Warning there are some references to smoking and swear words in this episode!
In this episode I’m chatting with my former voice student and current rock star of the moment, Chris Portka.
I interviewed Chris a couple of years ago about his earlier album ‘TRASH Music’, which was fab, but in a very different way to this album. Since I received my vinyl copy it’s been on a regular rotation in our house, it’s that good.
‘The Album That Everyone Wants’ was recorded in a frenzy of play and experimentation in a hallowed New York Studio earlier this year and the result is honestly just fantastic. Playful, folksy, hopeful and a bit dry & smoky around the edges. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Here are the links to listen and buy – support a real life musican this holiday season! ❤️
Listen to tracks and buy a digital copy HERE
Buy the vinyl directky from Chris HERE
If you want to listen to my earlier interview with Chris where he talks about his journey to accepting his voice and himself as a singer and working with his Shadow material to transform his life, you can do that here.
If you are ready to take the journey yourself, I would love to talk to you about your voice and journey so far. Schedule a meeting with me to discuss how we might work together on this page.
Click here for show notes and messy transcript
Julia Norton: Just a quick note before we dive into this episode. There are some sweary words and some references to smoking. So if you have, uh, children nearby, you might wanna put your AirPods in. Also, if you are looking to have the kind of transformation that Chris has had, do reach out to me about private coaching.
I teach online and some people in person, depending on where you’re located. So, uh, shoot me a message and let’s see if we can get you
singing into 2026. Okay, bye.
Hello and welcome to your Free Voice. Uh, I am interviewing today in this episode, my former student and now good friend Chris Portka. We’re gonna be talking about his newest album, the album that everyone wants.
This is a super fascinating conversation, and if you hadn’t listened to my previous interview with, uh, Chris from a couple of years ago, I think it was episode 36, I now know. Um, that’s when he tells a story about how when he first found me, he couldn’t, uh, sing in front of me, let alone anybody else. Uh, he was depressed and not expressing himself creatively at all, and yet it was his dream.
And now we are multiple albums down. I’m just saying. Uh, and so have a listen to this episode. It talks a little bit about, um, how he came about writing some of the songs, uh, choosing the people that he works with. Uh, I think the album’s great and Chris is always really fun and generous to talk to, so enjoy.
Hello and welcome to your Free Voice with me, your host, Julia Norton. This
podcast is for people who use their voice professionally or for fun, and they want to understand how it works a bit better, or to get over old stories that might be holding them back. Whatever level you’re playing at right now, my goal is to bring you lots of actionable stuff from the technical to the creative, to the deeply woo, to help you free your voice.
Okay. Welcome everybody. Uh, welcome to your free voice. And this week I am talking to Chris Portka about his new album, the album Everyone Wants. Here it is People. If you’re watching me on the YouTube, you can see the cover there, which is very awesome and quite moody and stylish. He’s wearing shades and Token on it or something, which tells you it’s a rock album, but it isn’t really, but it kind of is.
Let’s talk about it, Chris.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Thank you so much for coming in and for, uh, yeah, I’m loving
Chris Portka: being here
Julia Norton: in person in my little office here. We’re kind of squid into, uh, behind the desk, um, this album, I have to say. I saw you this summer while you were still in the process of kind of editing or whatever, finishing the thing.
Chris Portka: Mixing my editing.
Julia Norton: Mixing,
Chris Portka: yeah. A lot of back and forth. Yeah. So,
Julia Norton: so it feels like it wasn’t that long ago that I was talking to you about your album Trash music.
Chris Portka: Oh, yeah. That was, that was also very fun. But that was a very solo effort.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: So I guess this is the first, uh, record that you could say that I made that is, uh, yeah.
Very collaborative. Right? Uh, that’s, that’s a big difference in terms of everything I’ve done before. ’cause everything, it was me in my own little personal studio, much like kind of we are now. And like just tracking one thing at a time, singing it until I feel like, oh, that’s good enough. And like, this is the first time I actually like, sat in a studio with, in a nice studio.
Paid musicians. Uh, they were also my friends too, but you know, like, uh, they, they did a lot of work on this album too, so, and they deserve, they deserve a lot of praise as well for the work on the album.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: But, um, yeah, I mean,
Julia Norton: what was the, ’cause it feels like for those of you that haven’t listened to the first interview I did with Chris.
Ah, I should have figured out which episode that was, but go back, go back about 15 episodes, something like that, and maybe 20, and you’ll find the episode with Chris before. And, uh, he talks a lot about his evolution from going from being completely terrified of singing in front of anybody at all to making albums, right?
Yeah. Which is this huge journey to doing that. And then this feels like. Almost like in terms of your growth as you’re claiming yourself as a, and you’re not gonna like this ’cause it’s gonna feel like, you know, I’m puffing you up, but like you are, you are, uh, accepting yourself as an actual kind of bonafide, actual, like what has shifted there for you, do you think?
Because. Paying other people, treating yourself like a professional, you know, all that kind of stuff, of bringing other people in. Did it feel like that was a big shift, like emotionally, or did it kind of just happen because you wanted to collaborate with people and you were sick of doing it on your own or none of those things?
Chris Portka: A lot of things. There’s a lot of, a lot of those things. Okay. Uh, I would probably say the number one reason is yeah, I was just sick and tired of doing 99% of it. Alone.
Yeah.
And I just, the prospect of doing it again, just felt like such a huge weight.
Mm.
I didn’t know how to kinda, uh, uh, uh, uh, not that I didn’t want to keep making music and writing songs and all this stuff, but
Yeah.
Yeah. I did not know how to move forward, uh uh, if I was just gonna sit in my little studio again. Yeah. And kind of do it all over again. And there are friends, um. That are kind of in the music industry. Mm. Or what? Or what’s left of it, or whatever you want to say about that. Yeah. But, um. And they’re ultra talented and I miss them and they’ve like moved away.
