Q&A: Greg O'Connor Explores New Depths with ‘The Place I’ve Never Been’
ACCLAIMED COMPOSER AND PRODUCER GREG O’CONNOR is stepping into a new chapter with his deeply personal album The Place I’ve Never Been. Known for his work in film and television scoring, O'Connor's latest project marks a significant departure from composing for others, focusing instead on his own emotional and creative journey. The album reflects a blend of his eclectic influences, from The Beatles to Fleetwood Mac, while also exploring deeply introspective themes of vulnerability, growth, and gratitude. Each track is a window into O'Connor’s personal experiences, crafted with the help of longtime collaborators and recorded across multiple studios around the world.
Inspired by a visit to Mystic, Connecticut, a place that stirred a sense of déjà vu and emotional connection, the title track sets the tone for an album that navigates the complexities of life’s highs and lows. With his rich blend of storytelling and sophisticated arrangements, O'Connor’s music invites listeners to join him on a reflective, heartfelt journey. This project, which he describes as a passion pursuit, stands as a testament to his evolution not just as a composer, but as an artist in his own right.
Read below to learn more about the making of The Place I’ve Never Been, O’Connor’s plans for the fall and more.
LUNA: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the album title "The Place I've Never Been"?
O’CONNOR: I came up with the title “The Place I’ve Never Been” after my fiancé Kevin took me to Mystic CT for the first time. This is the area in Eastern CT where he grew up. As soon as we started crossing the Mystic River Bridge into the old part of town, I was emotionally moved. I felt like I had been there before, either in my dreams or in a past life. It is hard to explain. So Kevin and I wrote the lyrics to this song while we were in Cape Town South Africa. I decided to make the song the title track of the album to represent the current place in my life where I feel the most creatively inspired, emotionally balanced and spiritually centered.
LUNA: What themes or messages do you hope to convey through the music on this album?
O’CONNOR: I want the listeners to take an emotional journey. I would like people to feel vulnerable, honest, reflective and maybe somewhat uncomfortable at times. Most importantly, I want people to feel a deeper connection to themselves and to have gratitude for all of life’s lessons and unexpected chapters along the journey. The themes of the songs vary from honeymoon to heartbreak, anger, frustration, understanding, fear and regret to clarity, gratitude and inspiration and everything in between.
LUNA: How have you seen your music evolve with this project?
O’CONNOR: My musical journey up until now has been composing scores and writing songs for films and television shows as well as writing and producing songs for other artists. So when I finally got around to pursuing this solo artist album as a personal passion project, I discovered that there is huge difference to writing and performing for yourself as opposed to writing for others. When I finally got to really thinking about it, I had never really taken actual personal experiences of mine and turned them into songs. I may have been inspired by a personal situation and used that to start an idea, but I had not made an entire piece of music that spoke solely to my experience. I also had to think very differently while singing as an artist as opposed to a singing a song I wrote for a movie where the emotion of the performance needs to compliment a pre-existing storyline. So the evolution of the music has become much more personal and contemplative.
LUNA: Are there any particular songs on the album that you're especially excited about?
O’CONNOR: I find it hard to single out one song in particular. I feel they all represent a different side of me. If I were to take many of my influences such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Toto, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, Billy Joel, Elton John, Alan Parsons, Jeff Lynne and ELO, mix them up in a pot and put a modern twist on it, this is what would come out. I did not have any specific plan in mind as far as styles. I listen to current pop radio and I listen to old songs from the great American songbook and pretty much anything that has an interesting melody, chord changes, arrangement and meaningful lyrics. I find the concept of genre playlists like a jail or creative prison. Music is music and I think we are evolving into ‘one world’ where everyone is being influenced by everyone else. I believe the best stuff evolves organically when artists are not boxed into one thing.
I will say that I had the most difficulty singing “The Story’s Starting Here” and “Nothin But You On My Mind”. The former has kind of a Billy Joel and Elton John vibe and the latter has sort of a Chicago and Steely Dan vibe. All of those artists have edgy rock voices and they are masters at acting out a song. I really wanted to juxtapose the sensitive lyrics with a harder vocal. But the more I pushed in that direction the less organic and honest it felt. So I needed to find my version of those songs that felt real.
