Let the world stop for a moment as you enter a new beginning. In this episode, producer Patrick Hamilton joins Tara Joseph as he shares his story about becoming influential to other artists and his beautiful debut album, Journey to the Unknown. Patrick talks about the movie he sees passing by while playing his album and how the inspiration for the minimalist pieces was taken from good moments despite COVID and the lockdown. Get to know where Patrick got his inspiration and the calming moments that translated to his album. Tune in and listen to some of Patrick’s tracks as he performs some of them live.
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Journey To The Unknown: A Truly Beautiful Debut Album
With Special Guest, Patrick Hamilton
I’m excited to have backed onto the show, a dear friend of mine, who also happens to be a client. Here promoting his debut album, let’s welcome to the show, the world-renowned producer, Patrick Hamilton. Patrick, how are you?
Nice to see you and hear from you. I love to be on your show. Thank you for inviting and having me here.
Also, I must say, thank you to you for composing the intro and outro music for the show. Honestly, you’ve given it a whole extra dimension every time it’s turned on. I hear bounced tones.
I’m glad you like it.
I’m chatting to you for a rather special reason because your debut album Journey to the Unknown was released through 1631 Recordings. You sign to Decca Publishing, which is great and they’ve been incredibly supportive. I thought it would be nice to chat with you about the album and maybe hear you play a few notes on your piano.
Do you want me to play as well? You get me to work.
Tell us what was the inspiration behind this beautiful album?
I always produced for other people and I’m glad that I could be of influence to some artists that would become well-known through my work as well. I never thought that I would make my own album. The idea was there already for years, but with the Corona, we were locked down and I was locked down here in my studio. Thank God, I finished the album by Katherine Jenkins.
Congratulations on that because it went to number one on the UK Classical Chart and number three and the UK Album Chart, which is such a huge achievement. Congratulations to you both beautiful album Cinema Paradiso.
We finished that album before the lockdown, I came home and I was lockdown in my studios. What could we do? We couldn’t invite any musicians and I’m not a guy that would say, “I’m laying down in my bed and sleep the whole day or I’ll do nothing.” The time was right to compose and work on my stuff. All the tracks were written in the lockdown period. It felt nice. In fact, it’s exciting to release something of your own because what will the people think? Will they like it or not? Will they feel what I feel with it? It’s quite exciting.
Let’s maybe talk about some of the particular songs that special to you. They’re all special, but are there any that stand out that capture what you wanted to create with the entirety of the album?
It's exciting to release something of your own. Click To TweetThe pieces are minimalistic. I’m not playing 1,000 notes in one minute. It’s easy, but it’s my feeling. It’s like a movie from inside of me that I’m translating into my piano. It felt comfortable for me. I go to the piano, I close my eyes and I start playing. From there on, it’s improvising, but there were nice melodies coming out and I’m grateful and thankful that I got the inspiration at the good moments. It’s my feeling and I see a movie passing by in my head while I’m playing. I’m curious if people have the same movie, of course, they won’t. Everybody will have his own story by listening to my music. If people listen to it, close your eyes, relax and go ahead and feel you’re moving, passing by.
The music is like the feeling I get if I turn on the outcome. It takes me to a place which I don’t get to easily of relaxation. It takes me somewhere where I can know that I can sit and I can be, and nothing else matters. You can internalize a little bit and let everything else fade into the background.
That was my mission. I would love people to be relaxed and close your eyes and let everything go. Let the world stop for a moment. That was my goal.
Do you want to play us something on the piano?
I’ll play you a little piece of A New Beginning. That’s a track that is doing well on Spotify. We are almost 400,000 streams. I’m happy. If all are going to listen to it, maybe we get to one million or more. I’ll give it a try. It’s already here.
It’s beautiful, Patrick.
It’s a small piece. They have to listen to it. It’s a much longer version.
