Singer-songwriter Michael Manzi on his recent track “Too Good to Believe,” imposter syndrome, and finding creative inspiration
“There really is this weird kind of ego-game going on: you have to care about something enough that it’s worth singing about and think you have enough to say that you want to tell people–and rhyme while you do it,” singer-songwriter Michael Manzi explains to me over Zoom from his home in Ardsley, New York. He continues, “But at the same time you have to not care [so] that you don’t get into the perfectionist mindset that [the music’s] not good enough.”
As a recent graduate from New York University, a mental health minor and an emerging artist, Michael’s growth as a musician goes beyond technique, as he practices thoughtful reflection of the impact of his lyrics, and how his health impacts his work.
He’s learned to appreciate the therapeutic themes of his songs even years after they’ve been released. When discussing his first single, Copper, Michael dives into how the track has evolved in its meaning through the years.
“The thing that I always feel about Copper is that it always, it got so old and boring for me and not really connected to feeling better anymore. But the audience really liked it so I continued to play it at the gigs cause the gigs are about the audience,” says Michael, referring to the various stages he performed on while attending NYU. “People continue to experience the song as new so I get to experience the song as new.”
We spoke about his recent work on “Too Good to Believe,” imposter syndrome and finding inspiration in the people around you.
What is your background as a songwriter and an artist?
I’ve always been writing songs. You know, I definitely have a fascination with love songs. I went to NYU Gallatin, and my concentration was on representations of love as transcendence. So a lot of my stuff focuses on trying to represent more consensual and kind of more considerate representations of love and depictions of love that you know, treats love which is kind of, the point of life–which I think it is. And that’s where it comes from for me. You know, try to contain emotions and process emotions and stuff like that. Music comes from all emotions.
What is the creative process for “Too Good to Believe” and any music you’re currently working on?
The creative process for “Too Good to Believe” was a lot of fun because that was a song that kind of just poured out of me. The process of writing the song is kind of built into the song. The story is literally just it was one of those days I woke up and I was like ‘I don’t want to be a person today,’ ‘I don’t want to get out of bed,’ ‘I don’t want to, you know, be alive,’ but I had to go meet someone.
And this feeling of wanting to be there for this person you have to go meet and getting caught up in this moment…the thing that finally got me out of bed and taking a shower and getting dressed and all those things, was finally becoming distracted enough to start writing this song about this experience that I was having like. ‘Shit, I’m really sorry, I would really like to be there with you right now but I’m running late.’ And kind of that feeling of really appreciating people and them sticking by you. So it just sort of poured out.
And then, I knew that I wanted it to be just a fun kind of wall of sound song, so I immediately called up my buddy Lucas and we got a team together, and we made some music in the studio with my roommate Ethan Bailey is an incredible producer and he really figured out how to get the best sound out of us and it was a really fun experience.
Do you work with the same team?
I’ve worked with Lucas and Ethan a lot. They’re definitely two people who I absolutely adore. Lucas Saur from the band Melt and Ethan Bailey from the band Good Morning Club. But I think I continue to mix it up. I write a lot on my own and I often will produce. A lot of the initial writing happens just by myself. With a guitar, and being up really late and not wanting to go to sleep kind of vibe.
But I try to collaborate with as many different people as possible because I just feel so lucky to know so many talented incredible artists. I’m always blown away by my friends.
How do you meet the people you collaborate with?
Some of the greatest advice that I’ve ever got, I was at a performance with one of my professors … and he says “The most important thing: all you have to do is learn to talk to people like you’re an artist.” And I think that’s a huge part of it. If you talk to people like you’re an artist, if you accept it in yourself and you don’t belittle your commitment to, trying to make something.
Are you talking about imposter syndrome here?
I definitely know about imposter syndrome, I’m actually a mental health minor. But yeah, definitely so much imposter syndrome. Something Lucas and I were recently talking about–I always talk about them–I think artists in their own ways or romantics in general need their own model of mental health that’s a little different than the standard one.
There really is this weird kind of ego-game going on: you have to care about something enough that it’s worth singing about and think you have enough to say that you want to tell people–and rhyme while you do it! But at the same time you have to not care about that you don’t get into the perfectionist mindset that it’s not good enough. So, sometimes that can be a really hard thing to balance so there’s definitely a lot of imposter syndrome coming out of that kind of fire.
That’s a really great perspective and I’ve never really thought of balancing those two. Do you have any advice for any emerging artists that are experiencing this?
I think it goes for anyone with the urge to make something. Even if you’re writing an essay you’re making something. I think it’s always better to do something than nothing. Actually I’ve got a post-it on my wall somewhere here– I have a lot of post-its on my wall. It says, “it’s always better to do something than nothing,” and then, here it is, “but sometimes you don’t have to do anything, sometimes you shouldn’t.”
How would you say you’ve grown as an artist?
The journey I continue to be on is learning how to do it on purpose as opposed to by accident. Music and songwriting will always be a very “felt” thing for me. And the journey for me is learning how to control that because that’s not always the most intuitive way for me.
I don’t know if my technique is that great and I’m not that familiar with theory but those are things I constantly have on my horizons and things that I’m continuing to study at my own ADHD rate. It wasn’t that long ago that I was just strumming some chords and now I’m playing licks. It’s minor differences like that that can change the way I write songs and how I think about the audience and what setting the songs can fit in. It lets me be more intentional.
Sometimes it’s really easy to write a song without thinking about it. There’s something really wonderful about that if something just pours out of you. There are definitely things that just feel right when you’re writing a song. You just, oh I know I just feel that the melody has to go like that. But also, so much of that is also just because of habits that we’ve formed, society and the way we’ve come to understand music through the western model. The more you know about what you’re accidentally doing the more you can control it.
What has it been like performing while attending NYU?
I’m really excited, this is going to be my first streamed concert. The joy of what I do is sharing the music with people and getting to see an audience you know, singing a long and reacting is just such a thrill you know, there’s no high quite like it. I definitely miss it and I’m definitely excited to bring as much of that energy as I can to that platform because I miss it. I miss being in a room with a lot of musicians but we’ll get there soon.
Check out his live-streaming performance on LiveRoom at liveroom.media.