Turning the Page

After more than a decade, 80's hitmaker MARTIN PAGE finds his music In the Temple of the Muse

Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Martin Page crafted some of the most distinctive hits of the 80's, including "We Built This City" (Starship), "These Dreams" (Heart) and "Fallen Angel" (Robbie Robertson). After topping the charts as a solo artist with "In the House of Stone and Light" in 1995, Page retreated from the spotlight. But he's back with a mature new solo album In the Temple of the Muse, released in late February on his own Ironing Board Records. Page spoke with Playback about the new album, being an independent artist and the role of spirituality in his music.

It's been thirteen years since you released your last solo album. Why the long wait?
The period after "In The House of Stone & Light" was an important time for me to step back and review everything. Lots of things happened – friends and my parents passed on, and it was a time of reflection. I'd been working so hard since the 80's, right up to that point. So after I toured with the album, it felt very natural to hibernate, to read more, to see things a little bit more clearly. I carried on writing for other people, worked with Josh Groban for a while, and started quietly to work on new songs for the next record. But I wasn't aware of the thirteen years. I didn't feel a need to put out another record. I only really record or write when I feel like I have the songs that reflect me.

What's behind the title of your new album?
The title itself comes from a bookshop in London that a lot of the romantic writers in England - Byron,Wordsworth, Shelley - would go to, called Temple of the Muse. It was where they found special, unusual books. I felt very strongly that that title reflected what I always saw as "the temple," which was the studio. So the title worked well, because I love literature, and I think it reflects the way that I see myself going back into the studio to lose myself. I had that love affair with starting again.

Is there a theme or a guiding concept to the album?
This might sound corny, but most of the songs incorporate the feeling of love in different aspects. When I first started to write, I didn't really concentrate on love. I might have had a feeling of "It's overused." But on this record, I found love to mean many things. And not just in the face value, over-romantic "I love you" sense. It's the love of your art, the love of helping a friend stand up again, the commitment in the song "Blessed." And then there's love of the muse, love of writing songs. The album comes from a more blood-red vision of love. Love has suffering involved in it, too.

You recorded nearly everything on the new album by yourself. Was that more satisfying than hiring studio musicians?
Yes, and I definitely felt that it was time for me to do that. I've always been a great fan of the musician that sits down and lets his demos explain themselves, in the raw sense. I enjoy that philosophy because it made me learn some instruments, go in a little deeper. I had to learn a lot of things, even the engineering - this record was recorded in analog, and I was able to bring it into the digital domain. It was a lot of fun to say, "I'm gonna play the guitar on this. I'm gonna make some mistakes." The experimentation made a lot of the atmosphere appear. It takes longer, but sometimes musical parts appear that you wouldn't find if you had hired hands.

Do you embrace all the new modes of marketing and distributing your music?
I'm trying to keep a really good balance, because there's so much noise out there. I like to call it the Middle Way – lean on the new technology, but also lean on credibility and art and why we do this – the quality of the song. I think you can go over the top, and get lost in the mass, and it's important for artists right now to think about where their market is. If you don't have a pop hit record, that's okay. You can still build a good audience with your MySpace page and a website. You have to pick your gateway to the public with sensibility. But what it really comes down to is good songs. People are either going to be touched by your music or not.

How is writing for yourself different than writing for someone else?
When I write for someone else, I feel like I'm an actor in someone else's movie. I'm looking at what their career is, and what they're hoping to do in the future. There's a certain way this band or this artist sings, and there's a certain marketplace that you've got. I know many artists I've worked for don't ever feel like they get their own color across. I've felt lucky enough to get the chance to do that with my two albums. But when I write for myself, it comes out of me from a much more organic and guttural place. Where if I'm writing for someone else, I become the extra member of their band.

Does your approach to spirituality influence your music?
It influences my music immensely. I see writing songs as meditation, and I see being in the studio like going to a church, but much more fun. I'm not a Buddhist - I'm nothing, I'm not a religious man, I'm a spiritual man – but what resonates the most is the eastern philosophies of Zen and Buddhism. Mainly the idea of compassion and having empathy with other living creatures. I've always found music spiritual. Lovely if it becomes commercial, and appeals to everybody, but the main reason I sit down at a piano is to touch something spiritual. When I'm doing music, I am actually spiritually lost. I don't know what's going on, I'm aware only that something's happening. To me, music is consolation for the things we have to go through while we're alive. Music and art and poetry and literature make us rise up, lift up to things that are beyond us. When I sit down to write music, the first thing is to move my emotions, and I'm hopeful that other people will feel the same way I do.

— Etan Rosenbloom