Eli Santana: Manifesting Inspirado

My ongoing quest for insight into the creative process led me to a late-night Skype chat with Holy Grail guitarist and songsmith, Eli Santana. Tenacious D may be right. It might not be possible to manufacture inspirado, but Eli demonstrates that is possible to consciously create conditions which allow inspiration to manifest.

Eli:  It’s rare that I’m just hanging out and something comes to me and suddenly I found it! I’m inspired! Sometimes things just show up, but I don’t count on that happening. When it does happen, I think Oh, I got lucky! Some of the work was done for me. It feels like the Universe saying: “Here you go. You’ve been working hard. Here’s a freebee. Thanks for coming in. Keep coming back.”  Ahh, thank you!

Naia:  But you can’t always wait for inspiration to strike.

Eli:  No, I need to get stuff done.  To get into the creative flow, a lot of time, you have to manifest inspirado. (laughs) You need parameters. When you are too wide open, you’ll never get anything done.

Naia:  Well, of course,the first parameter you’re dealing with is your genre.

Eli:  Yeah, everything I basically hear goes through a Metal filter. I hear everything as a Metal song.  I hear an electronic music or pop music and I think that would be so heavy if it was done Metal. Like I’d listen to an Indie Rock song and I’ll be like “Okay but if Cannibal Corpse was doing this it would sound like this and it would be pretty cool.” Getting past the whiny voiced singer guy who is kind of in key and making a lot of money. (laughs) That’s kind of how I hear everything.  That’s why I never worried about proving how Metal I was to anyone, cause that’s just who I am.

I  remember in Middle School the first time I really identified with something that I was actually able to be proud of was being a Metalhead, because I chose that and now that is who I was. I’ve never really been comfortable being proud of anything I didn’t have any control over. It’s always strange when someone says I’m so proud to be this ethnicity. I’m like: “Cool what did you do to get — oh you were just born? Good job! Way to go. You did all that work to be — ? Oh, you didn’t.” (laughs) When I’m filling out forms that ask: What is your ethnicity? I’m a Metalhead.

 

 

Naia:  So when you are creating for Holy Grail you know it’s going to be Metal, but that still is a pretty broad range.  Holy Grail’s sound definitely has a New Wave of British Heavy Metal influence.

Eli:  We definitely draw on that, but, at the same time, I don’t want to think of us as “Trad Metal” or “Retro Metal,” because I never think of it that way. I hate the whole thing where I have to write a song and pretend that there’s a world where I never heard Pantera. I’m definitely not putting bands down who do that. I enjoy a lot of them, but it does nothing for me creatively.

Naia:  You draw on NWOBHM, but you don’t slavishly adhere to it.

Eli:  Yeah, like on the our first album (Crisis in Utopia), I made a playlist of close to 100 NWOBHM songs that (vocalist James Paul) Luna really liked and was into.

Naia:  (laughs) Yeah, Luna’s a real crazy connoisseur of that stuff.

Eli:  Yeah, some were really obscure tracks from bands that had only put out a single then faded away. I tried to write as many riffs as I could in certain keys and tempos. I  tried to make it to 200 fresh guitar riffs that I dug. Those were all over the place: Death Metal, Glam Rock. Anything I felt, I would record it.  Then move on. Not think about it. Not listen to it. I took Luna’s 100 songs and made a playlist and I hit shuffle in my ITunes  Whatever song came up that was the structure and the energy of the song I was going to do.

Naia:  200 riffs? That’s sounds pretty prolific.

Eli: I always think it’s just a numbers game when you come down to it. So I just start working, knowing that the first couple of things are gonna suck and that’s fine. If I do enough of this, there will be something cool in there.

I try to write as many riffs as I can.  When I’m writing riffs I tell myself: It needs to be this key. It needs to be this tempo. I want it to kind of sound like this. Now I need to be as creative as possible within this framework.  For our last album (Times of Pride and Peril,) I wrote like 35 arrangements, using random.org. It’s a website that generates a random number. I identified certain keys, modes and tempos I wanted to use and numbered them.  Like I numbered the modes 1-7. Then I used random.org.and hit random: There’s my mode that I’m writing in. Hit random again: There’s my key. Again: Okay that’s my tempo – done!  Now I’ve gotta write 20 guitar riffs in that combination.

So I wrote a bunch of stuff like that. Then I would see what spoke to me and what riffs felt like they fit together and then immediately write a song out of it. I’d start with an arrangement with a verse chorus, sometimes a pre-chorus, maybe do a little bit of the bridge, but usually I’d get to that second chorus and stop there.

Naia: Like rough drafts

Eli:  Yeah, a bunch of sketches, cause the problem was that I found, when you flesh out all the parts and you put all this energy into it, you don’t want to let go. Now I just get to the second chorus, record it, make sure everything sounds okay — then I’m done. I won’t let myself listen to it back when I’m done. Move on. Next song.  I’d step away for a while, then throw everything in the pot with everybody else’s stuff.

 

 

Naia: Sounds like Holy Grail has a collective melting pot approach to songwriting.

Eli: Yeah, we throw them in the pot together. The thing is, with some songs, you offer it up to the band, and everybody might hear 30 seconds and go “meh.”  And you’re like: But! I spent a week on this! No, that’s my baby!  And you get wrapped up in your own “genius” a little bit. I’m trying to erase that dynamic from myself … to not have that feeling of ownership, so I’m able to really join everybody else objectively and go: Okay, yeah that does suck. (laughs)

It’s funny, having this playbook for this last album for Holy Grail, there was stuff I’d written that, listening back to it objectively, I was like “Nah, I don’t know if I really like that.”  But Luna would be like “No, this is cool.”  I’d be like “Really?”  He’d be like “Yeah, I’m into this.”  Cause he’s hearing it from some other perspective.  It was weird that I had written it and I was like “meh!” but he was into it and brought stuff to life that I didn’t see there — out of my own stuff.

