Nolen Sellwood photo by Light in the Valley Photography
Nolan Sellwood has a new album with the intriguing title Cadence To The Flame, with songs that stretch into the meaning of life. They are lyrically conscious, bare bones acoustic recordings with fluid and gently plucked guitar strings. Making music in Minnesota, the twenty year old offers thoughtful, meaningful songs and songwriting that surely deserves a wide audience.
Americana Highways had a chance to chat with Nolen about Cadence To The Flame, Viktor Frankl, songwriting, and the subject of how much the way one lives life matters.
Americana Highways: How did you decide to name your new album Cadence To The Flame?
Nolen Sellwood: It was inspired by the famous psychologist Viktor Frankl’s quote “What is to give light must endure burning.” I am a psychology student in university and one of my psychology professors recommended this reading after going through existential college troubles. We would meet during his office hours and talk about themes in class but started to talk about things outside of class and talking about meaning in one’s life and how to love and how to be loved. I read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and that along with his quote helped me become a better person.
AH: Did any of the songs on the album come to you almost completely out of the blue?
NS: Yes, most of the songs come to me usually in bed just thinking. The lyrics are mainly the ones that come out of me while trying to play the song. I’ll spend hours playing the same chord progressions and not saying or thinking of anything until the song’s emotion brings the words out of me. I feel like when I try to force the song it just falls flat from the emotion I want to convey which to me is the most important aspect of the music I make. As a person who has never studied music theory all that much and doesn’t completely understand traditional song structures, I depend a lot on what feels and sounds natural to me when making the song. There isn’t a set structure for every song or even a well-defined story because it all comes from what my heart feels is natural for the song to be.
AH: When songs don’t come to you out of the blue, what’s your songwriting process like?
NS: The way I approach songwriting is to look at it from an outside perspective. I think of the song as something someone else has already created and I predict what the lyrics would say or how the song would go as if I was hearing it for the first time. This takes a lot of practice and may confuse some people but it works for me tremendously. It goes back to the idea of just letting the song naturally take hold of me and tell me what it wants to be instead of me forcing the song to be something that it isn’t.
AH: What did you learn about yourself when writing and recording the album?
NS: What I learned about myself is there is nothing more in this world I would rather do than having my head empty and a hand on my guitar. I’ll sit for countless hours before bed just having my guitar, banjo, or bass in my lap and just playing mindlessly. For me, it has always been hard to feel at home or feel like I am in the right place doing the right thing but I feel good when I am playing music and I feel like I am doing something that I love to do. Performing and writing my music has given me that feeling when nothing else has and I wouldn’t trade for the world.
AH: If someone only had ten minutes, which 3 songs on the album should they listen to first & why?
NS: I’d say, “Forthcome,” “Banjo Song,” then “Cadence To The Flame.” Those three convey what my music is supposed to be and I have received a lot of high praise from friends and family. “Forthcome” has a lot of perfect instrumentation that elevates the music to a whole new level but “Banjo Song” and “Cadence To The Flame” show that they don’t need all of the instrumentation in the world to be great. The calmness and the raw instruments give it a more tender tone that I love.
AH: Which song is the most fun on the album and why?
NS: “Banjo Song” was most definitely the most fun. I had spent months learning the banjo and crafting a song on it so playing it in the studio was just a cool experience for me as well as having one of my best friends and college roommate Sam Hovda come into the studio and play trumpet was the best. This song is also fun because it opens up opportunities to play the banjo live and maybe do different renditions and versions of the song as it has elements that can be transferred to different instruments like the ukulele which we have been working on for a little bit.
AH: What would you like fans to take away after listening to your music?
NS: What I want people to take away from my music is that your love matters. The way you love matters. The love you deserve in your life matters. Become the person you are meant to be. Never force yourself to be something that you are not and be genuine in your genuineness. Sometimes it’s hard to open up to truly be yourself often for fear of criticism that will hit close to home or that you won’t be accepted unless you change things about yourself. But living your truth is better than living everyone else’s lie.
AH: When you were a kid, who inspired you to make music?
NS: Nick Drake was the artist that made me realize I wanted to make music. His music captivated me and his music has shaped my life. All I have ever wanted to do was have a similar impact on someone else as he has had on me. I listened to the Pink Moon album when I was around 15 and I couldn’t stop listening and immediately went and looked up his story. The tragic nature of his life and how you can hear his emotion in his music so clearly is one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced and I don’t think another artist will ever be able to capture such beauty like that again.
AH. What is next for Nolen Sellwood? Any big plans?
NS: Finishing up college in Duluth, Minnesota while trying to perform live as much as possible. I am in the process of recording some more music but in the meantime, I just love playing live with my friends and doing everything music. I am hoping to graduate with my Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 2025 and maybe apply to some graduate programs hopefully while being able to do music. However, if I could, I would drop everything and be a musician if the opportunity came to me but I need to think about my future in more than one way. With so many future opportunities it can be hard and you can get anxious about making the right choice but all I’ve ever done was follow my heart.
Thanks very much for chatting with us, Nolen Sellwood. Find more information on his website here: https://nolensellwood.net/
Check out our review of Nolen’s album here: REVIEW: Nolen Sellwood “Cadence To The Flame”
