“Mary-Anne you’re such a whore,” sang performer Adam Richman, shifting reporters’ sleepy attention away from their eggs and mimosas at a recent Or Music media breakfast inAustin, Texas.  The track, titled “Mary-Anne” from Richman’s newly released Patience and Science CD started sweetly enough: “Mary-Anne’s my favorite girl” etc., before the happy pop turned angsty punk.  Scratching into his guitar Richman unexpectedly ripped into the woman who shows up wasted at his door and takes his bed, leaving him the floor.  He warns himself he’ll never be “a love-struck geek who’s waiting up for her again,” and no one was arguing.  Perhaps Richman caught us because we were groggily scrambling to figure out who was being a whore at the god-awful early hour of 10:00 in the morning, but we had our coffee already, so I think what’s closer to the truth is that we stumbled upon what makes Richman’s music so interesting.  His raw, anxious reality grabs your imagination and then his contagious melodies addict you. When I discovered that Richman applies a little “science” to his songwriting, just as the album title warns, I realized my only hope of forgetting the catchy song lodged in my head was to look to its creator.  Bad idea.  Now I have twelve songs stuck there…

STARPOLISH: You’ve talked about how pop doesn’t have to be a dirty word if it comes from a real place.

RICHMAN: I’m sort of at the point that I don’t think about using “pop” or not using “pop.” I never really wrote songs that weren’t pop or I couldn’t get excited about songs that didn’t have those pop elements to them.  I think that it’s fun to experiment with how to push something from pop into something that’s not easy to pigeon-hole, but generally I still like to return to the conventions of just the catchy melody or the hook or whatever.  I like those things in any kind of song by any artist. 

STARPOLISH: You do it well.  Mary-Anne’s stuck in my head.

RICHMAN: Cool.

STARPOLISH: No.  I can’t get it out.

RICHMAN: That’s the idea.

STARPOLISH: You like your pop angsty?

RICHMAN: Yeah. I think I’ve always been more into music that has some expression behind it.  I don’t really write party songs.  I prefer there to be some sort of reason behind the writing.  It just injects sincerity into the process.  I think you need it when you’re working with pop because you’re working with all these conventions that sort of walk that line between cheesy and tasteful.  To put yourself into it, that’s how you really push the song over the line into the realm of being the real deal. 

STARPOLISH: What does the CD title Patience & Science mean to you?

RICHMAN: I was basically just experiencing having been out on the road alone for a few years and going through this process of just finding my way in the music world completely by myself…I developed this idea that I couldn’t sell myself short by not giving myself enough time to do what I wanted to do... I wasn’t going to give up and patience was probably going to be the primary ingredient to my success.

STARPOLISH: Science was your approach to this album you formulated in the basement of your parents’ Allentown, PA home?

RICHMAN: Yeah. I was making my little mad scientist lab in the Lehigh Valley.  I wanted to be able to do it all, have all these instruments and all the tools and all the computer programs…I could hear it and I had played with some other players and had done other recordings and I knew I wasn’t going to get what I wanted from anybody else…It became this very scientific approach.  I think the songwriting sort of became that way too.  I wanted to really use all those tools to exploit the pop element.  I wanted to throw it all together and create some kind of reaction that when all of them came together it would create, hopefully, an album that was cohesive and diverse, but ultimately the kind of album I would love to listen to.

STARPOLISH: Your vision was to record this CD entirely by yourself, so you play all of the instruments too?

RICHMAN: Yeah.

STARPOLISH: Where did you learn all this?  You played the instruments, built your website, toured alone for years?  Didn’t you ever play with toys as a kid?

RICHMAN: I’m one of those guys, what do they call it, “Jack of all trades, and master of none.”  I’m such a “Jack.”  I’m just doing everything very averagely, whether it’s the computer stuff or playing keyboard or bass or whatever.  I don’t really know what I’m doing.  I’m just doing what I saw other people do.  I felt confident that I could execute anything I asked myself to.  Then I left the confusing stuff for people who really know how to play.  On the record it was just all me because it was just complete freedom to be in charge of every take and not have to depend on anybody else.  When it doesn’t work out it’s only myself to blame. 