And so kind of a big impetus for the album is just me like texting some of my friends, just being like, I miss you. Can we please like for the love of God, play music sometime when I’m in New York or whatever. ’cause like that, that’s actually, so one of the impetus is like one of my friends Jasper, who kind of co-produced the album
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: He, uh, works, uh, at some studios in New York. Yeah. He moved out to New York. Uh. Like 10 ish years ago or something like that. Um, and, um,
Julia Norton: share a house.
Chris Portka: Oh, oh, oh, yes. We live in the co-ops together. Yes, we did. That’s where first met up. So yes.
Julia Norton: Screen is just like, yeah.
Chris Portka: Yeah. Actually, most of the people who are on the album are usually, are people like the drummer, Mike Vi, uh, not, not all, not a co-op, but also somebody I’ve met through that kind of scene.
That co-op college kind of cool music scene.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: That kind of happens. Uh,
Julia Norton: interrupted
you
Chris Portka: at Berkeley.
Julia Norton: Yeah. Yeah. He’d moved to New York,
Chris Portka: but so he moved to New York, tired of doing things on my own. Tired of just being in my own studio. So I knew Jasper was doing this thing and I basically, after a series of texts was just like, can we please for the love of God, just like, can we go in the studio and just record some stuff?
I have some stuff that’s done.
Yeah,
you can produce or do whatever you want to do to like throw it. But I can play the songs on guitar and sing and,
yeah.
And as it started getting closer, I was like, well, it’d be great if we could have a drummer. And he is like, lemme see if Mike’s free and I can get him.
And he wa he was, and like, so it was kind of ended up being the trio of us, uh, which is kind of the big bones of the album.
Yeah. Yeah.
Um, was just two days at Sears Sound in New York, in Manhattan. Uh, really cool studio. A lot of cool records. Mm-hmm. Uh, Sonic Youth Wilco. A lot of cool records that have been outta Sears sound, uh, and the place itself sounds great and the people are lovely.
Um. And, uh, yeah, kind of just winged it because, you know, I only had so much time in New York. We had no time to practice, no time to do any of this. Like, I sent them demos of all the songs, obviously. And, and, and I had already had the idea in my head that I, I, so, so, so to back up a little bit.
Yeah.
Um. Part of my music practice, uh, is, is trying to play every day.
Yeah. And I’m not al I’m not always successful at that, but more often than not, I am, and I play my own stuff, but a lot. But most of the time I actually am playing covers and some of the covers I really love. And at this point it’s hundreds of covers Yeah. That I’ve done.
Yeah.
And. And I love those artists and all that stuff.
And, and, and sometimes I do a dramatically different, or I just want just naturally kind of like, I didn’t even really plan it. I just practiced it for a bunch and I’m like, I just wanna do it this way. It sounds better. And like, um. So I gave them kind of like, I gave them probably way too much. I probably gave them a hundred covers we could do.
Yeah. And you know, a dozen originals and just said like, let’s see what we get through in the studio. Yeah. And it was basically, yeah, all hands on deck from the moment I walked in the studio for 12 hours, two days in a row. Uh, Jasper would get there early to set everything up. Yeah. Uh, I would walk in and then we’d basically just be like.
Here’s the song, let’s talk about it for five minutes or whatever, to kind of get on the same page about how it’s gonna go, and then hit record and just see what happens and like,
oh
my God, do a couple takes for the song. And I mean, it, it, it, it, it speaks highly of them that they’re just able to kind of bust that kind of stuff out.
Like,
yeah,
that Jasper and Mike are just good enough to be able to hear something a couple times and be like, I get it. Uh, and, and, and knock it out of the park. And that, that’s
Julia Norton: Oh, amazing.
Chris Portka: And so really grateful to them. I mean, to everybody on the album. But, um,
Julia Norton: yeah.
Chris Portka: Yeah. And so that was fun. I mean, I’ve always, I, I, I’ve always, uh, you know, kind of to get back to why, why not solo?
Uh, I had never really planned to. Do records solo. I’d always kind of wanted to do it for, it’s kind of out of a need that, you know, people move away. People don’t have the time. Yeah. People don’t have the patience. Yeah. People, people or, you know, 10, 20 years ago, I probably wasn’t good enough or I definitely wasn’t good enough to be able to just bust something out like that.
Yeah. In the studio. Yeah, and probably, or who know? I don’t know if they were either, but like they’re definitely really good and like yeah. So just kind of getting to a point where that was a possibility.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Didn’t happen until recently. Yeah. Um,
Julia Norton: yeah, so, so it really sounds like you came to this place more of like, huh.
I just wanna connect with my people. There’s an opportunity here where we could actually do things together. Yeah. And um, you know, at the time probably you had the funds to just put put into it, right? Yep. And, and, um, so it was more from the enthusiasm of kind of getting in the sandbox with your friends
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Than, you know, I feel like I deserve this as an artist to have, you know.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: But, but that, you know,
Chris Portka: oh, that, that’s. Yeah. So actually, uh, one of the things I remember Mike asking during one of our breaks when we were in the studio is like, he’s, he’s talking about like, oh, I get so nervous and stuff. And I’m like, it doesn’t really show up when you’re playing though.
It sounds great.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And he’s like, well, what about you? Aren’t you like really nervous or something? And I’m just like. At this point I can just kind of directly tap into like the music is fun things so easily that it doesn’t matter if there’s a lot of pressure, I can just all of a sudden be like, oh, this is one of my favorite things in the world.
