Cameron (Malta)
SPB: As a songwriter, at what point does drawing influence from another subject become too close to mimicking?
Malta: When we write, we take cues from subjects everywhere, real life and every aspect of media and art, but I'll try to talk specifically about how we deal when we feel like we're mimicking songwriters and players when we compose. One way we try to judge that one is to imagine ourselves in front of any influential artists we've been “ripping off” to any degree, and to imagine if we all listened to the track together and had to talk afterward, is it a conversation anybody would want to have? There has to be enough of ourselves in there to make the general feeling different somehow from the "original." If somebody's sounds make us respond in a personal way, and we get inspired to emulate something about an approach or sample a recording, if the sounds we make in this influenced/derivative/mimetic state feel like they don't personally add to or complicate the feelings that inspired us to get to work, we think they probably won't inspire much from anyone else either.
