Daily Discovery: Planes on Paper, “Iron Boat”

Planes on Paper by Melissa Fenno

Videos by American Songwriter

ARTIST: Planes on Paper

SONG: “Iron Boat”

HOMETOWN: Seattle, Washington

CURRENT LOCATION: Yakima, Washington

AMBITIONS: Make some art we’re proud of. Hopefully also make enough money to buy a sandwich or two when we need.

TURN-OFFS: Quasi-mastubatory vocal runs. Sing the melody or the harmony please, thanks. 

TURN-ONS: Musically and lyrically speaking, honesty is a turn-on, which extends to natural sounding instrumental parts, not just having an honest writing voice. Personal turn-ons? Buffala Mozarella.

DREAM GIG: If it’s a good dream, the dream gig is Newport Folk Festival. If it’s a nightmare, it’s that I’m playing in a blues band at a bar, and the whole band gets stuck on the IV chord and won’t change back… the audience is VERY UPSET.  

FAVORITE LYRIC: “”Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping.” There are things we have to say out loud, for our own sanity, but can only say only when we are fairly confident no one is listening. This line is the PERFECT way to explain that feeling.

SONG I WISH I WROTE

Navid: “Everybody Knows” – Leonard Cohen

Jen: “Bloodbank” – Bon Iver

5 PEOPLE I’D MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH

Jen: James Corden, Ellen DeGeneres, David Sedaris

Navid: Fat Mike, Neil deGrasse Tyson

MY FAVORITE CONCERT EXPERIENCE

Navid: Bad Religion at an all-ages club in Seattle in 1995. I was young, and it was revelatory for me.

Jen: Counting Crows in 2006. Those guys really know how to emote; I’ve never seen an audience that big get that quiet. 

I WROTE THIS SONG BECAUSE… Our generation was absolutely destroyed by a negligent drug industry. Lots of us died, some of us got really close, and some of us felt like we were witnessing a plague. This is the only way we knew how to illustrate that.

Magnetic Fields, “Papa Was A Rodeo”