And it’s taken over 40 years to get there.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: But like that. Is possible. And I’m here to tell people that that’s also possible too. Yeah. Like if you just love music, but then you start playing it and you’re like, I’m anxious, or Oh my God, there’s a crowd. I’m not having fun anymore. There is a way to get there.
Julia Norton: Yes.
Chris Portka: To just get back to like that anxiety can fall away. I mean, never truly goes away. Like you’re always gonna be concerned, you know that you sound good or whatever it is, but like there is a way to kind of directly tap into like, this is just fun and I fucking love doing this.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And that’s kind of.
That’s what was there in the studio. And that’s what, that’s the kind of the impetus for the whole thing. So,
Julia Norton: yes.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: And you can really hear it because, because I, um. I love trash music too, but it not the record that I wanted to just play over and over and over again. No, that’s because, you know, it had some,
Chris Portka: it’s a tortured soul record
Julia Norton: edges, I hads, uh, which is i I love too.
’cause I, you know, I love the, uh, on the edges and the uncomfortable and the dissonance, right? Yeah. But this album, and I’m telling you people at home, this album is one of those records that. Uh, if it’s, if it is rainy and you’re just looking out the window, drinking a cup of tea, and you can just kind of fall into the stories
Chris Portka: Mm.
Julia Norton: Uh, that are in the songs that Chris has chosen and, and some of his originals are so great too. I know. Really love and, and there’s just something, it’s really accessible, but also it’s not like. It’s not like your mom’s easy listening. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s not like that.
Chris Portka: Yeah. Yeah. But
Julia Norton: it is, it is deeply, I find it like deeply comforting and familiar and yet new.
Right.
Chris Portka: One of the intentions behind it very much was to make a album that was more welcoming. Um,
Julia Norton: well, you did
Chris Portka: it. One of the, yeah, so, so very specifically, it was. The very specific intention of like, I wanted to make a record that if people had a barbecue or at a party or something, they could just throw it on.
Yeah. It, it would provide a good vibe. People would, could tune it into it. Be like, I like this. Instead of the previous album was like, there’s some really discordant shit in there. And people be like, what the fuck did you put on? Like, nobody, I didn’t, I, I didn’t, I didn’t want that to be this album. So, so yes, I tried to, um,
Julia Norton: yeah.
Chris Portka: Make something very palatable and easy. Easy, easy to go down, even though there’s some weirdness. And there is definitely some dissonance, uh, on the record, but it’s more used in a, uh, different manner. Not to draw what not Yeah, not to. Yeah,
Julia Norton: yeah. No, I totally, I totally get that. Which one shall I play first?
Chris Portka: Uh, I’d probably go with fun in the summer funds. It, it, it, it’s like the lead single, uh, lead summer. It’s, it’s the most poppy, for lack of a better word.
Julia Norton: And this is just. Dudes. This is a tiny little bit of it just because of podcast land. This’s a tiny little bit, just to give you a little taste. So, uh, fun in the summer.
Here we go.
Chris Portka: Fun. Just for fun
and.
What you Thank you want to be.
Julia Norton: Okay. So fun of the song. We just had a listen to that clip.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Is that one of your songs?
Chris Portka: That is one of my songs, yes.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Uh, that song was started. It’s the only song in the album. It’s probably the only song I’ve written that specifically was like, I need to try to write a pop song.
Or, or for lack of a better word.
Julia Norton: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Portka: What I think of as a pop song or like something that would be popular that I think could be played on the radio or something like that. And, uh, the sentiment doing something just for fun in the summer. Well, wow. That what’s, what’s, what’s le what’s more popular than that?
That sounds so just like realize, like a trope at this point, you know, doing summertime pop song. So, um, yeah, I think at the time, uh, I was listening to a lot of pavement.
Julia Norton: Oh, okay.
Chris Portka: Uh. What to say about it? Uh,
Julia Norton: your voice in in it? Yeah. Because this is your Free Voice podcast, right?
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Let’s talk about like how you approach the vocals on that song.
Chris Portka: Oh man, as natural as possible. Like I, I, I, I would say it’s a very, uh, I, I love Lou Reed and kind of like, he has a very natural speak. It’s not really a speak singing that I do. It is, it is singing, but it is a very natural in my range. I’m not s strange, I’m not, uh, I’m really just kind of feeling it. Um, instead of trying to like really
push it out.
Julia Norton: Yeah. ’cause it
Chris Portka: needs to be out there or something. Um,
Julia Norton: it’s a laid back summer.
Chris Portka: It’s laid back
Julia Norton: vibes. Yeah.
Chris Portka: Yes.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Gorgeous. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: And I ha I have to ask a question about this as well because those of us, I’ve just, um. Taken all my music off, um, Spotify and uh, and everywhere.
And, um, the ever crouching presence of AI is kind of, um, decimated, say the least. The music industry, it says fine nail and coffin. Uh, I think we can fully agree on that. Um, and what I love about the album as well is that the first time I heard it, any tracks from it were in the vinyl on my record player at home.
That that was it. I didn’t, I didn’t listen to tracks, uh, in advance on MP threes or anything like that, which is so often the way, and there’s something about your voice as well. And I remember having a little bit of a, um, back and forth when I recorded my lullaby album nearly 20 years ago at Fantasy.
Hmm.
Uh, the producer there wanted to just put autotune on my voice just because, right. Yeah. Because, and I had to kind of fight him to not do that. Um, now I don’t think I’m hearing any of that on your voice.
Chris Portka: No, but I, but I’ve had this same experience. Here it’s seer. But I, but in preparation for this album, there was other studios I tried of the people I working with locally.
And some of them are very much just like what you’re saying. Like, yeah, they don’t even think about it. They just throw the auto tune on.
Julia Norton: Let’s put it on.