STARPOLISH: You must be a tyrant then in a band situation? (laughs). 

RICHMAN: Nah (laughs).  We always joke about it because I’m always like, “Can you play it more like the record?”  I hate to do that.  It seems to me like it would be very tough to be a musician in that position, but I have a performance to honor because people might expect to hear particular things at different spots.  I want those things to be there, cause I meant to do them on the record.  If I didn’t hear them, I’d feel like something was missing. 

STARPOLISH: You did well supporting your career alone for a while, particularly touring through the National Association of College Activities ( NACA).  You mentioned your success there came down to figuring out how to work the convention booth. 

RICHMAN: There could be amazing artists who do their material in that environment and it wouldn’t make any sense because their attention [college programmers] is being torn in so many directions.  I think it was the fact that I was the same age as the programmers and that what I was giving them made sense very quickly and was kind of cut out for that format.  They were quick to offer me gigs and then the agencies that go to these things and represent a large number of artists and have close relationships with the programmers and advisors at all the schools were quick to notice that I was good at selling myself.  A few of them asked me to join their roster.  I picked the one that had basically the best reputation for music at the time and basically we started going to more conferences together…Before I knew it, it was like six or eight weeks after I started, well I mean I started with planning to go to NACA probably six months earlier, but like six or eight weeks after I’d gone to my first conference in the fall they had my entire spring booked up.  I had like 75 shows booked and suddenly it was a full-time job. 

STARPOLISH: Sounds like a “how to” manual on becoming a successful indie artist in six weeks or less?

RICHMAN: It was like a get rich quick scheme ya know?  It was American Idol-style.  I didn’t know it could happen that way.  I got very lucky.

STARPOLISH: How were your CD sales?

RICHMAN:  There was no digital distribution yet, so it was still the days of NAPSTER, where you didn’t pay for it, and you couldn’t get on iTunes or anything, so I just sold it on CD Baby and then at shows.

STARPOLISH: When was this?

RICHMAN: Well the college touring went on basically like all of 2002, 2003, and part of 2004.  I sold about 2,500 copies of the CD.  It was pretty good.  When you play these college shows you get a guarantee every night and it’s really great money.  They pay for your accommodations, your meals, and your travel.  It’s funny that they spend all that for you and you play for only 15 or 20 people.  That’s the difficult part because sometimes you hit a great percentage of the audience with CD sales, but it doesn’t mean much.

STARPOLISH: Meanwhile, you had started working on your CD, but this is still before you signed with Or.

RICHMAN: A producer wanted to work with me because I think he thought my songs had potential for commercial appeal.  I also think he knew that the college market was treating me well and so that made me sort of appealing.  We planned on doing an EP together…It ended up being a really long process and it didn’t go well.  The music just didn’t feel good.  I spent a lot of time and a lot of money on it and at the end of the day it was probably six months later and we had done four songs and I just didn’t like the recordings…I sort of scrapped it…After I put that production project to bed, that’s when I started assembling the gear that I put in my parents’ basement.  I was buying it all on eBay and I was out on the road having it shipped to Pennsylvania.

STARPOLISH: You started conversations with Or during that time, but you said you were hesitant to sign any record deal because you had put together a comfortable little life with the college touring going so well.

RICHMAN: That was at the end of the summer of 2003, so I went out to tour more colleges in the fall and I came back every once in a while and recorded more songs and finished up my record in early 2004.  At that point I was hooking up with other people in the industry who were bringing me to the major labels.  I was meeting all these people and everyone was very interested, but I wasn’t really impressed by the whole major label scene.  I met a lot of people along the way who had been screwed by it and I just saw how the odds are stacked against you.  All I really wanted was the chance to keep doing what I had been doing and to have some more enthusiasm behind it…More and more it felt like Or was the kind of label that would make it really good.  They had this great success with Los Lonely Boys who were essentially like a pop act with an organic approach and I really appreciated that and I really related to it.  I liked that I walked into the office and I knew every single person who was working on everything.  It made a difference.  Michael Caplan (Or’s President) was very enthusiastic and he really wanted to have me…They offered us something we felt was the right thing to move forward on because it was going to help take this project to the next step.  First I released the record independently and then I was like, “OK, now I’ll sign,”  because I felt like I had done the record on my terms.  I felt I earned my way to where I was and Or was a nice place to come back to.

