with all the players. Most of the session guys on my album are nestled in the music industry and I’d like to believe they had fun with the freedom of playing whatever they wanted on my songs. My producing style was pretty hands-off because I figured what advice could I give to a trumpet-player who has dedicated his whole life to this instrument? But where I got to add my touch was after, during editing. I would then sift through everything and chose riffs and phrases that felt most true to what I was trying to say in my song.
3)Pressing your own vinyl is serious undertaking. Tell us about all the moving parts, and the quality control involved.
Money is the only moving part. Money is the only thing allowing or preventing any artist from reaching their potential. My music has felt like my wife and kids that depend on me for survival and I have to go into the world doing whatever I have to to protect it. It sounds dramatic but it’s how it feels without any sort of label or structure. I’ve done all kinds of (mostly legal) work to fund my music which might be another interview entirely. Luckily my family supports my endeavors and without that support my creativity and personality would have died years ago.
On a more technical level I used RTI and Dorado Packaging for my first EP and Gotta Groove Records in Cleveland for my second record. These manufacturing companies are superb in their own quality control so it makes it easy for me. The studio I record at is also high quality and everyone on my records are top-notch people in their field. So the benefit of hustling to pay for everything yourself is when you hire the best you get the best, and mediocracy isn’t my style.
4) Are your songs based on real events, fiction, or a combination there of?
Real events.
5) Can you describe your home playback system?
My phone and a guitar amp that I plug it into haha. One day I’ll have a nice set up but I’m still living day to day.
6) What current artists and sounds have caught your ear?
My own band (whom I found through posting on Craigslist.) Zach Paul is violin player with a side hip-hop project and I find his juxtaposition interesting. I also love watching his solo ambient shows. And my guitar player Ben Thomas is currently getting his master’s degree in jazz guitar. He continues to amaze me with how he can sing, write and pick up any instrument and play it well. They both use pedals to layer and change the sounds coming from their instruments during our shows which creates such a full and gorgeous sound.
7) Do you play live gigs around Los Angeles?
I’ve been playing with the two guys I just mentioned. We played the Troubadour in L.A. along with The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and we’re all itching to gig more.
8) Tell us all you can about your debut full length LP, Birdcage. We think it is just superb on every level.
Well, it was a journey. It took about a year and 5 months from start to finish. Each song was a journey- physically, emotionally, financially, collaboration-wise. I’m proud of it, I’m happy it’s been birthed and I’m glad it’s over. I am relieved but there’s a bitterness in my relief due to everything I went through to create a professional product and if that even means anything. This album “Birdcage” is about longing. Maybe the whole thing is a cry for help, maybe it’s a middle finger to the world, maybe it’s growing pains, maybe it’s my own epiphanies. All I know is it was something I had to do, I did it, and I’m grateful to be healthy and to live in a free country where I can even pursue a dream.
Order Birdcage here:
https://www.sophiapfister.com/vinyl/sophia-pfister-birdcage-vinyl-lp
Order the EP here:
https://www.sophiapfister.com/vinyl/sophia-pfister-12-record-ep-reissue
Bandcamp download of EP: