Interview with Common Trouble

I’m a sucker for cool guitar music that, and “Go Go Go” immediately hits that sweet spot for me! Common Trouble channels the infectious energy of classic indie rock while keeping the songwriting direct and refreshingly unpretentious.

I can hear the influence of The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, and Oasis in the driving guitars and hooks, but the track never feels like a copy. What really works for me is its sheer momentum! "Go Go Go" that makes me want to turn the volume up and keep it rolling! It’s so damn catchy, and built for repeat plays!

Interview with Common Trouble

“Go Go Go” captures the excitement and energy that first drew you to guitar-driven alternative rock. What inspired the feeling and attitude behind this song?

I wanted to create a rock anthem — something immediate, energetic, and uplifting that makes you want to turn it up as soon as the guitars kick in. But underneath all of that energy, the song actually comes from a very personal place. I wrote “Go Go Go” for my wife.

At its heart, it's a love song — just maybe not the traditional slow-dance kind of love song. I wanted to capture that feeling of being excited about another person, about being together, and experiencing life together. That's where a lot of the optimism in the song comes from.

It also felt especially fitting to release it on Valentine's Day. I like the idea that you can have a song with loud guitars, a big anthemic chorus, and all this energy, but underneath it there's something very real and personal driving it.

Musically, I wanted that same feeling I get from the rock songs I've always loved — the kind of song that makes you want to pick up a guitar, turn the amp up, and make some noise.

So, I think “Go Go Go” ended up bringing those two things together: the excitement of loving rock music and the excitement of loving somebody.

The track blends influences from bands like The Strokes, Japandroids, Arctic Monkeys, and Oasis. What elements from those artists have shaped your approach to songwriting?

I've always been drawn to bands that can combine great melodies and hooks with guitars that still have some bite to them. That's probably the common thread between all of those influences for me.

With Oasis, I've always loved the huge melodies and choruses — they could make something feel anthemic without making it overly complicated. The Strokes have this incredible sense of cool and simplicity, but when you really listen, there's so much going on between those guitars. Arctic Monkeys have that combination of riffs, rhythm, and personality, and Japandroids have this raw, almost reckless energy that I really connect with.

But when I'm actually writing, I'm not sitting there thinking, “Okay, now I need an Oasis chorus, a Strokes guitar part, and maybe I'll sprinkle a little Arctic Monkeys on top.” That would be a pretty terrible recipe for writing a song.

I think when you've listened to music for most of your life, all of those influences just become part of you. You take pieces from everything you've ever loved — sometimes without even realizing you're doing it — and eventually it all gets filtered through your own creativity and the way you naturally write.

For me, it always seems to come back to the same things: a melody you remember, a hook you want to hear again, guitars that make you want to turn it up, and a chorus line you want to scream out loud — whether you're at a show, in your car, or just singing along when nobody else is around. Ultimately, I want to write songs that make you feel something.

You wrote and recorded most of the song in your home studio. How important is the DIY process to maintaining your creative vision?

It's incredibly important to me. One of the things I love most about having a home studio is that I'm not on the clock and I'm not working within somebody else's time constraints. I can go in there when I actually feel inspired, rather than having to be creative on a schedule because I've booked a studio from 2 to 6 on a Tuesday.

If an idea hits me, I can pick up my guitar, hit the record button, and start playing. Or I can step up to the microphone and start singing while the melody or lyric is still fresh in my head. Sometimes that might be in the middle of the day, sometimes it might be at some ridiculous hour at night. There's no feeling of, “I’ve only got another hour, so I need to get this right.” I can follow an idea wherever it goes, walk away from it when it's not working, and come back when something clicks.

That freedom is a huge part of the creative process for me.

A big part of the DIY process is that I'm pretty hands-on with the music from the beginning. I'm the lead singer and guitarist, and beyond writing the songs themselves, I've written and recorded the bass parts for most of the Common Trouble songs and written many of the drum parts as well. I really enjoy building a song from the ground up and hearing all of those individual pieces gradually become the record I originally heard in my head.

At the same time, I'm not precious about every single note. Occasionally, Jarrett, my producer, will make an adjustment or suggest something that works better for the song, and I'm completely open to that. That's part of what I value about working with him — I can bring in a song and a pretty complete vision for it, but I trust his incredible musical intuition and know that sometimes his idea is going to make the song better.

DIY, to me, doesn't necessarily mean doing absolutely everything yourself. It also means having the freedom to decide who you want to bring into that creative world.

I've been working with Jarrett Nicolay at Mixtape Studios in Alexandria, Virginia on the Common Trouble project since 2020. Our musical relationship actually goes back even further than that — I worked with Jarrett before Common Trouble when I played bass and sang harmonies in a band called Most Savage Gentlemen.

One of the things that struck me about Jarrett from the beginning was his incredible musical intuition. He has a way of hearing what a song needs, understanding where I'm trying to take it, and knowing when to add something, when to pull something back, and when to just let the song be what it is.

There's a lot of history and trust there now. He knows me, he knows my music, and he understands what I'm going for. Jarrett produced, mixed, and mastered “Go Go Go,” and having someone with that kind of musical intuition involved in taking the song from my home studio to the finished record is incredibly valuable.

The female harmonies were sung by my good friend Stephanie Katavolos, who I've worked with on many of my original songs over the years. Our voices blend really well together, which is something I've always loved about singing with her. She's somebody I really trust musically, and I love having her voice on the track. There's something special about making records with people you've actually built musical relationships with rather than simply assembling a group of people for one recording.

So even though Common Trouble is an independent project and a lot of the writing and recording starts with me alone in my home studio, it's definitely not created in a vacuum. There's a little family of people who have become part of these records over the years.

That's probably the best combination for me creatively — the freedom to hit record whenever inspiration shows up, and then having people I trust to help me take that idea the rest of the way.

Alternative rock has always been about capturing a certain energy and honesty. What do you think makes a great guitar-driven rock song stand the test of time?

For me, a great guitar-driven song usually starts with something that grabs you before you even know exactly what the song is going to become.

“Go Go Go” actually began with a syncopated, driving guitar rhythm in my head, which eventually became the rhythm guitar part for the verses. That's often how songs start for me — sometimes it's a melody, sometimes a lyric, and sometimes it's just a rhythm or a riff that I can't get out of my head. I pick up the guitar and start following it to see where it wants to go.

For a guitar-driven rock song to really last, though, I think it has to go beyond the guitar sound itself. You need a melody people remember, a riff or rhythm that immediately feels identifiable, and a chorus line that you want to scream out loud. The production and guitar tones can change with the times, but a great song underneath all of that doesn't really age.

The song has already received international radio attention, including support from Amazing Radio and interest from BBC Introducing. How does it feel seeing an independent release connect with audiences beyond your local scene?

It's exhilarating and invigorating. More than anything, I feel an incredible amount of gratitude seeing this song being so openly received by people around the world.

There's something surreal about creating a song in your own little corner of the world and then finding out that someone thousands of miles away is listening to it, playing it on the radio, adding it to a playlist, or taking the time to write about it. Music has this incredible ability to travel without you, and watching “Go Go Go” start to have a life of its own has been one of the most rewarding parts of this whole experience.

I'm also really happy that the song seems to connect with so many different people. I know what “Go Go Go” means to me and where that energy came from when I wrote it, but once you put a song out into the world, it doesn't completely belong to you anymore. Someone else can hear that same energy and attach it to a person, a memory, a moment in their life, or something they're going through. What was personal to me when I wrote it can become personal to somebody else for an entirely different reason. I think that's one of the most beautiful things about music.

The support from Amazing Radio, having the song listened to by the BBC Introducing team, the radio support in Canada, and now seeing reviews and features coming from different parts of the world — I'm genuinely grateful for all of it.

As an independent artist, nobody is guaranteeing that anyone is ever going to hear what you create. So when people not only hear it, but actually connect with it and want to share it with somebody else, that's a pretty incredible feeling. It makes me want to get back into the studio and create the next one.

“Go Go Go” has a very immediate, feel-good quality. Was creating something listeners could instantly connect with one of your main goals?

Absolutely. I wanted “Go Go Go” to be the kind of song that grabs you right away. I wasn't interested in making the listener work too hard to find their way into it — I wanted the guitars, melody, and energy to hit almost immediately and hopefully make you want to turn it up.

When I started writing it, I wanted to create a rock anthem — something uplifting with a driving rhythm, a memorable melody, and a chorus that you want to scream along with.

But I also think that kind of connection has to happen naturally. If you sit down and say, “I'm going to write something everybody will love,” you're probably already in trouble. For me, it starts with writing something that excites me. If I'm playing it back and I immediately want to hear the chorus again, I know I'm doing it right.

Ultimately, I wanted “Go Go Go” to feel like a little jolt of energy — three and a half minutes where you can turn everything else off, crank up the music, and just go with the flow.

As a completely independent project, what have been the biggest challenges and rewards of building Common Trouble without a traditional label structure?

Being completely independent is both incredibly exciting and incredibly challenging because you're wearing a lot of hats. I'm not just writing, recording, and performing the music — I'm also figuring out how to get it heard once it's finished.

One of the most challenging, exciting, and ultimately fulfilling things I've done with “Go Go Go” was putting together an international radio campaign completely on my own. I researched stations and programs in different countries, figured out who might actually be receptive to the music, reached out to them personally, sent submissions and follow-ups. There were definitely moments when I wondered whether all of that work was actually going to lead anywhere.

Then the responses started coming in.

Seeing the song get added to a radio library in Canada and then receiving multiple plays on Amazing Radio in the UK made all of those hours of research, submissions and follow-ups feel completely worth it. One of the biggest moments for me was submitting “Go Go Go” to BBC Introducing and finding out that the BBC Introducing team had listened to it that very same day. The response was immediate, and seeing that happen so quickly was incredibly exciting.

There's something deeply satisfying about knowing that nobody handed me those opportunities. I went looking for them myself, and seeing the music actually reach the people I was hoping it would reach made all of that work worthwhile.

Once the song started building that international credibility, I took that momentum and started reaching out to music blogs and publications for reviews and features. Watching that next part of the campaign take off has been incredible. Opening up a review and seeing someone genuinely connect with something I created is an amazing feeling, and then seeing Common Trouble receive full-page features and interviews has taken it to another level. These were things I was pursuing myself, one email and one submission at a time, so every time another door opened, it felt like all of that work was building toward something.

That's really the challenge and the reward of being independent. There isn't a label, publicist or promotional department doing those things behind the scenes, so you have to be willing to learn as you go and hear “no” — or sometimes hear absolutely nothing — a lot more often than you hear “yes.”

But when the “yes” does come, it's exhilarating. When something you've built from the ground up starts reaching people in other countries, there's a sense of fulfillment that's difficult to describe. Every little victory feels personal because you know exactly how much work went into getting there.

And, of course, one of the greatest rewards is the freedom. Common Trouble gets to sound like Common Trouble. I get to follow my instincts. I get to work with my good friend and longtime producer, Jarrett Nicolay, and make the records that I want to make. I get to decide where the music goes next. There's something incredibly fulfilling about having that kind of creative freedom, and that's worth a lot to me.

Your influences come from different generations of indie and alternative rock. How do you balance respecting those influences while creating a sound that feels like your own?

I don't think I've ever consciously tried to separate myself from my influences. I'm proud of the music that's inspired me. Every songwriter is carrying around pieces of everything they've listened to throughout their life, whether they realize it or not.

I also grew up in a very creative environment. My father was a professional musician, so music was around me from the beginning, and my mother is a very talented painter and artist. I think growing up surrounded by both music and visual art probably shaped the way I think about creativity more than I even realize. Creating something was never this strange or distant idea to me — it was just part of life.

When I'm writing a song, all of those influences are kind of mixed up, mashed together, and turned around in my head. I'm not consciously thinking, “This part should sound like Oasis” or “I need a Strokes guitar part here.” It's much more instinctive than that. Everything I've listened to and loved over the years is in there somewhere, but it all gets filtered through the way I hear music.

Then I get to put my own voice on it — literally and creatively. It's my melody, my guitar playing, my lyrics, my experiences, and my way of expressing whatever I'm trying to say. That's the point where all of those influences stop being separate things and start becoming Common Trouble.

I don't think originality means pretending you've never been influenced by anybody. It's taking everything that's inspired you, letting it get completely rearranged inside your own head, and then creating something that could only have come out of you. I want someone to be able to hear where I come from musically, but at the end of the song, I want them to say, “That's Common Trouble.”

What does the name Common Trouble represent about the project and the kind of stories you want to tell through your music?

Common Trouble is really about life, love, and madness.

It's about the happiness, the wild times, falling in love, making mistakes, losing things, finding things, and all of those moments in between. Sometimes life is incredible, sometimes it's completely chaotic, and sometimes shit just happens and you have to make the best of it.

That's the “common” part of Common Trouble to me. We all go through our own versions of these things. The details might be different, but those emotions and experiences are something we share.

I don't want the music to live in only one emotional place. Some songs can make you want to turn the volume all the way up and scream along with the chorus. Others might hit you completely differently and make you think about somebody or some moment in your life.

That's Common Trouble. It's about life — the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the ridiculous and everything in between.

Recording at home gives artists the freedom to experiment. Did any unexpected moments during the production of “Go Go Go” end up shaping the final track?

Absolutely. One of my favorite examples is the solo section. I originally planned on putting a guitar solo there, which probably would have been the obvious choice for a guitar-driven rock song. But while I was experimenting with the arrangement, I ended up recording a theremin solo instead, over these rhythmic Beatle-esque harmonized vocal hits.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, a theremin is this wonderfully strange electronic instrument that you play without actually touching it by using electromagnetic fields — you move your hands around its antennas to control the pitch and volume. It has this eerie, otherworldly, almost sci-fi kind of sound that you immediately recognize once you've heard it.

I love adding different textures, sounds and instruments that people don't necessarily expect to hear in a rock song. Sometimes it's something subtle buried in the arrangement, and sometimes it's a theremin taking the solo where a guitar was expected to be. Those unexpected sounds can give a song its own personality and make you hear something new every time you listen.

That's also one of the things I really appreciate about working with my producer, Jarrett Nicolay. He encourages that side of me and embraces those unusual sounds rather than trying to polish them away. If I come to him with something a little strange or unexpected, I can pretty much count on hearing, “Here we go.”

Jarrett has that experimental side in his own music with his band, My New Mixtape. He enjoys incorporating odd vintage toys, electronics, unconventional instruments, and other unexpected sounds into his music, so he completely understands where I'm coming from when I show up with some unusual idea.

That's become part of the fun of working together. We share an appreciation for those little unexpected sounds and textures that can give a recording its own personality. Having a producer who embraces that experimentation gives me the freedom to follow an idea wherever it leads — even when that idea happens to be replacing a perfectly respectable guitar solo with a theremin.

The song focuses on melody, hooks, and energy. How important is songwriting craft compared with production when creating music that lasts?

For me, it always starts with the song. I write music that feels important to me — something I feel like I need to say or get out of my head. Sometimes songwriting is my own form of therapy. Writing and creating a song gives me a way to work through things in my head that I might not necessarily know how to express any other way.

That doesn't mean every song has to be serious or heavy. Sometimes what I need to express is happiness, excitement, love, frustration or just the absurdity of life. But whatever the emotion is, I have to feel something from it first.

Then the craft comes into play — finding the melody that communicates that feeling, finding the right words, knowing when a section needs something more and, just as importantly, knowing when to get out of the song's way and not overcomplicate it.

