Mike Goodrick has carved out a name for himself hosting Acoustic Emo Nights and playing some of our favorite covers night after night. Now, after a 15 year lay off from releasing original music, Mike is bringing his own music back to the forefront with his new single "Songs I Still Skip".
Our Swemo caught up with Mike to talk about the new music!
Interview
Swemo sits down with Mike Goodrick
Mike, you've said this is your first new music release in 15 years. What made you say right now is the time to get back into writing and recording?
Honestly, I think Emo Night had a lot to do with it. I have been playing music for years, but after my old touring band ended, there was definitely a part of me that wondered if I would ever actually write and release new music again. I still played shows but mostly just cover gigs in hotel bars and things, but writing my own songs felt like this thing from another lifetime.
Then Emo Night started growing, and I was suddenly surrounded by these songs that inspired me again every week. Not just playing them, but watching people react to them. Seeing people request the songs that got them through breakups, high school, weird friendships, bad decisions, all of it. It reminded me why I loved this kind of music in the first place.
At some point it felt weird to be helping everyone else reconnect with their nostalgia and not be doing that myself creatively. So I think this song came from finally giving myself permission to make music again without overthinking it. I wasn’t trying to chase what music is “supposed” to sound like right now. I just wanted to make something that felt honest, nostalgic, and fun.
The song is a nostalgia-fueled romp through an old playlist of songs that reminds you of a failed romance. How much of the songs referenced have an autobiographical pain and how many were just the classics of our youth?
Oh it’s completely autobiographical, the emotional core of the song is real. That feeling of hearing a song and getting thrown back into a version of yourself you thought you were done with is very real to me. I think a lot of people have those songs they skip, not because they hate them, but because they work a little too well.
All the songs I mention in the lyrics tie back to a specific person or moment in time. There are just certain songs from that time that immediately put you in the passenger seat of someone’s car, or back in your bedroom, or back in the middle of a relationship that felt way more dramatic than it probably was.
So yea, although they are classics, they each mean a lot to me and bring me back in time for sure.
Were you a mixed tape/burned CD guy? Are there some failed romances out there that might still have your playlist hidden in a box somewhere?
Oh, absolutely. I was definitely a burned CD guy. I grew up in youth group and made mix CD’s for the whole group. They were called “Mike’s Mix” and people to this day will still say “Mike’s Mix #6” was one of the best compilation albums that no one ever actually released.
I always wonder how many people still find a Mike’s Mix CD somewhere in their old CD binder and what it makes them think of or remember.
What was the recording like on this? What's changed since 15 years ago?
Recording this felt really different because the whole world of making music has changed so much. Fifteen years ago, releasing music felt like this huge, intimidating process. You needed the studio, the budget, the right people, the right timing. There were so many barriers that made it easy to talk yourself out of it.
Now, the tools are so much more accessible, but in a weird way, that also means you can overthink everything forever. There are endless options. You can tweak a vocal, a guitar tone, a mix, a lyric, a release plan, all of it, until you never actually put the thing out.
So for me, the biggest thing was trying to keep the heart of it intact. I wanted it to feel polished, but not sterile. I wanted it to sound like the music I grew up loving, but not like I was trying to cosplay being 19 again. Recording it was a lot of reconnecting with the part of me that used to make songs because I had something to say, not because I had a content calendar to fill.
And the entirety of making music these days is so different. We recorded guitars at my house, vocals in someone’s apartment, and did so much of our communication over google drive links and stuff. None of that was the case when I was putting out music before.
You've carved a niche for yourself playing as an emo acoustic tribute act, what songs get requested the most?
Yea, the acoustic emo thing has really blown up. It’s been awesome. The most requested songs are exactly the ones you would expect. The top 5 most requested songs last year were Ocean Avenue, Ohio Is For Lovers, I Miss You, Helena, and Mr Brightside.
But part of the fun of the entire night being all requests, is every night there is inevitably a request for a song I haven’t played in awhile, some deep cut that really means something to someone, and that’s always super fun.
Are there more songs coming? Did you scratch the itch?
There are definitely more songs coming. If anything, this made the itch worse in the best way.
There’s already another song mastered and ready to go, and we are finishing up 2 others. In a lot of ways, once I started writing again, it feels like all the songs I’ve had bottled up for 15 years are all spilling out of me now. So yes, definitely a lot more songs to come!