<p>Greg Cardi has spent the last year in Portland quietly making a name for himself within the Portland music scene. Playing under the name <a href="http://www.leonardmynx.com">Leonard Mynx</a>, Cardi crafts elegiac tracks that pull in the influence of folk, blues, country and pop, rolling out tales of desperation, death and heartbreak over slow heartb<img width="250" height="186" align="right" alt="" src="/uploads/Image/LM.jpg" />eat tempos. He recently self-released his second full-length, Vesper, a gloomy but enthralling collection of songs recorded with Adam Selzer (Norfolk & Western, M. Ward), which he will be touring behind across the U.S. over the next few months. Before he left, I was able to sit down with Cardi at Fresh Pot on N Mississippi and find out what inspires this unique artist’s work. <br />
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<strong>How did you get started playing music? </strong><br />
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I think just how every teenager gets started, one of my friends played guitar I thought it was pretty cool. No one in my family was musical at all. My uncle bought me a guitar once when I was young gave me a disc of Smithsonian box set of old blues. I heard guys playing that stuff, and I wanted to know, "How can one person make this much noise with just one guitar?" That is pretty much what set me in that direction rather than the rock path. <br />
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<strong>What is it that attracted you to those old blues singers? </strong><br />
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The emotion of it all. It's so raw and I think that the fact that it's not clouded up. It's just a voice and an instrument you get a lot of the impact of a song that way. <br />
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So when did you then start playing your own music? </strong><br />
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I Just started playing out about a year and a half ago. I didn't really every play in bands, which when I started playing in bands was kind of a detriment, not having to keep time with people. I just started going to open mics and then I decided I wanted to book some shows. <br />
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A lot of the songs that you write are fictional. Where do you get the inspiration for these songs? </strong><br />
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With "Robert" - the long one about the kid who dies in the war - I was listening to NPR right around when I first moved to Portland. It was a year after the whole "Mission Accomplished" thing, and they were doing a story about how it had been the deadliest month in Iraq for US soldiers. The whole song came from there. I didn't know anybody that went over there so I was just trying to take on the role of a family member affected by that because they had people on the radio - family members - talking about losing somebody. As for "Mary"... when I housesit for people, I end up catching up on some TV. I ended up seeing one of those crime shows was one where they're investigating a corpse. This was my take on the modern crime investigation genre. <br />
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<strong>Do any of your songs come from some place personal or from personal experience? </strong><br />
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They're mostly fictional on this album, but I definitely have personal songs. A lot of them that express some doom and gloom on certain songs, or are kind of just a collection of images than a story. A lot of that has personal stuff in it. General stuff, not like a particular thing like a mood you get in once a while when you're swamped with day to day. I think I listen to the news too much. I'm not gloomy at all. People who hear this music assume I'm dark, but it's the total opposite. Maybe that's why I'm not, I get a certain amount of that out through the songs.<br />
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2009-03-11T12:57:26-07:00
2009-02-25T12:57:26-08:00
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2009-02-25T12:57:26-08:00
This singular talent - who recently released the brilliant album Vesper - sits down with opbmusic to discuss his approach to songwriting and how he became a musician.
Leonard Mynx: A Q&A With Greg Cardi
2009-02-25T14:27:01-08:00
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