I first interviewed Mikey J back in July after his song “My Little Dragon Girl” was named Best Single in the Lights and Lines Album Writing Workshop. Since then, he’s been busy working on the accompanying album, Wondering, which will be released on the Lights and Lines label as both a digital download and a CD on April 21. So I figured it was the perfect opportunity to drop Mikey a line to catch up.

How have you been these past few months? Anything new going on?

Hey Marc! I’ve been good! Very busy with the day job, but still finding time for all things music related!

I think I mentioned on the #Tweetcore Radio Hour that “My Little Dragon Girl” is my mom’s favorite Tweetcore tune. How does the rest of the album compare in terms of style to that one?

Well first of all, please say thanks to your mum! As with most of my albums, Wondering is quite eclectic! “Dragon Girl” is the only ska track, but I do have some pop-punk, dirty blues, 60s retro pop rock and some dreamy, yet gritty rock tracks too!

In addition to “My Little Dragon Girl,” a track called “Wonder” is also available. That one has a cool Pink Floyd vibe. Are they – or music from their era – an influence? What draws you to that style of music?

I do love a lot of music from the late 60s/early 70s, but not necessarily Pink Floyd specifically. I mean you’d be crazy as a guitarist not to enjoy them, but they wouldn’t necessarily be in my top 5 artists! I think what draws me to that kind of style is the richness of sounds you can get with the “traditional” rock instruments. The progression on “Wonder” is a pretty simple one, but it leaves a lot of room to add texture with guitar solos, bass runs, organ splashes and the like!

Looking at the track listing, I see that you collaborate with our mutual friend Scoopski on one of the tracks. What’s the song, and how did the collaboration come about?

That’s a pretty cool story actually. This track (“When We’re Old”) is actually a cover of a track off my previous album, By Your Side. That album was a full acoustic album and that track was an attempt to write a bit of a Simon and Garfunkel track. Now, during the 90s there were a number of rock/punk groups that did dirty, rocky covers of Simon and Garfunkel (“Mrs Robinson” from the Lemon Heads and “Hazy Shade of Winter” from Bodyjar being a couple) so I thought it would be fun to try and do that for my S&G song! Really, Scoopski was the natural choice as the king of power-pop!

I also collaborated with a couple of other people on this album too. @shippa63 has lent his drumming skills to Push and Pull, and an old mate of mine, Danny Davis (@dicktogman on instagram) provided the wonderful horn section on “Dragon Girl.”

What’s it like to make music with Scoopski?

So, so easy! He’s a great musician and given it was a pretty simple song, he worked quickly. In addition to providing the Garfunkel vocal, he added some cool guitar riffs and licks throughout as well!

You’ve been working on the album for a while now. What was the process building an album like for you – as opposed to recording a single, for example?

My processes are always pretty similar. I never start out looking to write a single or an album, but rather have bursts of creativity where I’ll get a bunch of songs going. Once I feel that the well’s run dry, I start working on different instrumentation, then writing lyrics, recording vocals and then mixing!

This album was a little different though as it was written (or arranged), recorded and produced (but not mastered) in a month as part of the Lights and Lines Album Writing Club. So for this one, I had a few little ideas bouncing around the old noggin so quickly got to putting them down and generally speeding up the process. As it was picked up by Lights and Lines, I then had @grim17 do a magic job on the mastering.

I also have a couple of songs on here that were songs I had “written” as a much much younger man. “Wonder” and “The Way She Moves” are two examples of this. For the competition, I completely re-wrote the instrumental parts for both tracks, wrote lyrics for the originally instrumental “Wonder” (originally “Ballad in Am,” which can also be found on my Bandcamp), and wrote a new verse for “The Way She Moves.”

I’m sure you’re a busy guy outside of music. How did you find the time to work on the album?

I guess I’m lucky in that I’m a teacher so I do get a good amount of holidays throughout the year (here in Australia we have at least a 2 week holiday every 9-10 weeks of the school year). I also have a wonderful wife who doesn’t seem to mind too much that I spend a couple hours each weekend noodling away!

With this particular album, I said to the family that I’m taking part in this challenge so will be busy during the time and to leave me alone!

I know that the album will be released as a CD, which got me thinking about all of the musical formats I’ve listened to music on over the years—LP, cassette, CD, download, streaming. Do you have any preferences when it comes to format as both a listener and an artist?

I don’t actually own a CD player myself outside of the car, so my go-to listening these days is usually streaming (including streaming purchased music through Bandcamp) as it is the most convenient. I do love a vinyl and have a little collection of Beatles vinyls and was once an avid CD collector.

The album cover depicts a person falling through the sky into an outstretched hand. What does that image mean to you, and how does it relate to the music on the album?

Pretty early on in the process, I had decided that “Wonder” was going to be one of the main “singles” from the album, so the name Wondering came from that song. The artwork itself then hopefully makes people wonder why is the man falling? Is he going to be caught? That and I really like the image and colour scheme – it really gave the feeling of Wonder so went with it!

Now that the album is coming out, what’s next?

Well, I’ve already got album seven recorded and basically mixed. Just waiting on some vocals from Kelly Kintner to finish it off. That album will be called Muffet Way and is 14 tracks of rock, blues, reggae, indie and funk. It also has a few more collaborations on it with people like the La La Lettes, CosmicBos and the Future Us. I’m really excited about that one as I think it has some of my best songs on it.

I’ve also just started on recording tracks for album 8 – but only the bare bones of 6 new tracks for that so far…

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!

Any time!