We’re in different time zones. It’s your evening. It’s my morning. You’re in Belgium. I’m in LA. For me, what a beautiful way to start my day listening to that piece of music. It’s going to set me in various Zen path. Whatever stress comes my way, if there is any, it will go over my head. When you recorded it, you were in your studio, but when the inspiration came to you while you in the studio, or were you outside? I know you’ve mentioned to me that the Woodland around where you live and walk in the woods gave you inspiration and connected with you during this weird lockdown period.
There was not much to do. Everything was closed down. Everything was lockdown. The only thing that I could do was go and have a walk and there’s a beautiful area here. I’m living in Belgium near the beautiful City of Bruges and we have a lot of roots here. Every day I started walking for 1.5, 2 hours, and that made me calm. I came back into the studio and normally, the first thing I did then was going to my piano and there the inspiration came from.
When you’re writing these pieces of music, how do you feel inside? I know you said you feel like you’re watching a movie or you’re living the movie. Is that how it is with all of them?
Yes, it is. I’m seeing pictures. This piece, I called it A New Beginning. It never happened before us that there’s a lockdown. We are locking down piece by piece here because the Coronavirus is coming up again. The world is standing still and I had a feeling, I was allowed as well to stand still for a moment and then you’re thinking about new things and what you could do. The most important thing in life is your health. This piece is a little bit, A New Beginning because we don’t know what’s going to happen and have A New Beginning, but see the things positively. It doesn’t have to be negative if the world stands still, you come to the essence of your life.
Tell us about the song, Mind-wanders, because that has a different connotation to staying still. It’s like your mind is exploring.
Your mind is exploring in a lot of ways. I’m quite busy and sometimes too busy, my head is always thinking and then you have a lot of things going on. You’re thinking about this and that. This is the only one that is a little bit more nervous. Not the piece. I don’t think the piece is nervous, but what I had in mind while I’m was writing it was like, “Where am I going?” That was Mind-wanders. It’s going from here to there.
When you’re writing your music before you send it out, do you play it to your children, family members, or friends? Do you keep it all for you and then they hear it when it’s out in the public?
Yes, I do.
Don’t you play it to them?
Not live. What I did was, I let my close friends listen to it and especially to the first ones that I’ve written. Musicians or artists, we’re always a bit insecure because it’s like, “This is what you love and what you’re writing.” We don’t have a profession that is right or wrong. That means you can’t discuss about that. You will like it, and somebody else won’t like it. That’s the exciting parts that you don’t know it, but I had it, “I give it to the world. There will be people that like it, there are people that don’t like it.” Thank God most of the people like it.
On that note, are we able to hear you play something else? I was about to ask you about that song.
How did I write it? I only had a few bars of that. I had the main theme, but I knew that there was something in it, but I couldn’t finish it right away because I didn’t have the inspiration of other parts in that piece. I knew the main theme where I will be starting with and it always comes back. I played a little piece of it. You hear it, it’s a fresh thing.
It’s beautiful.
This theme I had only a few measures. It took me some days to find the other pieces of the song. I like it. It’s a more classical thing.
One of my favorite pieces is A New Beginning. I love that piece of music. What was the inspiration for that?
It was like everything’s new in this period. I had for myself that it was like, “This is a new beginning for me and a journey to the unknown.” As a producer, I made a lot of records, but now it’s a new story for me to be an artist and that I would say, “This is a new beginning for me.”
People will have their own stories about listening to music. Click To TweetHow have you found creating your own album compared to producing for other people’s albums?
I don’t think there’s a difference for me. I always want to be that people that are listening to it, that they like what they hear. Everybody has his own taste, but I want to reach people and that people are feeling something with my music either it’s a production that I do for another artist or my production. There’s no difference for me.
What are your aspirations for the future? Where would you like Patrick Hamilton to be in ten years?
I would love to have done 50 movies that I did film scoring for.
Is that possible?
I hope so. It’s my goal a little bit more to go into the film scoring. I will continue producing artists if they ask me, but my own goal is like, “That would be nice to do a lot of films.”
Do you have particular directors that you would love to work with?
If they are nice people and if they are knowing what they’re doing.
Are you open?