STARPOLISH: Is it the same record then?

RICHMAN: Almost.  There are some different mixes in different songs, so it was kind of like a weird hybrid version.  I actually like the one we just put out on Or Music a lot better. 

STARPOLISH: Most artists get excited to get a record deal so they can go into the studio?

RICHMAN: Yeah.  I hate it.  In fact now even being on a record label, knowing that we could go all out, I don’t want to.  I need to be able to do it the same way.  I’d want different things to work with, different instruments, different equipment, microphones or whatever, a different room, but the studio thing with the clock ticking? You go there to do your job? It’s just so uncomfortable.  Nothing creative comes out of it in my experience… It’s a lot easier when I was doing it in my pajamas at 4:00 in the morning.  I can’t imagine doing it any other way.  It was really pleasing creatively to be able to sort of have it all at my disposal and flip it on and off.

STARPOLISH: What’s one of your earliest memories of music that grabbed you?

RICHMAN: The earliest was The Monkees.

Adam Richman Photo by: Tina Whelski

STARPOLISH: I used to have a crush on Davey Jones.

RICHMAN: Well yeah!  It was my first concert.  I saw Davey Jones running down the aisle with a tambourine circa 1987.  He had a mullet but it was enthralling…I was obsessed with this Monkees record my parents had on my playschool record player…When I hear the intro of “Day Dream Believer” I just, ah, love it.  Great melody…I don’t know.  It’s just simplistic.  To me I think the reason I respect pop so much is I went through all these years when I was really young where every time I wrote a song it ended up being eight minutes long.  It never even occurred to me that the real craft is being able to only include what’s necessary and being able to be more effective with it…Make every second count.  That became almost my obsession when it came to songwriting.  How can you make it so that you got everything across that you wanted to in the shortest amount of time?

STARPOLISH: Your world opened even wider after discovering Nine Inch Nails? 

RICHMAN: They were introducing those really awesome sounds with the computer and I figured out how to do it early on. I really became obsessive…started recording myself doing that.  I would rent a four-track recorder every year for my birthday and I would have amassed a year’s worth of songs…

STARPOLISH: This was your big bash?  Happy Birthday to me?

RICHMAN: Yeah.  Happy Birthday to me, I’m going to disappear for a week.  I’d go into the bedroom and press play on the computer.  I had laid out all the tracks that I had written and then I would go over it with live guitars and vocal and I’d have a new album every year that I’d give to my friends…That was sort of how I started multi-tracking and using my computer to create music.  That all came out of the Nine Inch Nails thing.  I had heard that Trent Reznor had done it all in like a studio that he was like sweeping up in at night.

STARPOLISH: You’ve been recording since you were eleven.  I’m trying to imagine what you were writing at that time?

RICHMAN: It was peak angsty.  I was like imitating the people that I loved.  I had more anger than made sense.  I got really into Nirvana.  It all happened when I was between eleven and thirteen and I was getting hormonal and it all made perfect sense.

Find out more about Adam Richman at www.adamrichman.com or www.ormusic.com.

Tina Whelski is Managing Editor of Starpolish.com.  She is also Editor of Womanrock.com www.womanrock.com , a columnist and feature writer for The Aquarian Weekly/East Coast Rocker www.theaquarian.com, and contributes to Music Connection www.musicconnection.com and Good Times magazines www.goodtimesmag.com.  Additionally she consults for Fearless Music TV www.fearlessmusic.com.