Tyler (Meahl) adds stuff too. I usually will get attached to the feel of a song, drumwise, but there will be stuff where he will throw in this wrench of a drum feeling. Then Luna throws a melody on it and that brings out something Tyler heard that I didn’t hear.  And I go “Oh, okay, now I get it.”  And so when that happens it’s really cool. I also realize that just because that works that time not to count on that being the formula.

Naia:  Some people use music theory as a formula. I know you have formal training.

Eli:  Yeah, a Bachelor’s degree in music & music business.

Naia: How does that impact your creative process?

Eli: I use music theory to solve a problem. If I need to get out of something, then I’ll use it.  It’s more of a tool than “This is the groundwork of how it is.”  Basically, it’s like you know there’s something up in a tree and you really want to get to it. With music theory, you can be: Okay I know I want to that. Here’s my ladder. Boom! Okay, moving on.

Naia:  It’s like Batman’s utility belt.

Eli:  Yeah, without it, I’m not saying you wouldn’t have gotten up there, but it would have been a lot of trial and error to try to get up there or you might just go looking for another tree (laughs.)  Of course, you also need to know that it’s there. Not everybody knows that it’s there.   Knowing the tricks and wielding them creatively, you can come up with some pretty cool stuff.  So I don’t buy into the idea that music theory inhibits your style. I think that’s a cop out. I run into a lot of musicians who say: “This is my style, man, and if I studied music theory then that’s gonna mess with my style.”  It’s like: “Now I lost my creativity, cause now I know how the sausage is made.’’ I’m like: You are just lazy! Your style is already in there, you know. I mean it may limit some people, but in general.

Naia:  It’s all in how you use it. You use music theory, parameters and mass-production to help you in the creative process.  When you sit down to write a song, how do you actually get started?

Eli: Well, actually, I don’t sit down.  I would love to be able to go to Starbucks and be able to just sit there and write lyrics.  But I can’t. I can tell when I’ve been in a creative state because 9 hours went by and I didn’t realize it.  I can see in the carpet the footprints of me pacing back and forth.
Naia:  Do you find that you focus more clearly when you are moving?

Eli:  Hmm, I guess.  I don’t know that I’m doing it. I don’t really have a choice in the matter.

Naia:  So you are moving, getting into the creative flow … then what?

Eli: For me, there needs to be that little seedling. It’s like channeling. There’s something there you are trying to lock into. It’s like you are in the desert and you don’t know where to go and a very faint light appears. You are like: I know it’s over there I have to start heading that way.  Sometimes there are clouds or it will show up and leave again or a lot of other things will show up to get in your way, but you still know it’s over there. Sometimes it’s like a lighthouse in a stormy sea and you are trying to get there and waves are pushing you back and forth.  But you’re like: Ok I know it’s that way … there’s fog, but I saw the light before.  

 

 

Naia: Trying to hone into that elusive thread sounds like a process that requires its own space. What happens when you’re collaborating?

Eli: I’m really uncomfortable working with others, especially at this point in the process.  There’s this glorified idea of how musicians create, like: Let’s just get in there and jam … and there’s this hit song. Most people want to do that and most of the time that’s not how it happens.  I need to try again to collaborate in a room, but, usually, it’s like Okay I’m honing in.  I’ve got this. Then you have someone else grabbing the wheel and going “I know!  It’s probably over here!”   And you are like: Stop it!  I’m focusing to get there.

Naia: Ha! That reminds me of those extremely painful scenes from Some Kind of Monster, when Metallica decided to get in the same room and collaborate on creating songs.

Eli:  Yeah, that was sooo painful to watch. I usually don’t cringe easily, but watching that was (laughs) like “Oh god! I can’t handle this!”   They weren’t allowed to come in with anything that was pre-worked on. That’s just sounds like chaos to me. You can see why St. Anger ended up the way that it did.

Naia: Definitely, that scenario would be challenging for me. When I’m trying to incubate inspiration, it’s like seeing something through a camera lens, but it’s hazy, so I’m trying to bring it into focus. If someone interrupts me – Thwack!! It’s just gets knocked out of the frame.

Eli:  Right! You need one person on the lens, one hand, at that time, not the whole time.  You can’t do it with 4 different hands focusing that lens. If you’re in a room with 2 or more people trying to collaborate, they are all looking at different things in the landscape.  You might be focusing on a tree and some else is like “What about that mountain?”  They are all trying to do it at the same time. So somehow, magically, you end up with something that is all out of focus.  (laughs)  Like how is that even possible?  But it’s ALL out of focus.

Naia:  That explains St Anger (laughs)

Eli: All blurry!  It totally does.

Naia:  No danger of that on a Holy Grail album.  The process may be like making sausage, but the results are always decidedly in focus. With your fourth album on the horizon, where are you in that creative process?

Eli: I guess I’m at the point now where like parents can’t wait to meet their soon-to-be-born child and see what kind of personality it has.

Naia:  We wait with bated breath.

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Check out Eli Santana’s bands: Holy Grail, Alien Satan, Huntress & his YouTube channel: The Cliff Notes of Eli

Republished with permission from Vulcher #3