At face value, buying a new house and recording one’s debut album couldn’t seem more different. However, viewed from a wider, big picture perspective, both acts represent a significant new chapter in one’s life. Buying your first house is a major milestone. In addition to moving to new surroundings, it’s a chance to take ownership of a property and make it one’s own, decorating new rooms with old and new possessions and experiences.
Recording one’s debut album is not too dissimilar. It’s the result of years of hard work, practice and growth as a songwriter and musician, and draws from one’s experiences as they journey through new experiences to realize one’s musical vision. That includes collaborating with other musicians and the production team. Oftentimes, it’s their first time recording in a studio or getting a recording of their song ideas. The goal is to take ownership of the process and create a document that showcases who they are musically.
Buying a house and recording one’s debut both draw on where one’s been as well as new experiences and ambitions.
For Philadelphia-born, Nashville-based musician Vinnie Paolizzi, the act of buying a new house and recording and releasing his debut album came almost concurrently. On November 17, Paolizzi released his debut album The Vinnie Paolizzi LP, a collection of songs produced by Old Crow Medicine Show’s Mike Harris. It showcases the songwriting strides he’s made in the past decade as well as the musical connections he’s made since moving to Nashville. In addition, Paolizzi and his wife are currently furnishing their new house purchased in the past year. They’re preparing for the arrival of their new baby in March.
For his entry in our Water Tower Sessions, Paolizzi decided to perform album opener “Proud of What I Did Today” in their living room. When interviewed at the end of last year, he admitted that he didn’t have a nice setup yet as they were still “putting the house together piece by piece.”
“I took a break from working on the outside of the house and setting up the upstairs,” says Paolizzi. “That was the only room that was functional at the moment…I just had a little stand and used my phone. My studio setup is not quite up yet. As you probably know. It takes a minute to get all that put together.”
“I’ve been here [in Nashville] almost six years now, so this is our first actual house that we bought and it’s kind of cool that it was still kind of work in progress.”
That DIY spirit carried over to recording of his debut and session. He is proud that his ambition and hard work are paying off and credits his friends for helping him achieve his goals.
“With the record, we recorded most of it in about two days, and then over the course of the summer just hammered out the rest of it with vocals and overdubs and mixing and mastering,” says Paolizzi. “We went all over the city using studio time that was cheap or friends would let me use their place after hours. It was definitely a team effort, but it was definitely DIY as well.”
He picked “Proud of What I Did Today” because it’s the first track on the album and he feels if “if someone’s going to want to listen to one song, for me, I feel like that one gets who I am…and showcases that pretty straightforward.” It’s a song that always provides him with a boost of confidence.
“There’s never a linear path really in any job, especially in what we do. And it’s hard to know if today is a successful day or if you didn’t do your best or you just never know. Everything’s changing all the time,” he says. “So, I feel like if you can just wake up tomorrow proud of what you did today, that’s kind of the least that you can do. And I still think about that. It kind of keeps me on track when I’m feeling a little bit lost.”
Paolizzi enjoyed the chance to perform the song acoustically on the new guitar that he bought last fall. He says it was either the first or second time he played the song on the guitar, which brought him joy. Playing acoustic provides him with a different way to perform and appreciate songs compared to the full band setting.
“I play 10 shows in a month, and there’s probably five acoustic ones, a couple with a full band, a couple with a duo or some other format, and it’s fun to work all those different muscles,” he says.
For Paolizzi, things have been a blur since the album’s release, between working on the house, interviews and shows.
“That was definitely a day where I got to relax for a minute,” he says. “So, it was nice to know that I still love the song, just me and the guitar…We just moved in this place and our dog thinks he’s the ruler of the entire neighborhood, so getting him to stop barking for three and a half minutes was probably the best part of the experience.”
Paolizzi has spent almost a decade refining his songwriting, often collaborating and playing with other musicians. That includes playing guitar for rising star Brittney Spencer and playing his own music in the round with songwriting legend Dean Dillon, best known for writing songs for George Strait and many others. Paolizzi’s debut album includes collaborations with newcomers Ben Chapman, Ben Danaher, and Meg McRee, as well as veteran musicians Harris and Adam Hood.