LUNA: What was the songwriting and recording process like for this album?
O’CONNOR: My amazing songwriting partners on the songs are Loki Rothman, Michael Haddad and Kevin Sikorski. The songwriting started last year when Loki visited from South Africa to do some writing sessions and go to the NAMM show in the spring of 2023. We wrote Ghosted, Bad Luck Love and Call It. After recording the vocals for Ghosted, I thought, “Maybe now is the time to do this album thing.” So I kept coming up with song ideas after having been through many personal challenges over the past two to three years. I just came off of scoring a few movies and I really wanted to take a breath and do something personal. We wrote the songs both in person and online over FaceTime. The recording process was all over the place. I recorded horns and strings in my living room on a few songs, drums guitars and bass in Cape Town and LA and traded files between five different studios. I tried to capture the spontaneous real time musical conversation between players as best as I could given the circumstances. I think I am pretty happy with the balance between the controlled arranged vibe and the live unplanned moments.
LUNA: Are there any specific instruments or production techniques that you've experimented with on this album?
O’CONNOR: My friend Bob Kearney is a great engineer. After I did the arrangements, he helped me record horns and strings in my living room. Here is what Bob did to record the horns. For the trumpet he used a Neumann M147 running through a Groove Tubes Vipre and Manley Compressor. For the tenor sax he used a Sennheiser MKH 800 running through an Avalon M2 mkII and Manley compressor. For the trombone, he used a Neumann U87 running through the Avalon and ADL C/L 1500 compressor. To create an echo chamber, we used my center hallway using two AKG 414 mics. Similar techniques were used to record the strings which consisted of two violins, viola and cello…doubled. The Cape Town SA sessions were recorded at a wonderful place called Sunset Recording Studios by Jürgen Von Wechmar who gets a great sound. In addition, my amazing co-writer and co-producer on many of the tracks, Loki Rothman, recorded and mixed three of the songs at his Cape Town studio, Rothman Records.
One of the weirdest and most surprising things was that I initially created a funky straight drum groove for the song “Nothin But You On My Mind.” I recorded the horns to that straight sixteenth note programmed drum groove. But when we went in to record the live drums, Sheldon Yoko the drummer suggested that we try doing a slight swing. And for some crazy reason the horns work perfectly to the swing groove. I have no idea why it works. I was thinking I would need to go back and record them again. I think if I were to do another album like this again, I would record the drums and bass much earlier in the process and sculpt the other live stuff around that groove.
LUNA: What advice would you give to aspiring musicians?
O’CONNOR: Kevin gave me great advice that I always knew but never took to heart until now. When you are in a ‘work for hire’ position for most of your career, it is very important to make time for your passion projects. It will make you a deeper artist. I advise any artist to not chase any market. Just do what you do. There are many paths to success. One must define what success is for themselves. Not everyone has the same goal. Not everyone sees or hears the same way. Do not chase the current market. Just create. There is no song contest or network talent show that is going to make you great. As Dave Grohl always says, being great starts with being really bad at something for years until you do it over and over again. Then I feel that you will most likely stumble upon some happy accidents that define your style.
LUNA: What intentions do you have for this fall season?
O’CONNOR: I have two great new films for which I scored and wrote several songs that are coming out this fall. One is a drama called “My Home Unknown” directed by Yaz Canli and produced by Diane Foster and Larry Kasanoff. This is true story about a homeless artist living on the streets. She suffers from mental illness and her challenging journey is to find a way to accept help. Another new film for which I scored and co-wrote the theme song is a documentary directed by Randal Kleiser called “Baby Boomer Yearbook” where Randal interviewed many of his classmates, starting in 1964, every ten years, in the position of their yearbook photo, for fifty years. The film highlights how the events and culture of the baby boomer generation helped shape these people over five decades. I am also working on a musical theater piece.
As far as passion projects, this next one may be in a different style. Perhaps I will do an instrumental album, an orchestral album or maybe do something more edgy with a band. I am still messing around with some ideas.
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