A Conversation with Daniel Tashian (continued)

PM: Do you have any TV or film scoring in your background?

DT: Well, I've had a couple songs in soap operas and short films and things like that. Oh, and there's this film out now with Jeff Goldblum in it called Pittsburgh, that actually has several Silver Seas songs in it.

PM: Wow. How did that happen?

DT: Well, it was sort of an inside deal. I've always been a fan of Jeff Goldblum.

PM: Hell yeah.

DT: And he was producing this film himself about his efforts to get his girlfriend a visa, and how he went back to his hometown of Pittsburgh to star in the Broadway production of sort of a small town play, a Broadway production of The Music Man.

PM: Oh, Lord.

DT: So anyway, the thing was, the attorney for the Seas--this is really boring--was representing that project, or producing that project, and said, "Why don't you get these guys?" So it kind of was an inside job. But I think the music really gave the film a lot of lift and a lot of energy, and it ended up being a good call.

PM: Wow. So before we get on to the record High Society, what is the solo CD featured on your myspace page, and is it available?

DT: Yeah. That's The Lovetest, which was this hilarious thing. I don't know where these songs came from, but they just sort of appeared one day. It was just a vision of a sound. It was really influenced by The New Radicals, which I was very--I actually still maintain that the best song that came out between 1990 and 2000, in ten years, the best single song was "You Get What You Give."

PM: Ah, I heard that in Blockbuster just the other day. [laughs]

DT: I mean, just the energy of that song and the sound of it, it just can't be matched. [Here's a clip of "You Get What You Give" by The New Radicals.] I mean, I defy anyone to name me a better song that came out between 1990 and 2000--not country, or--

PM: Right, but in that field.

DT: In that genre. I've also heard that Joni Mitchell said the same thing, so I don't think that I'm alone.

PM: Really?

DT: But that guy has proven that he's--Gregg Alexander has proven he's not a flash in the pan, he's had several hit songs since. But the energy of that song, I really related to that. I don't know what it was. It had to do with, for me, making a decision about my life and what the purpose of being here for me was. And so out of kind of siphoning a little bit of that energy off into a project of my own is what resulted in The Lovetest.

PM: Wow. Amazing.

DT: And it's not out. And I just recently got the songs back. They were owned by an evil corporation for a while.

PM: Really? How did you get them back?

DT: I got them back because my lawyer was very savvy and enabled me to get them back.

PM: What a guy.

DT: So I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do with those, because, I mean, I don't really perform them. I did do a couple performances of them, but it's like you really got to get in shape to do these songs, because they're all written on the piano, and my piano chops are not really--anyway, I don't know what I'm going to do with it. My dream would be if somebody took the stuff and--that'll never happen. It's always--people always talk about, "I just need to get my stuff to film and TV." Really, the only way anything happens is if you really get out there and work on something.

PM: Yeah. But at least that should be available.

DT: Well, yeah, I think so. I've got to figure out--I mean, any ideas you have about how to make it available, please, I'm all ears.

PM: Okay. I'll have to think about that. So thanks for all the information on Tashian himself. It's hard to get that stuff. Because I'm one of the many people that are interested.

Let's get on to the Silver Seas and High Society.

DT: Okay.     continue

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