The debut release of A Night at the Ritz, from the OFFICE is nothing to scoff about. Their album comes on strong with a catchy, head-bobbing beat.

With that, we will jump right into our interview with band member Scott Masson—who is not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, use love as his muse or enjoy himself in this perfectly imperfect world.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Currently, I get my inspiration from my talented, creative friends. It can be competitive at times, but it's usually pretty healthy competition. I know some brilliant people out there on a personal basis, and their names are worth looking up on Google: Devin Davis, Jeremy Freer, Sean Lynch, Casimer Pascal, Justin Petertil, my roommate Chris Kern, Edward Anderson, Ken Griffin, Brian Fanzler, Jen Collier, my family, and the members in the band. Mostly other song-writers and producers. Books, film, art, and bands are a bit too obvious. That goes without saying, and the list would be incredibly long.

Is there a certain moment or activity that draws out your muse?

A muse can be somebody I'm in a relationship with, or it can also be somebody that I admire from a distance, or have an intense crush on. It's all a bit strange. A muse doesn't necessarily have to be human either. Walking down the street can trigger an idea for a song, or even some chaotic thing happening in the news. "Love" is generally the best muse, since I prefer to not live my life critically 100 percent of the time.

When and where did you start your music career?

When I was quite young, I spent every day in my room working on music, learning how to produce on a 4-track while writing songs, so it sort of started around then. I've been in working bands since I was about 12, making money as a bass player or drummer at wedding gigs, bars, session work in Detroit, filling in for people as a substitute musician. I play a lot of instruments. I used to be pretty good at the bass, but my chops are kinda whack these days.

Musicianship is slightly over-rated. It's not that important. In high school, I fell into a punk rock band, and started making money doing original music, which was a new thing for me at that point in my life. I stopped playing other peoples' music at that very moment.

How do your personal emotions show through in your work?

I'm not particularly fearful of wearing my heart on my sleeve, although I don't like to reveal every single detail of my personal life in our songs. That gets too specific, and dullsville. Plus, people can't relate to it if it's super specific. Most of our songs are about you.

There's a thing called "shelf-life" that I pay attention to quite a bit. It's important to have a reference point for the material you're writing, but to try and write it in a way that makes sense throughout the years, for possible future or past generations to understand. Political music is usually very site / time specific, so that's why I avoid talking about politics in my lyrics. Stuff creeps in occasionally, but I try to avoid any major opinion on anything, because I might not be correct.

Plus, I don't want to give any politician the time of day in my songs, because I already know that politicians have little power over my friends and I. Personally, it's much more interesting to talk about the world's gray areas, where darkness and beauty can co-exist in an interesting way. I'd like to be able to sing my songs 20 years from now, all washed-up, and have it still make a decent amount of sense at that moment.

I'm definitely not afraid to deal with the classic song-writing themes of love, pain, sex, dreams, and experience. I used to write convoluted lyrics when I was super hip and avant garde, but that method never carried much of a spiritual release.

These days, I prefer to write from a place where the listener might be able to get something out of it, relate to it, laugh, question, feel, etc......rather than create self-indulgent music only for myself. Sure, I need to be happy with the product......but what's the point in creating if you're not trying to sing to everybody?

Melodies are difficult to write, so the catchier they are, the more difficult they were to compose, and the more people they had in mind during the creative process. Usually, if melody or lyrics are well-written, and have a broad-appeal, it means that more love went into it, and there was an element of social curiosity involved on the part of the artist. I could be wrong in that assumption, but I like the sound of this theory.

That's a misconception a lot of cool underground people have about pop music......that it's only created for commercial appeal, or to make money. That's not the case for us.There's a craft to orchestrating hits, and I want to make hits for OFFICE. I want white, black, straight, queer, old, young, male and female folks digging our music, because that means there is a dialogue going on, and I can go to bed at night knowing that I still love humans.

I have a theory that the reason the majority of pop music is atonal and sterile these days is because the people who are writing it are not pop artists in the first place. I just think that a real artist can feel generally more intensely than the average person, which is difficult at times for the artist. The important thing to try and accomplish is to digest his/her experience into something that is higher-quality than just "acceptable" background music for the radio.

Anybody can play a guitar, make some beats on a computer, Auto-Tune the shit out of their voice, and write some jerky lyrics about "I got the magic stick" or whatever. I want to write hits for people that are well-written and interesting, and I'm still working on that goal.

We haven't had a major hit, but I want one. It might be a futile dream of mass communication, but I'm definitely going to try and communicate to a big group of people for the next few years. Craftsmanship is a dying art, and there's always room for discovery.

I appreciate the artists who are keeping good song-writing alive, and I'm grateful that they are out there.There's nothing more immediate in pop music than a well-written song. Melody and lyrics have the potential to blow people's minds, and change their lives for the better. We need to keep working towards that goal.

How did you feel when you got that big breakthrough when you got signed with a label?

Excited and ecstatic. Anti-climactic too, because I had already been doing it for years, and the real work just begins at that point. I am obviously grateful for the opportunity to share our music with a larger audience, however. It was becoming a pain in the ass, having to mail CDs every day. I'd rather spend more time working on music, and hanging out with my friends.

A label affords you that luxury of distribution, so your music is online, and in stores, readily available. Artists are the most awkward people, and usually not the greatest at getting CDs mailed out to people in a timely manner. Plus, most artists don't have a huge amount of money to make more than a couple thousand copies of a lo-fi demo record.

How long have you been working toward this new album?

