Gregory Page Interview, Continued
On Being an Independent Musician (Part 2 of 3)
FOLK101: This is your first commercially released album. Why have you been so reluctant to take your music to a label?
GP: That feeling of being owned is so overwhelming. And especially with the work that I've done, I just love the freedom that I'm given to create exactly the vision that I want, straight down to the artwork. I record everything on my own. I have my own home studio. And I pretty much have my hands on it all the way through the process. So it's my fault, I don't get to blame it on anybody else. And that's just something I've gotten used to.
FOLK101: What do you like about the San Diego music scene? What has kept you there?
GP: This is an outdoor city. We're full of jet skies and surfing. So, I like to say that I stay here because this city needs me. There is Gilbert Castellanos, whose on the same label, and A.J. Croce, and of course, Jason Mraz. There's a few of us who have not migrated up to L.A., which would be the natural progression for most of my friends. But that's the thing. L.A. is so close that I do go to L.A. a couple times a month and play up there. But I don't feel like I have to be in the bowels of that city's energy. I love San Diego for the climate and I love it for the ability to feel like I'm retired. I'm retired and I get to be left alone, so to speak. I'm definitely more of a domestic kind of artist, more of a recording type of artist than someone who is constantly out on the road.
FOLK101: That's ironic, though, because your music has a very cosmopolitan feel. How do you reconcile those two ideas?
GP: I think it's a challenge to an artist not to get stuck in one vein or one type of experience. So when I come back from traveling abroad and I get to play the songs I've written for an audience, maybe they don't get to travel or to see France or anything, but maybe they can live vicariously through the music."
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