Scummy Water Tower recently caught up with Paolizzi to discuss his history of collaboration, how working with others gave him confidence to release his own music, drawing from a wide range of influences and the inspiration for several of his songs.
Your debut gave you a chance to fully showcase your talents after mostly collaborating with others in and out of Nashville. What was it like getting to that stage and putting things together like that?
I’ve lived in Nashville for six years now… I moved here at the same time as a bunch of people that were also into singer-songwriter [type music] and big fans of ‘60s and ‘70s rock music and country music [groups]. And I feel like I got to be such a better writer over the last few years because I was around so many people that also love songwriting and got to write with a lot of people that love songwriting.
So, everyone that co-wrote songs on this record, we’re all coming from the same place from an intention standpoint, but we all grew up on different kinds of music. We’re all from different parts of the country and I feel really lucky that I’ve gotten to collaborate with some really great people and will continue to do so. We support each other, we played in each other’s bands and we’re trying to do it for all the right reasons.
Can you tell me about some of the people that collaborated on the album?
Yeah, there are a couple songs on the record that have people featured on them. So, Adam Hood is one of them. He and I wrote a song called “If It Would Only Rain,” and he’s written songs for everything from Miranda Lambert to Brent Cobb to he’s got credits all over the place and I really looked up to him and still do. So, having him not only write a song with me but then come sing on it in the studio was pretty awesome.
The other two songs, my friend Ben Chapman and Meg both sang on a song and they’re also really great friends. I’ve written probably 30, 40 songs with each of them and we just all kind of want to support each other and having them come in the studio, it’s obviously old friends, it’s pretty chill and relaxed…This is kind of the next class of music coming out of Nashville, so I feel really lucky that I’m part of that.
What do you like most about collaborating with others?
I think just being exposed to a different set of influences. There’s something to an artist really having one voice throughout a song or an album or a career even, but I feel like my favorite music is when two or more people come together and make something collaborative. I feel like it adds a very human element, and it also pushes me, man. I mean, I’ve been in writing sessions where even yesterday I was working on the bridge of this song. This guy came in and was like, what went to this chord and this chord. I honestly would’ve never even thought to do that, but it was perfect for this other idea that I had. It kind of all fits together like a puzzle. I just love doing that. I love figuring that out. I love learning things, so I think collaborating is probably my favorite part of being in town here.
Why do you think you were ready to release your debut album?
I think it takes different amounts of time for everyone. And for me, especially as a singer, I needed to grow into my voice a little bit and learn how to write songs towards my voice instead of pushing myself too far one way or the other. And I think the pandemic was a great time for me. I played a ton of guitar, and I really did put the time in and work on becoming a much better singer. So, I think coming out of that I started writing songs that really fit me a lot better and it just felt like the right time to really focus on my stuff instead of just writing songs for other people. I play guitar in a bunch of bands and it just kind of felt like the right time for me to start doing my solo stuff.
How would you describe your sound and songwriting style? What makes it unique?
Definitely influenced by the ‘70s kind of singer songwriter scene, the Jackson Brownes and Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles and stuff like that. But also, man, I like the songs that are conversational. I feel like someone could take things that I’m saying and just say them to you, and you would understand them kind of as either a story or just something about life. I never wanted to sound too high brow or anything like that. I want it to all stay very conversational.
With being from Philadelphia now in Nashville, how do you think those places have impacted your songwriting style and view of music in general?
Philadelphia was not a place where country music was the biggest thing, but I will say my parents were music lovers. So, they had a really great collection of different kinds of stuff. But I’ll say also that moving here opened my eyes to so much American music that I never really was exposed to. I had heard of Willie Nelson before I moved here, but I didn’t know he had 96 albums on Spotify. You know what I mean? He’s got so much music out there. And all these southern rock people that maybe didn’t make it as big as Lynyrd Skynyrd or something like that, but they had these great songs all through the seventies and eighties. And I think moving here kind of exposed me to a lot of that stuff, which definitely impacted songwriting.
What’s the story behind the album’s title?