For about five years. I've written probably more than 70 songs in the last five years, and this record is a collection of the best work during this development, so it's a good introduction to our band. I'm excited for the next record, which is already written. There have been a lot of OFFICE "demo albums" in the past.

This record is about songs, and about getting us on the road to meet people. It's not a concept record or anything. The only concept "A Night At The Ritz" deals with is good song-writing. I'm interested in doing thematic music in the future though. We'll see.

Have there ever been really tough moments for you? Moments that make you question what your doing, and if so how did you get through that?

All the time. I don't dig schmoozing, but I realize it's a part of how it all works. If you like doing what you do, which I do, then you suck it up, and treat people with respect, and show them a little invested interest. It's like any other job. You'd prefer to slap your boss around sometimes, but you can't, or you'll get fired.

In our case, the audience and the industry are employing us to a certain degree, and if we just hide out, and tell everybody to f--- off, then we won't really be able to share our music with the public anymore, will we? There are a lot of really great people in the music industry, and a lot of really evil people too. Tough moments are bound to happen, especially since the industry is going through a revolution at the moment.

No band is immune to it right now, so we're all sort of floating around together. Everybody is scrambling, it seems.....which can be entertaining to watch at times. The good news is that quality material always wins out in the end.

Humans are always going to seek out real music, and that is where the beauty of the live performance comes into focus. I'd say the most difficult things to deal with are everyday working relationships, just because everybody has their own style of communication and work ethics.

I deal with it by just staying focussed and inspired, not holding back when work needs to be done, and trying not to take things out of context. The first year, we got burned badly a few times because we trusted a few jerks here and there.

Now, the business element gets established first, in a fair way, before we invest any time or energy into a project. Trust is a shaky issue in any business. Our staff of people is pretty amazing though, so they are really good at looking through all the bullshit. Everyone is really young and energetic, loving, and open-minded around OFFICE. We're very lucky.

What has been your happiest moment?

Anytime I write a decent song, because I can go to bed peacefully at night, knowing that I'm not washed up yet. My least favorite moments are when I write a shitty song. I have a fear of losing the pulse of inspiration, but I know it's bound to happen at some point. It happens to everybody, it seems.

Hopefully, we can age gracefully, continue to evolve, and not lose our minds in the process. Tom Waits or Bob Dylan are good mentors in the "aging gracefully" thing. It would be hilarious if we started making heavy metal records at the age of 40, just because we couldn't come to grips with the fact that we were growing up, and looking at the world differently.

Who inspires you as a group and individually?

We're inspired by so many things, so it's very difficult to list them all. As a group, we're inspired by comedians, actors, writers, artists, and thinkers. Our drummer, Erica Corniel, is inspired by The Discovery Channel and helping people out.

Tom Smith is inspired by his wife, and he writes beautiful songs about her, some of which we're using in OFFICE now. He's very much inspired by visual art as well, and makes some lovely work. Alissa Hacker, our bass player, is inspired by the details in everyday objects that most people take for granted.

I'm always amazed at people who are organized and clean. Jessica Gonyea is inspired by comedy, health, and learning every instrument under the sun. She's got the hardest job in the band, because she's so obviously beautiful and radiant, and beauty always comes with a backlash. I'm inspired by weeds, ass, and bricks.

What do you want listeners to gain from when they listen to your music?

That it's alright to enjoy yourself in this perfectly imperfect world.

What is the objective of your band/music--that is to say, is there a certain message you want portrayed through your work?

No message, other than the human experience. No opinions. Every song we write is just stating the facts in an open-ended way. I don't like to be preached to. I listen to Dylan and Lennon, and they rarely told us how to feel. They just presented the facts, painted the pictures, and asked the questions.

The truth can be in the form of a question mark. I don't want to hear songs about one emotion over and over either. I like it when an artist shows their many sides: humor, pain, intelligence, sensitivity and concern. That's what we aim for.

How did you know that music was the avenue upon which you wanted to venture?

When my mother set me next to her boom-box when I was a baby. She was an aerobic dancing instructor, and so I heard tons and tons of loud pop music as a baby. I remember watching her dance in the kitchen to Motown music when I was two years old, and thinking that the bass guitar sounded like a jellyfish.

The memory is very clear in my head. I always heard vocal harmonies as a kid too, and loved to switch between Paul McCartney and John Lennon's vocal parts with my mother. Later on in junior high, I did a lot of research with Queen and The Beach Boys, which is pretty obvious in our music. I think I knew I was going to be involved with music since I was around seven years old.

How did you sustain yourselves while pursuing your musical career?

I sold most of my possessions for a while. I remember having to sell my electric guitar to pay rent one time. If I never sold any musical equipment, I would have had the biggest ghetto studio in Chicago at this point. I spent years in retail, sometimes eating only a bag of peanuts to sustain myself for a day.

I remember paying for a burrito with pennies even in 2005. Recently, I landed some cash because of some music things and some investments, so I've been fine for about a year now. I still have to be very careful about my budgeting, and I have to work all day on music, or I feel like I'm a total loser, taking advantage of the situation. I don't drink anymore either, because that is a waste of money, and I don't have expendable cash. I count everything these days. I also DJ, and teach music lessons if I'm strapped for cash.

What were your first jobs?

I was a janitor at an alternative high school. I used to clean shit out of a urinal in the men's room every day, much to my chagrin. All men are disgusting creatures, I've learned. I was a substitute teacher for a few years, and I loved that job.

I want to be a teacher in my next life. "No Child Left Behind" is an embarrassing and ridiculous legislation, however, so that policy would have to take a hike before I ever set foot in a classroom full-time.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."