Diandra Interviews Christian Tropiano: Songwriting The Honest Truth

Christian Tropiano is a romantic or, at least, he is in love with love and its many forms. His new EP, Handshake, is his way of exploring love as a method to connecting with his fans. In essence, if they see how he loves, they will love him more. It is a full, sweet sonic embrace to a truth most artists know: the more personal you make a song, the more universal it becomes. In our interview, Christian feels universal; he is a kind guy that always wanted to sing and loves his family, his guitar, Bruno Mars, and the memories each brings.

Diandra: What is a movie, book, or tv show you would love to turn into a concept album? Why and from what angle?

Christian: I think the book “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens would lend itself to a concept album really well. It’s both a coming-of-age story and murder mystery that takes place in a North Carolina marsh. A woman who lives on her own in the marsh is accused of murdering a boy from the local town, and the book maps her life from childhood to old age. Sonically, concept album would be a combination of Blink-182, Robert Johnson, and Paul Simon. My childhood, like so many people in my generation, is forever defined by pop punk bands, with Blink being the ultimate example. I can’t listen to them without feeling extremely nostalgic. I can hear Robert Johnson’s haunting delta blues wafting over the marsh, and Paul Simon’s spiritual lyrics describing vignettes from the novel. The album would start with the more playful sounds of Blink, and gradually become more somber as it comes to an end.

Diandra: What is an album you would love to turn into a movie? Why, what would be the premise, and who would be the cast?

Christian: “Nebraska” by Bruce Springsteen. It’s already so visceral and cinematic. I can easily see it being a gritty movie with lots of hand-held camera work. I’d want to see people like Matthew McConaughey, William H. Macy, Clint Eastwood, and maybe Bruce himself acting out these songs. I can totally see the movie centered around the song “State Trooper”, where the main character kills a police officer after being pulled over and the movie follows the fallout of his crime as he’s pursued.

Diandra: What are the aspects of your personality you feel come out in your music and you hope people connect with?

Christian: The songs on “Handshake” really capture my introspective nature. Whether I choose to or not, I’m constantly analyzing my thoughts and feelings, and I can (for better or worse) ruminate on things for a long time. “Used Information” is a meditation on pursuing a music career. On “Cape Town”, I distill a breakup into the raw thoughts and feelings it left behind, rather than worrying about what actually happened. I hope listeners find that these songs offer a sort of permission to embrace meaningful reflection, especially these days, when everyone seems unwaveringly happy. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being genuinely happy, and I’m not saying you should overthink everything in your life, but I think people might treat each other a bit better if they critiqued themselves more often.

Diandra: If each song in Handshake was built with an image, what picture would it have. Describe in a sentence or two.

Christian:

Shadows

A woman made of light illuminating a man, casting a shadow behind him that is much smaller than the man himself. 

Try Out For Heaven

A man viewed from behind, in a dark and messy bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. The bedroom would be impossibly big, making the man look impossibly small. 

Used Information

A busy mosaic of old-fashioned clocks, maps, rulers, and crumpled pages full of math equations.

Cape Town

A lighthouse in perfect condition overlooking dramatic cliffs and indigo-coloured water.

All the Way

Sweeping gusts of wind enveloping me as I stand with my arms wide open.

Diandra: What is your favorite childhood memory with music?

Christian: I’m fortunate to have so many music-related memories from my childhood, which makes it really hard to choose. Here’s a super embarrassing one. I remember being really young – probably six or seven. I picked up my mom’s tennis racket and pretended it was a guitar. I improvised a song about my school while I imagined I was performing at a school rally with everyone there. When I finished, I heard clapping coming from behind me. My parents and older brother witnessed the whole thing and cheered me on. I’m blushing just thinking about it, but I think that memory is a testament to how long I’ve wanted to make and play my own music.

Diandra: If your guitar was like your best friend or lover, what would you say she provides you in the relationships and what would be a day you planned for her in thanks?

Christian: The most powerful way to gauge the strength of a relationship is how you treat each other every day, especially regarding the most mundane things. It’s less about showering each other in gifts and more about being there for that person every single day – no matter what. My guitar is always there for me at the end of a long day. I don’t have to play it with a certain goal in mind, like rehearsing or writing, I can just pick it up, lay in bed, and play whatever comes to mind with no pressure. It provides me a sense of comfort, a consistent presence, that basically says “I’m here for you”. To reciprocate, I’d offer the little things back – putting on new strings, polishing the wood, putting it on the stand rather than just leaving it on the couch. Grandiose expressions of love have their time and place, but it’s more important to be a rock and a companion. 

Diandra: What has music helped you see in what you give to your relationships versus what you want from them?

Christian: Songwriting can reveal so much about what I think and how I feel about my relationships. Not just the ideas I have about my relationships, but the honest truth. It does that because when I’m trying to write a line or find the right word to place at certain part of a melody, I’m essentially breaking down really complex feelings into simple words. It’s a really powerful therapeutic tool for me, and it makes for honest songwriting. It helps me understand what works and what doesn’t work about the way I am in all kinds of relationships in my life.

Diandra: If you could create the perfect pop song feat Bruno Mars, what would be the premise and, if you can, imagine a lyric?

Christian: Oh man, I think I’d have to let Bruno take the lead if that were ever to happen. One idea that comes to mind would be to write about a wild night out like it’s a day job. It could be called “9-5”, where it’s 9pm-5am, and I’d just let Bruno tell me some party stories that I’m sure he’s full of, then write a story with lines based on what he tells me. I can picture him waking up at 7pm to shower and get dressed, and when he gets to the club he’s basically clocking in for work. We could compare parts of the night to parts of a typical workday and say something like “let’s take five in the breakroom, it looks just like my bedroom / ain’t no time for spreadsheets, when we could be filling in these bedsheets”. Bruno, the ball is in your court buddy, hit me up.

Diandra: What has music taught you to love and improve about yourself?

Christian: I’ve always had an active imagination and diverse interests, and while I like being this way it can be draining. Whenever I become interested in something, I want to be the best at that thing. For example, ever since I watched “The Queen’s Gambit” I’ve been learning how to play chess. It’s fun, but I put unnecessary pressure on myself to be great at it, especially when I’m already trying to be great at music. Writing songs has helped me channel that desire to be many different things, because it lets me write about myself or others in an abstract way. Instead of trying to be a jack of all trades, I can write about being different things and living different experiences, or even write about fictional characters that have completely different interests and values than me. It’s liberating to me and serves as a consistent reminder that I don’t have to be everything all at once.

Diandra: Describe your first crush, and what song off Handshake most describes that feeling.

Christian: I remember going on a date in grade four. I was nine or ten and I went to a movie with this girl I liked. Of course my parents and hers wouldn’t let us go alone because we were so young. My dad joined us for the movie, and when we got inside the theatre, he happened to be in the middle of us when we started to walk down an aisle toward our seats. I was so nervous that I didn’t ask him to switch spots with me. when we sat down, so we watched the whole movie with my Dad sitting between us. It’s so funny and cringey looking back at that memory. “Shadows” definitely captures the feeling of a crush the best. It’s about meeting someone new who you’re instantly attracted to and feeling elated because of it. It’s amazing how that feeling is the same no matter what age you are; it’s just scaled up or down depending on the situation.

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