I’ve gone back and forth forever, man on stuff to call it. And this one really felt like a self-titled record because it kind of covers a lot of the styles of music that I like. Every song definitely doesn’t sound the same, but hopefully they all sound like Vinnie. It just kind of felt nice to make the first full length.
I liked how you changed it up from the typical debut title with your name and then LP.
Yeah, there’s another artist that did that forever ago. I forget if it’s the second or the first Eminem album. It’s called The Marshall Mathers LP and I thought that looked really cool on the cover. I wasn’t super musically influenced by Eminem, but I just always thought that looked really cool. And also, I have such a crazy name for a lot of folks, so I thought if I said my name twice on the cover, people might remember it better.
[Editor’s note: Paolizzi is pronounced pao-liz-zi]
What were some of the biggest surprises and challenges making the album?
The amount of time that certain things take. I mean, we recorded most of this in June of 2022 and it didn’t come out until November of 2023. You probably talk to people all the time about how much making stuff costs. I mean, it’s expensive for one thing and it’s also just labor intensive. We really wanted to get it right and we wanted to take the time with mixing and mastering and we definitely took our time, but that definitely surprised me. I thought that we’d kind of just go in the studio, record the songs, start putting them out and start out my next thing, but didn’t know that being about a year and a half process.
What was your inspiration for “As Far As Goodbyes Go”?
I live in Tennessee obviously and grew up in Philadelphia and there’s a highway called 81 that goes up through mostly Virginia. You’re in Virginia forever. And I spent so much time on the highway. Brian Frazier is from Virginia, but lived in Nashville forever, so he spent a ton of time on 81 as well. We were just talking about what if two people split up while they were on a road trip on 81 and had to go opposite directions on the highway, which is just kind of a cool image, I don’t think a lot of people have written a song about.
So, it was fun to write it with someone who also had spent a lot of time on that stretch of work. So yeah, that one probably took the longest. So, I’ve been tinkering with that song for probably a year and a half before we recorded it. So honestly, it was kind of nice to record that one because I knew I was finally finished.
“It Ain’t Easy” and “Ahead of Me” are both co-writes that you did. What was your experience like writing those? What were your inspirations for them?
For “It Ain’t Easy,” me and my buddy Ben, both of us have spent time writing songs for other people and we both went to Nashville at the same time. We’ve had similar goals and similar struggles and all that kind of stuff. And one day I think we were both exhausted and he was just like, “man, I want to write something just slow and jammy” and just how he was feeling at the moment. So, we’re up writing a song over five minutes, which you don’t see a lot these days. We really enjoyed doing that.
“Ahead of Me Bandana” was a similar story. He’s been at this thing a long time and it’s kind of easy to get down on yourself and get caught up in the wrong things. And I think we both needed a song that would remind us that good days are around the corner and now both of us are expecting baby girls in the spring. So, I think we were right.
For this album you got to work with Mike Harris from Old Crow Medicine Show. What was it like working with him and how did he most impact the songs?
It was his first producer gig. We were just talking about a whole different set of influences and he’s from North Carolina. He was also in a band called The Apache Relay, which was a big alternative rock band in the 2010s. But he had a ton of ideas, especially guitar stuff, that I would’ve never thought of.
We did some alternate tunings for songs like “Johnny Was A Baptist” which was really interesting. It kind of gave the songs a different voice than I really wrote them in, so that was definitely cool. He also took care of putting the band together for all the full band recordings, so he had really specific ideas on what he wanted that to sound like. So that was really interesting and kind of fun to see him process all of that. He’s been a really great friend and just a really great mentor for me over the last about three years or so.
What are you most looking forward to in the year ahead?
I got a bunch of shows and we’re expecting a baby girl in the spring, in March, so obviously looking forward to that. And we’re starting back in the studio in February, so hopefully I’ll be talking to you again in a few months about some new music.
I imagine you’re feeling very excited to become a dad.
Yeah, I mean we can’t wait. Besides playing shows is pretty much all that I’m doing right now is getting everything set up for that.
Having a new baby soon will give you even more ideas for songs, I imagine.
Yeah, I’d say it’s an inspiring baby.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
