The Songwriter Speaks: Pillowinde's Claire Ruiz on "Courtney"

Apr 22

Apr 22 The Songwriter Speaks: Pillowinde's Claire Ruiz on "Courtney"

Pillowinde (winde as in breeze) is one of the first bands to emerge in the New Brunswick, NJ post-shutdown DIY scene. The indie rockers started playing shows in fall 2021, and released their self-titled debut album on April 1. Look At My Records! reporter Bennett Kelly spoke with Ruiz this month about their single “Courtney.”

Pillowinde was originally a solo project by me, Claire. I met our bassist David Ramos, and this actually goes along with the Covid aspect. I met David online on a Discord server dedicated to the Beach Boys. We met on a worldwide-based server and we were like, “oh, you live in New Jersey, too?”

David lives in a showhouse in New Brunswick. We started hanging out; we both liked collecting records, we both loved the Beach Boys. But we realized we don't sing really well like that. We both also love indie rock and ‘90s stuff. So we said, “Let's do what we think we can do well.”

We started practicing together. I started going to shows in New Brunswick, started being part of the DIY scene there, basement shows, and we performed last fall at various houses and basements there.

I wrote our single “Courtney” for the most part in my bedroom, at different times. The song is pretty personal, I suppose. I’m a trans person, so in effect it's about not feeling comfortable with yourself, wishing you were somebody else. It's about my own despair, my own feelings of self-alienation. I used Courtney Barnett as a figure of somebody that’s inspiring to me, as a woman who is a cool rock star. And she’s somebody I wish I could be, as I sing in the song.

I’d say the writing was pretty fractured. Musically, I had two riffs. I had that four-chord intro riff, which is pretty simple, almost like a “Say it Ain't So,” or any kind of pop-rock riff. It's a little bouncy. That’s essentially in the standard tuning. The chord shape is in C sharp minor going down to G sharp major. And then you’ve got the E7 up there going to a B chord. But it's pretty much how you would play a Nirvana or Weezer song. It's got that ‘90s alternative rock guitar style.

Then the chorus riff was just something I had laying around. I didn't have anything else for it. One night I got on my computer and was like “Hmm, what if I combine that riff with this kind of surfy, rock intro thing that I now have as the verse?”

I’m very much a person who doesn't write by sitting down at the guitar. I write with the computer. I love being able to structure parts together and see, “O,h this works pretty well here but what if we try it there?” I don't like thinking I have to start here and end there. I guess you’d call it modular synthesis, but for songwriting.

The intro and the verses are a pretty standard pop kind of four chord thing. But to enjoy writing the song, as opposed to just saying, “Oh I'm gonna write four chords, call it a day and make a pop song,” I made the chorus riff have that dun dun de dun dunn dun dun, DEN dun thing. Then the ending of that phrase, that’s really what makes the song for me personally. That was me trying to make like a ‘60s fuzzy guitar riff that plays out in a little odd manner.

I knew I could write something simple for that, but I wanted it to have a little weird, quirky bounce to it. I put that little syncopation in there that gives it that flare, essentially adding in a little C and then F at the end of the chorus phrase. It gives the song an off-kilterness. Just having that part gives motivation to the lyrics, which are kind of sad, but also hopeful, I think. I think there's a little hope in that song.

This was recorded in a ton of different places. I am the singer, and David plays bass. But I played bass on the recording. On this first album, it was mostly me because I got it mostly recorded before I met David.

I recorded in my room. I recorded at my girlfriend’s house in Nutley. I recorded some vocals in New Brunswick. I recorded it in New York between shifts at work. I would have my laptop and I'd have this idea for the riff, and I would just record with my little Focusrite. But essentially most of the recording was done at various places where I had my laptop.

If I was at a friend’s house and they had a little Squire Strat or something, it’s possible there's a Squire Strat on the album, you know [laughing]? It's possible there's like a cheap acoustic for certain parts. I'm pretty sure there's a Casio SK1 on “Solute Contact.” And that was probably recorded in New York City because I was in college then, and I would bring my laptop and my Casio keyboard to school sometimes when I had overnight. I had to finish assignments, but I also wanted to get some musical work that I could do in the library with headphones.

On the final recordings, a lot of tracks were redone with an Apollo Twin interface. And then mixing and mastering was all done by Martin Trogani, who produced Ogbert the Nerd, another New Brunswick-based band. We got him to help us rework it and make it a little more professional. And that took a few months because we had a lot of revisions. A lot of the vocals were redone. But eventually, I think we were happy with how it sounded. Still grungy sounding, still a little raw.

We sound a bit heavier live. We have a different energy to us. We generally make the songs a little faster, a little heavier, and just more enthusiastic, because I think live gives you that platform to go crazy.

The “Courtney” outro riff, when you see it live, we kind of just go crazy with it. It's really fun to extend and just have a jam, and get louder and louder. We went back and forth about the outro on the record. I wanted it to get heavier quicker, but at the same time, I didn't want the song to be too long, because I like having it be under three minutes and be single material.

What you get on the single is like a sneak peak at what the song will sound like when you see us live. The songs sound more energetic, peppy even. Just more outgoing. There's certain aspects to us that are hard to capture in a recording when it came to the first album.

We got a writeup from this other place called Tourworthy and they billed us as a shoegaze band, and I was like “Oh, that’s interesting.” We do have shoegaze elements throughout the album, specifically “Solute Contact,” is a straight-up shoegaze, dream pop song. It's got a lot of reverb. It's got that relenting beat.

But the album in itself is kind of a taster of all the different sounds we want to do as a band. We’ve got songs that are power pop like “Courtney.” We’ve got songs like the opener “Sans Soleil” which I would describe as psychedelic, surf garage. We’ve got slowcore. We’ve got other shoegaze, grunge, power pop.

I think indie rock would be fair. I tried to go for a few different genres on this album, especially because I’ve never been one to be like I just want to do one thing. We want to do a lot with this band.

We're in the middle of finalizing the track list and recording for album number two. The first album was a re-release of material that’s a little old now. The next album is gonna be like a power pop band. Definitely more accessible, catchier songs, more memorable lyrics. We’re looking forward to the second album hopefully coming out by the end of this year.

We have been working with various musicians for live performances. These include Evan Cohen on drums, Josh Skoudis drums and guitar, and Brandon Platt with handheld synth and guitar. The credits on the website are constantly changing depending on what the current live formula is like.

We have about 20 shows booked into July and we’re in the middle of booking more. We’re doing a DIY tour at the end of May early June, down to Athens, Georgia, and we may not have a huge following yet, but we’re gonna have a lot of fun. Hopefully.

Pillowinde - “Courtney” (2022)

Claire Ruiz - Guitar, Vocals

David Ramos - Bass, backing vocals

Isabella DeVarona - Drums (touring)

Lyrics

Simply asking for directions off my own orbit

I'm breaking out of shackled goals

If you're hearing this I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed

I wish I were just someone else

I know that If I were to drop dead

Everything would start all over again

I don't know how anyone could love me