Photo by Will Toft
Interview: Greg Hoy gets a ‘Yay for Effort’ on cataclysmic new song & album
The singer-songwriter talks his new song ‘Yay for Effort’ and lessons learned.
Greg Hoy‘s voice hypnotizes you into a catatonic state. Songs like focus track “Yay for Effort,” also the title of his new album, seep into your pores and bathe the bones in flax-seed vocals and thick production. “The ignorance shared and nurtured / Safe, safe as a hand grenade, praying to their charade,” sings Hoy, his words pricking the fingertips.
Those words ring like an alarm, a deafening sound that reverberates throughout the entire song and album. On what those words mean, he explains, “There seems to be a shared paranoia that’s overtaken our culture, especially since 2020. More than ever, everything feels like it could go off the rails at any moment. I’m sure past generations felt a similar vibe.”
“In 1962, my parents had an area behind their house filled with water and food when it seemed bombs were going to be dropped on the United States during the Cuban missile crisis,” he continues. “And then you had the world wars during the first half of the 20th century. ‘Only the paranoid survive’ is an accurate statement.”
As the last song written for the album, it stands in stark contrast to the rest which are acoustic or piano-based. The guitar work in “Yay for Effort” climbs from the darkest depths of Hoy’s soul. But the song being rockier came from a pretty logical standpoint. “I realized I needed another song the rock trio could play live with just guitar, bass, and drums. With the rhythm section churning along, something spacious for the guitar seemed to be the key,” he says. “Plus, since it’s a more intricate song for me to sing, I wanted the guitar part to be a more ‘call and response’ to the vocal line.”
Having listened to plenty of early The Cure and The Smiths, the main verse and the solo stemmed from such apt influences. “The second guitar on the chorus upbeats was marked on the mix file as ‘Andy’ for Andy Taylor of Duran Duran!” he laughs. “Their album ‘Rio’ is still a banger. So, that part was a straight-up rip-off, er, nod to his influence.”
Below, Greg Hoy discusses remixing the song, staying optimistic, lessons learned, and confronting self.
Why remix the song?
The album was written, recorded, mixed, and mastered all by me. When it was done, I knew that it was a special one in the totality of my catalog. There was a piece of my ego that wanted to leave it ‘as is’. Then I thought, ‘What if I reach out to some musicians I respect to get a different take on it?’ Once J said yes, it made it easier for me to just let the files go, so to speak. And there’s a real difference in the final outcome that I never could have reached alone. His version has a different kind of warmth that helps better cushion the song’s subject matter. And Ariel Levine’s mix is also stunning. Brainstorm Sheen’s dance mix cracks me up.
What did J Robbins bring to the table?
One of my bands during the NYC years, Yearbook, recorded with J back in 2003. For me, it was a week intensive on how to be a recording engineer. This was WAY before Masterclass existed – you actually had to show up and bear witness to things. So much of what I learned about recording came from my time with him: mic placement, mixing ideas, using effects. So it made a lot of sense 20 years later in a full circle sort of way to get him to do a remix of one of the very songs that I’d recorded using much of what he taught me. Plus, he is literally the nicest person. He also exposed me to the value and delight of the Dunkin’ Donuts Wake-Up Wrap.
How do you stay optimistic?
Hmm, do I? [laughs] I guess the short answer is it takes a lot of work, and it takes a conscious choice. ‘Am I going to wave or flip off that driver in traffic?’ (To be fair, I am maybe not the nicest driver). A little over a decade ago, I went through a painful divorce. During that time, the universe handed me a mentor that tuned me into mindfulness, the idea of human suffering, self-regulation, gratitude. It turns out it’s not as simple as seeing the glass half full. You first have to be happy to have the glass.
There are a ton of reports about how optimism has a direct effect on mental health. Would you say that’s true?
Absolutely agree with this. It’s a muscle to flex, as needed. Here’s a (maybe poor) metaphor. In 2020, I began lifting weights for health reasons but mostly because I became a new dad. I knew that having a toddler over the next years would be an emotional, psychological, and physical challenge. So getting myself stronger prepared me to go from swinging around an 8lb baby to a 15lb kid to a 28lb toddler. I wanted to be ‘ready.’ The same can be said for feeling optimism, which to me is an outcome of practicing gratitude. And with that practice, gratitude is something you can access anywhere, at any time. Remember: the survivors of the Titanic said they heard the band keep playing as the ship went down!
Do you think we’ve reached the point of no return in terms of where we are, culturally, right now?
Oof. I might need more coffee for this one! The advancing technologies to which we are all glued have done a sly job of controlling that narrative. Certain algorithms came into play around 2012 (I was there for some of it, working in the Silicon Valley) which took away the bulk of human interaction in spaces that seemed innocuous. It’s subtle but significant that we’re constantly asked by websites to ‘prove you are a human.’ The current administration ran on the term the ‘Great Reset’ – which is a solid phrase in theory. Sadly, there’s been no indication that anything other than profits and cronyism for a small amount of shareholders is important to them. At some point, the current system will break. I’ll bust out the popcorn for that!
What have you learned about yourself through Covid lockdowns and current events?
Critical thinking skills are more important than ever. Yesterday’s ‘misinformation’ might be tomorrow’s ‘official narrative.’ Nothing is as it seems. School never taught me to balance a checkbook, pay taxes, or have a deeply interpersonal conversation. When something seems off, it very well may be. Your intuition is smarter than you think. There’s actual evidence that ‘trusting your gut’ can be the right thing – assuming you’ve already learned to balance a checkbook.
Anything you found yourself confronting over the last almost four years? How has it affected your songwriting, if at all?
The data of the last four years for me goes in an interesting arc. We traveled the whole continental United States in an Airstream in 2019. Then, the whole ‘pandemia’ thing in 2020 meant going from being everywhere on the open road to staying full-time with a pregnant partner inside a house. Luckily, that house had a piano! Then, I became a dad. Then, I lost my own dad. And I continued touring and performing as much as it made sense for me and the band. The songs on the last two big records, ‘Cacophony’ and ‘Yay For Effort,’ are almost like bookends. One is around the idea of being born, and living to the fullest, and the other is moreso around the idea of death, and impermanence. You know, what do you want to do in between those two events? Most of my favorite songwriters have no choice but to access and write about the stuff of their existence, so to speak.
What was collaborating with Carissa on the video (above) like?
Carissa is an artistic soulmate. Her touch has made many of our videos so, so much better! Plus she’s a fantastic singer/songwriter in her own right. In the case of ‘Yay For Effort’, she really saved the day. The concept in my head never quite matched up to what I was able to edit on my own. So, much like asking J Robbins to remix the song, I asked Carissa to save the video! [laughs] Maybe the theme for 2023 is ‘I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends.’
The video really does feel like a lost ’80s relic. How did you know which direction to take?
I wish I had some high-level answer for this. The simple truth for me is I need a deadline to work against. Sometimes, it’s a tour I’ve booked months in advance. Sometimes, it’s a drop ship date for the vinyl. In this case, it was getting a video done before a tour. And the general theme of ‘Hey, we tried’ of the song lyrics ended up aligning perfectly with the final execution of the music video! With infinite money and time, you could still end up with something mediocre. So I’m just happy this came out with some of my hoped elements of dealing with our environment, and remembering we still need to make art.