Chris Portka: And so,
Julia Norton: and so, it’s so refreshing is what I was gonna say is listening to your voice, as I’ve heard your voice in my living room as I’ve heard your voice when you’re doing your Instagram lives and you’re dressing down through COVID or you know, like that.
Like that is your real natural voice and it sounds
Yes.
Good. And you know what? I think that the more we are, uh, suffocated by, um, AI and everything else, the more we are gonna crave real like that, right. To really feel a real human.
Chris Portka: There is very little trickery on the album.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And in that sense, it’s also a foil to the previous album.
’cause that previous album. A lot of it was trickery. A lot of it was like doing fucked up filters on my voice and like all this stuff, and like this is very much no. Like,
Julia Norton: yeah,
Chris Portka: this like, I play acoustic guitar on every track and there’s no, it’s, and you can hear it.
Julia Norton: Yeah,
Chris Portka: it’s mixed so that you can hear the acoustic guitar and you can hear my voice and there’s like slight reverb on stuff.
But like, other than that, no.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Yeah. It’s, it’s very natural sounding and that’s the way we wanted it, and yeah. It sounds,
Julia Norton: yes, sounds good. Well, let’s listen to another one. Yeah. Should we listen to song for Carol?
Chris Portka: Sure.
Holidays are lost. All days are free. We live a perpetual dream. Calm winds can become a storm, and in the morning I can be reborn.
Julia Norton: Ah, so good. I I really love that song a lot. What, what does Carol think of it?
Chris Portka: Uh, she loves it.
Julia Norton: Yeah,
Chris Portka: she, yeah, it’s great. Yeah. Uh, funny thing that, the way that that song was actually written, uh, uh, so Carol’s my wife, uh, we met, uh, sick God. Now that this is on a podcast.
Julia Norton: We can cut it, we can freaking fix this.
Okay. How long have you been married? Okay.
Chris Portka: Uh, we’ve been married, uh, four years. Uh, we met like six-ish years ago. Uh, we met, I don’t need to retell the whole story, but the, but the point is, uh, she was living in New York at the time. I had visited her. For like a week. Yeah. Uh, ’cause we were bicoastal.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And on the plane ride back home, I was feeling all this stuff. I was like, oh, she’s so great. I think I love her. All this stuff. And so I wrote a song just literally on the plane. I just wrote it there. And, and the song, it’s like 90% exactly what I wrote on the plane back way
Julia Norton: You wrote the lyrics. How did you track their melody?
Did you record it into your phone or something, or?
Chris Portka: The funny thing is if I, I don’t know if everybody experiences this, but probably not depending on the song that I write. The, the, the na I can already kind of hear the melody from the words.
Julia Norton: Yeah. But how do you then track it? How do you keep hold of that?
Because I, I’ll do that and then if I don’t Oh, you don’t
Chris Portka: forget. I don’t forget
Julia Norton: that. Forget.
Chris Portka: There, there are, there are moments. It depends. It depends. Like it’s kind of taken a long time to know when it’s locked, when it’s locked in and when it’s not.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Um, but yeah, especially if there’s a very specific cadence that I’m hearing kind of like.
At that point, it’s just like a poem.
Yeah.
Um, that translates itself into, into holiday, whatever natural melody I already want want in my head. So I kind of don’t even have to really, I don’t think I have. I’m, I’m pretty, I, I could go back and double check, but I don’t, I don’t think I even have a voice record memo or something on the plane and me like humming in.
I just
Julia Norton: amazing
Chris Portka: the, the, the, it was there.
Julia Norton: And what would you say to, because I know, uh, quite a few people are listening. Either beginning songwriters or, you know, writing songs is something that they’re wanting to do more of.
Chris Portka: Mm-hmm.
Julia Norton: And you’ve been doing it for a long time.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Do you have any, do you have any advice or tips.
Like for, you know, for, for listeners we’re like, how to do that? Like, you know,
Chris Portka: don’t stop,
Julia Norton: just stop
Chris Portka: practice. More practice every day. Uh, none of this stuff is easy.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And none of it is natural despite what some people say and what you want to believe. What, what, what some artists say like, oh, that person’s just a genius.
It just naturally flows out of them fucking bullshit. Like it does kind of. At this point for me in these little ways, but that’s after 30 years of work kind of thing. Or you know, like
Julia Norton: interesting.
Chris Portka: And then 10 years of like intense work trying to get it, like trying to get my writing and like trying to get my voice in pitch and understand how to like, keep my voice in tune with the guitar and like playing an instrument and like,
Julia Norton: can I jump in there and say, just say a little bit about, um, so, um.
I do, I remember like what, ’cause I want this to be encouragement to you two, is that when, uh, Chris was first coming to me once he got over the actual playing anything in front of me at all.
Chris Portka: Mm-hmm.
Julia Norton: And, and this is the, what I remember of you. Um. Yeah. He, he was deeply, uh, focused on the pitch, trying to get his voice to be, you know, where he wanted it to be.
And also you played and you practiced for hours a day.
Chris Portka: Yeah,
Julia Norton: hours.
Chris Portka: I have a very, very strict schedule for
Julia Norton: anybody.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Aside from like symphonic musicians and people who, with the kind of dedication. That you had at that pic. It was like you weren’t so, so this is one thing I’m gonna say to dear listener, is if you really, really want something, you gonna have to show up.
You gotta be the universe halfway, right? You have to, you can’t just say, I wanna be a rock star in your journal every morning. Without learning how to do the runs on your guitar, learning how to match your, like that’s you meeting the universe and then you get to create a beautiful album that people actually wanna to while they’re looking out the window.
Chris Portka: That’s,
Julia Norton: yeah. Yeah,
Chris Portka: exactly. So, uh, and that’s not to say that that’s the only way to do it that you have to do.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: I wanna encourage people also to just think of it as like, if you only have 10 minutes a day. Then do those 10 minutes a day?