I’m open. In my music, it’s a lot of feelings that are in the movies. If it’s a lovely movie, I would like to score it.
It’s lovely to know how passionate you are about what you do. Not many people are in a situation where they love the job that they have. You love the job that you have.
I wouldn’t call it the job. It’s not a 9:00 to 5:00 job. We’re always playing or we are never working. I’m lucky and I’m grateful that I can earn my living with playing.
You’re immensely talented. I presume that throughout your entire life, you’ve been nurturing and developing this talent. Tell us a little bit about when you were a youngster, a child, and how all of a sudden, you discovered music.
Both of my parents were musicians, not professionally. They both played the accordion. I have an accordion, but I’m not a good accordion player. There was always music in the house and at the age of seven, I said, “I want to be a musician.” Not a fireman or whatever. Immediately from my seventh year, I decided to be a musician. I kept that goal forever. I have Classical degrees and so on. There was no plan B for me because when I went to the Conservatoire, the music school, you had to do an exam that you could enter the Conservatoire. There was nothing in my mind that said, “You won’t succeed there.” I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t succeed in that exam to start a music school.
Did you encourage your children to be musical? Are they musical? Are any of them following their father’s footsteps?
I tried. My daughter, she started when she was 5 or 6 years old. The only mistake I did was that I was teaching her. I should have hired somebody else to teach her. She had talent and she stopped playing the piano. My son was on the guitar. He wanted to play guitar more for the girls.
Did they work?
It did. None of them were passionate about it than I was in my time. I left them to make their own choices.
Tell us about another song on your album. What would you like to share with us? Any other little tunes you can play for us?
The title was easy to find on my walks here in the woods. There are lots of trees. If you look at trees, it’s beautiful. They are alive. I wouldn’t say I started to talk to them, but I’m seeing them as human beings. They were with their pride and everything. I called this peace Trees.
It’s beautiful, Patrick.
I’m wondering what people would think, what movie they would see, or what they feel when they listen to this music and close their eyes.
I’m excited for everyone to hear you playing some of them live on this show because it adds a little extra dimension, a personal dimension.
If you have people that send you messages, send them to me if you want.
The most important thing in life is your health. Click To TweetWhile we’re talking about getting in touch, do you want to share with the readers your social media handles so that they can reach out to you and give their comments directly?
Maybe on my Instagram @PHamiltonMusic. They can follow me there so they know all the information where they can find the video clips with this music. If you see the video clips and together with the music, it’s even more relaxing.
I do love that I wake up on many mornings and I’m able to see your new videos online or listen to your new music. I’m not just saying this. It does make my day start with a smile. Particularly during these challenging times, finding those moments for yourself is important, and being able to stop for a second. I know we’ve all been forced to stop, but even during the forced stop, people still mentally go because they don’t know how to not do that. Myself included. Listening to your music helps me and I’m sure it will help a lot of others just be for a minute.
That would make me happy that it means some to the people. That’s the most important thing for me, that my music can mean something.
Thank you for coming onto the show. You’ve been a truly wonderful guest as ever. Before we head off, is there anything else you’d like to play for us? Any other numbers or you good?
I’m all good. Let’s say the people can go to Spotify or Apple Music so they can find my music. There are ten pieces in the album. The album is called Journey to the unknown. Let them listen and discover it on all digital platforms.
You’ve read that, people. Make sure you go to Spotify, all the digital platforms to check out Journey to the unknown by Patrick Hamilton. Patrick, I wish you all the success in the world. You deserve it. You work hard and you’re incredibly talented and also such a special person. Thank you.
Thank you, Tara. I love you.
I love you too. I was going to say thank you to all our fabulous for all the readers for supporting the show and for supporting you.
Thank you so much. To all your readers, you too, of course. Stay healthy and take care.
Stay safe and healthy, everybody like Patrick said. Bye.
Important Links:
- Patrick Hamilton
- 1631 Recordings
- Decca Publishing
- @PHamiltonMusic – Instagram
- Spotify – Patrick Hamilton
- Apple Music – Patrick Hamilton