Production is incredibly important, and I love that part of making records, but I think production should serve the song rather than the other way around. You can have incredible production, amazing guitar tones, and every trick in the studio, but if there isn't a song underneath it that makes somebody feel something, eventually all you're left with is a really great-sounding recording.

For me, the goal is to write something that would still connect with somebody if you stripped everything else away. Then you can build the sounds, textures, and production around it and give that song the world it deserves.

What has been the most exciting moment of the “Go Go Go” release campaign so far?

It's honestly difficult to pick just one moment because the most exciting part has been watching everything build on everything else.

The international radio play, the support from Amazing Radio, having BBC Introducing listen to the song, the incredible reviews, the full-page features, and interviews — and just the overall reception “Go Go Go” has received from people around the world — have all been amazing.

There's been this feeling of momentum where one thing seems to lead to another, and I've been incredibly grateful for every part of it. As an independent artist, watching something I created reach people in different countries and seeing them connect with it is hard to put into words.

And what makes the whole thing even more special to me is remembering where it started. Before the radio play, before the reviews, before the features and everything else, it was simply a song I wrote for my wife.

Then I released it on Valentine's Day as a gift to her.

To watch that very personal gift leave my home, travel around the world and become something that other people have connected with in their own way — that's probably been the most exciting and meaningful part of the entire experience.

Where do you want to take Common Trouble next, and what can listeners expect from future releases?

The next chapter is already on its way. The new single is called “Only the Whiskey Knows,” and it's set for release on August 14 — so depending on when you're reading this, it may already be out.

It's a very different side of Common Trouble than “Go Go Go.” Where “Go Go Go” is this driving, upbeat rock anthem, “Only the Whiskey Knows” is much more intimate and acoustic-driven. I like that contrast. I don't want people to ever be completely sure what the next Common Trouble song is going to sound like, as long as it still feels like it came from the same place.

I worked with my longtime producer Jarrett Nicolay again on this one, and vocalist Stephanie Katavolos, whose voice has always blended naturally with mine. The song also features an amazing local musician, Kate Rears, on cello.

I wrote the majority of the cello arrangement myself, but I also wanted Kate to have room to bring her own voice to it. I gave her a couple of passes where she could interpret the song herself and play what she was feeling rather than simply following everything I'd written. There were things she played that I loved, and I worked some of those ideas into the final arrangement. That's one of my favorite things about collaborating with great musicians — you can have a very clear idea of what you want, but then somebody brings something to the song that you never would have thought of on your own.

The artwork for “Only the Whiskey Knows” was created by Jeff Nau, one of my oldest and best friends in the world and an incredible artist. That makes the visual side of this release personal to me as well. There's something really special about being able to make music and have people who have been part of your life bring their own creativity into it. You can find Jeff's work on Instagram at @adnauseamart.

And “Only the Whiskey Knows” is definitely not the end of what's coming. I have a lot more music in the works that I plan to release soon, and it's pretty much all across the board. Some of it leans into a more intimate singer-songwriter direction, some of it gets into much heavier hard rock territory, and there are plenty more indie rock songs in there too.

I'm even working on remixes of some of my songs, which gives me another way to experiment with the music and hear those songs from a completely different perspective. I love the idea that a song doesn't necessarily have to exist in only one form.

I actually love that all of those things can exist under Common Trouble. I've never wanted to make the same song over and over again or feel like I have to stay within one narrow definition of what the project is supposed to sound like. The style might change from song to song — or even between different versions of the same song — but the common thread is still my songwriting, my voice, and the way I approach making music.

That's really where I want Common Trouble to keep going. I want the freedom to make a loud, energetic rock song like “Go Go Go,” then turn around and make something stripped-down and intimate with acoustic guitar, vocal harmonies, and cello. I want to keep experimenting, keep writing songs that mean something to me, and keep surrounding myself with people who can bring something special to my music.

I don't know that I ever want Common Trouble to fit too neatly into one box. If the song feels honest, if it makes me feel something, and if there's a melody that gets stuck in your head, then I think I’m headed in the right direction.

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