Julia Norton: Yes, yes, yes.
Chris Portka: Or every other day or whatever it is. Like the consistency and the persistence
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Is
Chris Portka: the key. Like it kind of doesn’t matter. Like Okay. Like I don’t have eight hours to practice my guitar a day. That’s fine.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: You do 10 minutes.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Every other day. Every day.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And in a year you will notice you are dramatically different in so many ways.
Julia Norton: Yes.
Chris Portka: Yeah. And that will constantly build on itself.
Like you don’t forget things. You kind of, maybe it takes you a minute to kind of get back to remember the thing. You don’t forget it once you kind of learn it.
Julia Norton: I think that’s so, so true and, and it’s great. Thank you for saying that too, because not everybody has as many hours a day.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: And I think,
Chris Portka: and I was very privileged at the time to do it,
Julia Norton: you need a feature that says, uh, consistently persistent
Chris Portka: cons.
Exactly.
Julia Norton: And that also should be in a new kind of, you know, sound of music, consistently persistent song maybe in your next album. Yeah. Consistently persist. Consistently
Chris Portka: could be a new song. Yeah. Yeah. Fun. It’s not a bad idea.
Julia Norton: Awesome. And, and I do really hear the Lou Reed influence on that one particularly, right?
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Just, you know, and, and again, it’s like a, a really comfortable. Part of your voice. It feels like song for Carol.
Chris Portka: Yeah. And, and that’s also to, to say like, whoever somebody’s musical, you don’t have to like really read, but you like a musician. Mm-hmm. Learn how they did the thing. Learn how to sing their song.
Learn how to do something that is basically exactly what you wanna do.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And learn. But learn the, you gotta learn the nuts and bolts of. Yes. All of it.
Julia Norton: Yes.
Chris Portka: Like not only like, or if you’re the singer and the songwriter and stuff, but like there’s a guitar part I really like. Why do I like that? How did they do that?
Like, there’s a bass thing I like, well, how did they do that? Why? Why does it sound like that? Why does, there’s so many questions and so much peel peeling back of layers of how music is made. Uh, that is very daunting. Yeah. But it is doable and it is something that if you just kind of slowly chip away at it.
You’ll understand like why you like a certain thing. ’cause sometimes I just listen to a song, I’m like, I have no fucking idea why I like this. It just sounds great. Like I, it sounds great. I’m gonna make something that sounds great. And that’s my intention. A little bit harder than that when it actually comes down to it.
Julia Norton: Um, and, and I think that’s really true. I know that when I was in my teens and I really, uh, was besotted with. Uh, Billy Holiday in Ella Fitzgerald. Oh. Uh, and I started trying to learn all, uh, Ella Fitzgerald’s licks, uh, in her standards. Like how she standards now. Yeah. Now I didn’t go very far, but there’s a few of them, like, just like there’s a few songs.
That I really put in the time to keep stopping the track. Like what is she doing? Like figure, and this is me being a terrible piano player, not really having an instrument to work stuff out on, but really having to do it with my ear. Um, what is she doing there? How is that moving around? And. Like you say, it can feel super daunting sometimes when you take the whole thing.
But if you can break something down into tiny little bites and master like one bar of it, one little lick, one phrase at a time, and then put them together. And another thing is sometimes. Uh, I’ll work from the end of a solo backwards so that when you go to perform it, you don’t have that thing of, oh, I’m getting to that hard bit, which is always the bit that gets practiced less, right?
The bit at the end. So if you actually go from the end backwards, then once you through the beginning and that was the bit that you knew the least, and so everything’s gravy from that point on. So, you know, that can be a helpful trick too.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Okay.
Chris Portka: I, I, I, I would also shout out just like following your own, uh, joy, like, like, like I love Lou Reed.
You just said you love Ella.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Um, don’t do something because like somebody says, oh, you’ll learn a lot if you learn this song or that song. Yes. You need to pick what you love and then learn that it doesn’t really matter what you’re picking. Yeah. As long as you like it and you’ll do the work. And as long as.
Julia Norton: Yes.
Chris Portka: Keep practicing it.
Julia Norton: Yes.
Chris Portka: Because you like it.
Julia Norton: Well, this is why I always say to my private clients, right, is I’m not gonna pick songs for you.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: I want you to bring the songs.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: That move you, even if you don’t know why it is, you wanna sing that song. Right,
Chris Portka: exactly.
Julia Norton: Or what it is. Or even if you can’t sing the whole song, but there’s just that chorus in there or that bit in there.
Like sing that because that is the thing that is, it’s kind of is working on you in an unconscious level already. So like take the emotional oomph from that
Chris Portka: Yeah. To
Julia Norton: carry you through the hard technical stuff.
Chris Portka: Yeah. Yeah. ’cause really also every, every time I’ve should myself into trying to learn something, it doesn’t really work out like, oh, I should learn.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: I was gonna say I should learn this steely dance song ’cause it’s so hard. And like that’ll teach me so much that doesn’t really work. But that’s all. That’s also to say like there are some silly dance songs I have loved and I have d delved into and learned how to play. Yeah, but you don’t put the cart before the horse thing.
You do music ’cause you love it. You, you want to use your voice because you wanna be heard and you really love the way it feels and the way, you know, you want to embody all this stuff. It’s not about. Shoulding this, or I need to learn that, or whatever it is. It’s like, uh, it starts from square one is like, I love this thing.
Yes. And proceed from there.
Julia Norton: Yes. Gorgeous. Alright, let’s listen to another, uh, snippet. This last one’s called The Observer. Is that this one at the end though?
Chris Portka: Yes.
