You might not have heard his name, but you’ve definitely heard his music. Stephan Moccio wrote huge songs for the likes of Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Andrea Bocelli and Miley Cyrus, produced for The Weeknd and co-authored the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack, as well as the theme song for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. To say he’s been successful behind the scenes would mean a severe understatement.
Having celebrated his 50th birthday recently, the Canadian-born, L.A. based composer has been focusing on his own solo piano music. Spending a whole month in an ancient castle in Southern France, he wrote and recorded his most recent album. For once, there were no external influences to be considered, no client wishes to be fulfilled – just his innermost artistic voice to reconnect with. Writer Stephan Kunze sat down with Stephan Moccio to talk Legends, Myths and Lavender.
How does it feel to get this album out into the public?
Great! It's one of my most personal albums ever. Living in the middle of nowhere for a month is daunting and exciting. You go through every round of emotion when you're out there. I created a lot of music. It was hard to curate this collection down. I chose the songs that represented the essence of Miraval.
Miraval is the name of the old castle and vineyard in Southern France, where the album was recorded. Please describe the vibe.
Jacques Louissier, a famous jazz piano player from France, owned the original studio, which Brad Pitt remodeled with his business partner, the producer Damien Quintard. Part of Pink Floyd’s The Wall was recorded there, Sade did one of her biggest albums there, and Careless Whisper was done there as well. It was left abandoned for a long time, and then Brad and Angelina acquired the property. It’s 2,200 acres large, and it is now Brad's Provence property, combined with the winery that produces that famous rosé. It's become a playground for artists. It's one of the most glorious places for any creative type to be in.
Did you have some kind of daily routine while staying at Miraval?
For the most part I had developed a regimen. I would get up at 7, exercise, have breakfast – and the food was farm to table, so the eggs I was having were hatched from the chickens 100 feet from the main place. I composed and recorded all day. Because I'm from Los Angeles, I was left alone up until about 5 or 6 pm. That's when family, friends and business associates would start calling in. Before that, I was able to just really focus. I never had such a meditative time ever in my entire life. That was a gift for myself for my 50th birthday.
You mentioned that the silence at Miraval was quite inspirational for the material.
That silence was so vital. There were no cars. Here in Los Angeles, I live in Hollywood near Sunset Boulevard, and even though it's a very wooded area, you still hear helicopters, ambulances, and the nightlife of Hollywood. There was something about just being quiet and hearing your own thoughts. You don't have anyone's opinions but yourself. I was bouncing ideas with myself, going a little crazy sometimes, but that's part of the process.
Can you speak on the recording techniques you employed?
We recorded the album at the highest fidelity available to us right now, as I wanted the album to be able to transcend decades and sound classic. You know how a Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald album still sounds as great today as it did 55 years ago. I didn't use any gimmicks. We had three pianos and 48 microphones. We didn’t want to hide the fact that this was an acoustic analog album. At this point in my career, I was after a more introspective sound. I'm a big believer in some grit; otherwise it'll sound very digital and clean. This album is almost like a Jackson Pollock painting, with the paint dripping off the edges. Nothing was done to a click. I wanted it to feel organic and natural. There was a lot of love and detail placed into the mixes. The irony is, with all those microphones placed on the piano, often we ended up only using a few of them and used primarily the room mics, because we were going for that distant church sound.
How was the weather during your stay in Provence?
I arrived on February 15th, and it was really cold for the first few days. It snowed on day six or seven there and it made me very emotional. It reminded me of Canada. I miss snow here in L.A.! Then I started to experience that warm provincial sun. The birds started to chirp around the first week of March. It was a transformative and unique experience for me. Every day, I walked for 45 minutes among Lavender fields.
You’ve likened your time there to “a quasi-religious experience.” Explain.
I was raised Catholic. I'm agnostic now, but I'm a very spiritual person and I couldn't help but be affected by the religious overtones that came with the land there. It's a holy land – monks lived there hundreds of years ago. I felt these comforting spirits around. In the mistral wind, you feel that there is a message or something as well. It made me feel like I was going crazy, because I was hearing and feeling stuff. There’s an exquisite old chapel, it looks probably better than it ever has. All these elements affect you, if you are open and receptive to them as an artist. I surrendered to that.
You mentioned that you’ve been living in Los Angeles for some time. You’ve also said that getting out of the city reminded you of your true values.
Well, I came to L.A., and I always knew that I was inevitably going to have to move here. L.A. is the mecca for music and pop culture, but it’s a very complicated city for me. It's big, it's expensive, it's fast, and it’s hard to feel connected to people sometimes in this town. It’s so focused on big shiny fancy stuff and acquiring material things. I'm not saying that it’s at the true essence of the Angelenos, but on a superficial level, that's all you see here. On Sunset Boulevard, it’s billboard after billboard of Dior, Gucci, Prada. In the last year, I started questioning myself, do I need to be here any longer? I've technically “made it”, but the value system feels like it's the wrong code for me. Miraval reminded me that the world does not just exist around Los Angeles. And even though I want my music to reach the masses, I'm more interested in moving people emotionally and transforming them into a meditative state. I started coming back to the nice Canadian guy that I was before I moved to L.A. – to develop and live in this town, you have to develop a thick skin and you become a bit of a shark. But I don't subscribe to that. It never felt right for me.
You turned 50 during the recordings of the album. That’s a time when people tend to look back on their career and evaluate their success.
They say you start from rags, you go to riches, and if you're lucky, you go back to rags. The best times of my life, creatively and career-wise, weren't when I was on the Grammy stage or when I was nominated for an Oscar. I'm not saying it wasn't extraordinary to have those moments, but you come to music to move people, not to make money. I'd be lying if I said that money and success didn't help me. I like to believe that my melodies are special, but people were listening to me now because I had been deemed qualified by an industry. Still, I have been questioning my own decisions that have kept me away from seeing my kids grow up. Don't get me wrong, I've got a close relationship with my children, but having the career that I had, I was working all the time, and I missed a lot of precious moments. Now I’m returning to rags by doing these albums. It's amazing that I'm streaming remarkably well as a piano player, but I'm doing this for the right reasons again – to move people, not just to make money.
You’ve written for many huge pop artists but now you’re focusing on your own instrumental music, which belongs into the contemporary classical realm. Is it still important for you to reach big audiences?
Pop music has always been made for people to feel good. But in the last 10, 15 years, it was driven too much by commerce, by money and fame and those elements that we all get sucked in at some point. I'm just straddling a fine line where I want to get streamed a lot, because I want to move a lot of people, and yet I want to maintain a level of integrity. That's where I'm at now, but it's taken me 51 years to get here.
In instrumental music, some people have resorted to listening to playlists. But you still believe in the album as an artform, don’t you?
I surely do! I've recorded 52 hours of music, and I’ve been reducing this into the most essential 53 minutes of music. That’s what fits on a vinyl if you're lucky. You have boundaries that you have to adhere to, so you have to make strong decisions on what to cut and what to keep. Whether this album is considered an important album or not 100 years from now, I’ll never know, because I’ll be dead. But I know that one thing, I poured myself into it.
by Stephan Kunze