Julia Norton: Okay. This also’s called The Observer, and this is also one of yours. Um, and now I, I’ll say that, you know, there are. Quite a few covers on the album, as Chris has already said by artist as varied as Sid Barra and who else.
Chris Portka: There’s Sid Barrett, there’s a, there’s an old, uh, there’s like a George Jones, or he made a standard out of Tennessee Whiskey is on there. Uh, I’m trying to think. Uh oh, there’s Skip Spence. There’s a lot of like indie luminaries. Mayo Thompson, if people know Mayo Thompson.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Uh, yeah. Who else? Fred Eagle Smith.
Fred Smith. There’s actually a Canadian, uh, but he’s a great folk guy. Alan Wilson is the leader of canned Heat. Um,
Julia Norton: oh, okay.
Chris Portka: Uh, so that’s his. And there’s even a, there’s even a cover of, uh. The producer, Jasper, uh, I cover one of his songs to any
Julia Norton: album. Oh, I wondered if that was okay. That’s you guys? Yes. Okay, awesome.
Mm-hmm. Well, we’re gonna have a listen to, um. Uh, the Observer, is it just called The Observer? Yeah, that’s
Chris Portka: right.
Julia Norton: Okay. What’s, what’s that? What’s that song all about, Chris?
Chris Portka: What’s that song all about? Yeah, that song. What was written? Uh,
Julia Norton: the Observer. Yeah.
Chris Portka: When I was very sad listening to a lot of David Berman, who’s another musician I loved. Uh, we actually did some, a couple of his tracks in the studio. It felt a little too on the nose.
Um, uh, but, um. Uh, actually the only reason I gotta give credit, I shouldn’t say the only reason, but I gotta give credit to my pro producer Jasper, of like encouraging me to like actually finish this song because I, I, I used to do like live shows on, um, Instagram reels and, and I did it a couple times and he is like, that’s a really great song.
And I was like, whatever. Like, whatever. I just tossed it off one day. Yeah,
Julia Norton: yeah.
Chris Portka: Um, and so he, but how did it start? Uh, there’s a couple different. Things. Um, there is these kind of, uh, fears that I have maybe that we all have. Like what happens when you die? Yeah. Like you kind of like start with that kind of like question.
Yeah. Like, where does all this stuff go? Like, I’ve done so much, I’ve worried so much about all this stuff, but then at the end you just let it go, like it goes. Where does it go? I don’t know. But you’re here looking at it right now. Hence. Hence the observation.
Yeah.
Uh, that I, I also love nerdy shit, love quantum physics, and so I can’t deny that that’s also a reference to like, there’s this kind of weird concept in some, in quantum physics of like nothing is real until it’s observed.
I’m way oversimplifies simplifying. Yes, yes. But, um, but, but that
Julia Norton: boxes are involved,
Chris Portka: but that the fact that the observation actually changes things. Yeah. This is, was an interesting concept.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Uh, so I kind of had some verses floating around and then I think Carol, my wife one day was like, write more songs.
And I was like, okay. Uh, let me write a, let me light a candle. Uh, and it just happened to so be like the, actually the, the, the, the opening verse in the song is like literally like how the, like what was literally what was happening when I wrote the song, like it talks about, I lit a candle from my mom that was given to me like from 20 years of my own Christmas.
And it’s a beautiful candle and I’ve never lit it before. I’m lighting it now. And that kind of just sparks all these memories. Mm-hmm. And then you just kind of going, keep going down that rabbit hole. And then there’s the whole song, um. Kind of mashing a lot of things, but that’s how it kind of starts.
Julia Norton: And I, and I hear that. And, and what do you think of that in terms of like being an artist, being a musician? Like, because there is that question of, you know, we can sit in our bedrooms and we can write songs for ourselves. Mm-hmm. And we can never share them with, and so there’s a certain. There’s one level, right?
Like that. And then what happens when you take it out and you show it to other people and it’s witnessed.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: And a and, and there’s the level of what happens when you are, you know, singing in front of somebody else, like in a voice lesson and like getting over yourself and being seen and witnessed in that.
Um,
Chris Portka: that is also an observation. Very powerful observations. Yes. Um.
Julia Norton: I, I don’t know where, what’s the question?
Chris Portka: It’s all good,
Julia Norton: but, but I’m just thinking about that whole thing of
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: Of,
Chris Portka: I guess
Julia Norton: qui Well, because there’s, that thing isn’t there of, of you have to make art. For yourself, right? Mm-hmm. You can’t make it for other people hoping that somebody’s gonna like it, or, you know, it has to be because there is something, uh, from inside of you that wants to come out, right?
And it, and it’s gonna take form in, in a dance or a painting or, or a song, right?
Chris Portka: Mm-hmm.
Julia Norton: And that’s like one thing. And of course, in voice pivot therapy, right? We’re, we’re always creating stuff that is for that process.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: But then there’s the next level of like, actually this thing, I’m gonna polish that a little bit.
I’m gonna polish that and I’m gonna then share it with the world. ’cause. ’cause it’s like we don’t necessarily need the guts and the snot when we’re sharing with everybody else.
Chris Portka: Yeah, we don’t always need that. We don’t always need our most terrible heart wrenching things. But there’s a way to mold something where you can invite people in to share a thing with you instead of just always scaring them off.
Right. And scaring them off is also a valid artistic tactic. Totally. Like that’s also fine too.
Yeah.
But it’s, it’s interesting to think about. I always am been thinking about like, what’s the opposite of this? Like, kind of thing. It’s just an artistic exercise. Like, so if you do something that’s really confrontational, well what if you did the opposite of that?
What if you just said that this very warm and inviting and loving, like, it’s just an interesting exercise as
Julia Norton: an
Chris Portka: artist.
Julia Norton: So is that, is that going back to your going from trash to this,
Chris Portka: that’s very much the intention.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Between the, do the, the duality between the two albums is they’re almost kind of polar opposites in my head.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Like one I want you trash music, I want you to put on and be like, what the fuck is this? It sounds like shit. Like, that’s like the intention, like. At least at the very beginning. Like it’s not, the whole album isn’t like that, but it, but it starts with a like bang of like gross.
Julia Norton: Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea.
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Portka: Um, so, and I also wanna kind of shout out the idea of like. Plumbing, the depths of where you come from is always a fertile ground, as, as, as, as an artist. And, and, and as long as you’re alive, I feel like it’s always going to be so like, thinking about your parents or where you lived or like you’re young.
Like that’s always, there’s always, there’s just so much there that you can kind of tease out. And there’s so many stories you probably don’t remember, like, but once you start thinking about it, once you start really going into these emotions or doing, doing the work.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Um. There’s plenty of things that everybody has say.
Julia Norton: So was there something about that lighting that candle from your mom then that kind of unlocked like feelings about like your
Chris Portka: election? Yeah.
Julia Norton: Or like your history or,
Chris Portka: yeah, I mean, I, I guess I would say that, uh, you know, feeling. Precious about certain mementos. And since that candle had been old and I’d been carrying it around for like 20 years, since college and it was sparkly and it was pretty, and I’m, I was always like, I wanna burn it.
’cause it’s, it’s just a pretty candle.
Yeah.
Um, and kind of. Really, the only way I could give my perce myself permission to light that candle was to be like, well, I’m gonna write a song about it.
Right.
So, so I won’t forget it. Um,
Julia Norton: yeah.
Chris Portka: And now, yeah, I, I don’t know what to say about it, but like, yeah, it’s, uh, definitely got the ball rolling.
Julia Norton: Yeah. Good, good. Excellent.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: So is there anything that you would like to say about, um. You know, the mixture of musical styles on here or anything that, that somebody hasn’t asked you already when you’ve been, when you’ve been talking about the album, something you wanna share that maybe people would be surprised about or, uh, where you wanna take it next or like,
Chris Portka: yeah, these are all interesting questions.
Uh, I thought a lot about the next thing.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: And there’s like three or four different, uh, like big ideas that I feel like I have for next.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Uh, I mean, I’ll just throw some of them out there. Yeah. Why not? So like, one of the ideas I’ve been really toying with recently is like, uh. I want to do an acoustic album, like, and I would just have one or two people on each track, uh, each track to help me out.
So this is like very produced. Mm-hmm. It sounds like a full band. Mm-hmm. Uh, almost the whole time. And, um, that’s beautiful and that’s great. But I also like music that is more stripped back. Yeah. I like all kinds of different music. Uh, I mean, another thing that I’ve thought about doing is making like an electronic dance record.
I love dancing. Oh, goodness.
Yes.
And there are, there are tracks on. Even older albums that I have that are, that, that are dance tracks. But I’ve never like, tried to do a whole album. Uh, I mean, I’d love to be good enough to do like what, what, what you would call like a classic jazz album. Something like all that kind of stuff.
So there’s so many things. Yeah. Oh, that’s true. I would love to do a holiday album, actually. Probably one of the few places in the industry that’s still profitable.
Julia Norton: We were joking about this the other day, and I was saying that I, that next album cover is actually because I said to my husband, I said, this is a joke.
This is where this comes from. I said to my husband the other day, I said, I’m gonna put a record on, he’s in the kitchen making breakfast or whatever. And I said, uh, and he says, oh, okay. And I said, I’m gonna put Chris’s album on. And he went, what? Really? Which, which surprised me, right? ’cause we’ve been playing it quite a lot and he likes it.
And, and I went and looked at him and he said. I said, I’m gonna put Chris’s album. I said, oh, I thought you said you’re gonna put Christmas, a Christmas album on. And it, and fair enough, it was early November when I said this, so he was a little shocked.
Chris Portka: The groaning. I can hear the groaning
Julia Norton: said to Chris, and then I’m like, okay, so the album cover has to be you wearing one of those sweaters, you know?
Oh
Chris Portka: yeah.
Julia Norton: It’s
Chris Portka: gotta be
Julia Norton: pile of ornaments, you know? I don’t know, like in the seventies it was always like. A pile of ornaments or you know, yeah. Something like that, you know, next, like a big fire maybe. Or,
Chris Portka: I do love these idea of classic album. I mean, this album cover is like,
Julia Norton: yes.
I
Chris Portka: thought of it as like, uh, Frank Sinatra or classic jazz album or something.
That’s the look of it. That’s not the sound. But
Julia Norton: yes,
Chris Portka: I would love to do that with the same thing of Christmas. ’cause I love playing with tradition two. Yes. I mean that’s actually a big thing of the album, I guess we haven’t really talked about and I haven’t talked is, is. Almost trying to situate and envision myself in the lineage of the artists who I already love.
Mm-hmm. And so this album is both like paying homage to them and also trying to say like, this is my relationship to them, because there’s so many, uh, covers. Yeah. And because those covers frequently are very different than the original.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Um. Yeah. Trying to find my own place in the world and through, through other, yeah.
Like I said, kind of other artists I love.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: Um,
Julia Norton: yeah, I love it.
Chris Portka: And, and having the confidence to do, that’s taken a long time. Um, but
Julia Norton: I mean, I, I think like what really, really struck me when I was listening to it, it felt like you’d arrived. Do you know what I mean? You’d arrived somewhere like it felt like.
You know, you weren’t expecting everybody to say, this is trash anyway. I’m gonna destroy a trash album. Or you know, like, I don’t realize the album everyone wants, you know? Yes. This is little irony in there, but also, yeah.
Yeah.
But also guys, it’s a great album. You could do like way worse. And also I will just, I’m just gonna mention this just for a moment.
It takes like a gazillion, like 20,000 streams to make like five bucks and not even that, right? Like on these streaming services.
Chris Portka: Yeah,
Julia Norton: you could. And it doesn’t have to be Chris’s album, although I’m gonna encourage you to buy Chris’s album. Any artist that you love. This holiday season, buy one of their actual albums.
Right. Even if it’s buying the digital version to download, right? Yeah. But it, it buy one of their actual albums and then they actually get the money. And then the people that you love and wanna support actually get to put some brussel sprouts on their table, you know, like. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, musicians are having a very hard Yeah.
Time of it right now, and I realize a lot of people are having a hard time. But, you know, if we, if we think about the times when life is really, really hard, like during COVID or anytime recently, and you think about how much. Performers, whether they’re actors creating films and movies and TV that you love or musicians soothing your tired, frazzled nerves as you lie in the bath and with a candle in the dark.
You know, just like support these people. Support them. Um,
Chris Portka: yeah.
Julia Norton: Lovely. Okay, so, uh, well I look forward to all the rest of the, uh, albums and Oh,
Chris Portka: yeah.
Julia Norton: And, and. Will you please tell us where people can find you and where they can buy a copy of this album? And I’ll put it in the show notes too.
Chris Portka: Yeah. Uh, a couple places.
Uh, one place is, uh. See Collective. My, my wife actually owns a, uh, fashion brand that she runs called See Collective, and it’s for sale on there.
Julia Norton: How do you spell that?
Chris Portka: Uh, seek as in like, uh, you’re looking book, you’re looking for something, you’re observing something.
Julia Norton: Seek
Chris Portka: collective. SEEK, collective. Uh.
Selling it on there. You can buy it directly from me. You can also go to band camp, uh, you know, if you want to. Uh, there’s digital sales there and then it’s also paired with other things ‘
Julia Norton: cause it’s a record player
Chris Portka: and not everybody has a record player. It’s true. Yeah.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: It’s true. So, so there, there are definitely other ways you can listen to it and yeah, I really wanna just make it easy for people to listen to if they want to.
Julia Norton: Yeah.
Chris Portka: But I do encourage the, like, intentional listening can be such a much more meaningful experience than like, yeah, you just put something on in the background and you’re. You’re doing something else and whatever, and like that’s, I’m guilty of this too. I do it all the time. I put on my AirPods or whatever and I’m cleaning the house and just listening to whatever new thing and like they’re half paying attention, but.
It’s just really like to fully engage with the work of art that you love is like, and to, and to support the artists, like, um, yes.
Julia Norton: You know, I, I bought, um, I had to rebuy all my Bowie albums ’cause they didn’t make it. Oh. You know, uh, so, uh, I rebought all my Bowie albums, I don’t know, seven years ago, eight years ago, something like that.
Maybe 10. And, and I sat down with my son when he was a teenager. We going through high school and we would listen to an entire album in the dark.
Chris Portka: That is awesome. That’s the way to do it. That’s the way to do it. Yeah.
Julia Norton: Got those albums, was being a teenager and listening to them in the duck. Sure enough, it’s true.
I was lying in my bedroom in the dark smoker cigarettes at the time. But uh, you don’t have to smoke cigarettes to enjoy David Bowie or Chris. Right.
Chris Portka: Smoke other things.
Julia Norton: Yeah. Whatever. Okay. Well, Chris, I just, and also if they wanna follow you, um, on the socials, wherever they find you.
Chris Portka: Yeah, you can. Uh, I’m on all the socials.
Uh, mostly post to Instagram. I do some Facebook stuff. I do some TikTok stuff. Just search Chris Porta Google or on social media? Yeah. P-O-R-T-K-A
Julia Norton: uhhuh. Uh, is your website the same name?
Chris Portka: You know, uh, my websites are very unmaintained at the moment. Probably just look at the socials. Okay. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
If you
Julia Norton: Instagram, that’s where they’d find out where you might be doing shows and
Chris Portka: things. Yes. That’s where I’m posting pretty much everything these
Julia Norton: days. Okay. And do you have, uh, shows coming up that you’d like to tell us about?
Chris Portka: I do, I have a regular gig actually at the wine bar that I live near, uh, in Berkeley.
Okay. Uh, it’s called Vintage. It’s in Elmwood, uh, at the first Wednesday of the month from six to 8:00 PM
Julia Norton: Great.
Chris Portka: That’s coming up. That will be the first one is in December. I’m blanking on the, I think it’s the second.
Julia Norton: Second there. The
Chris Portka: third. Third. That sounds about right. Yeah. Uh, I also have another gig on the 19th that’s gonna be at the Plow and Stars.
Yep. Which is in San Francisco.
Julia Norton: Great.
Chris Portka: And I’m also gonna be on the radio on KXSF on the 14th, and that’ll be at three, from three to 4:00 PM a little in studio. I’ll play a little guitar and I’ll also probably talk about some stuff, so
Julia Norton: I love that.
Chris Portka: Yeah.
Julia Norton: I always love a radio gig. Okay. That’s awesome. Okay, well thank you so much for being
Chris Portka: here.
Yeah, thanks for having
Julia Norton: me and squeezing it. We are, we’re doing tiny desk, but just the yeah, just the two of us here today. Uh, and uh, thank you everybody for listening and, uh, check back in again next week and come and check out Chris’s record. It’s really fab. Okay. Bye.
Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you being here.
Um, if you had a chance, could you help me out
and write a review and rate this on iTunes? ’cause otherwise I’m gonna be buried so deep in the algorithm. Nobody’s gonna ever find me. Okay. Thanks a lot. See you next time. Bye-bye.
