Patch Talk: Christian Stewart on Songwriting and the Guitar

Christian “Chris” Stewart is no stranger to the stage, and certainly no stranger to the guitar.

At Center Place on March 5, at the Greater Brandon Arts Council “Arty Party” membership drive, Stewart, 22, was invited to perform his original music and to add his accompaniment to the dancers from Kim Hall’s School of Dance.

“It’s everything,” Stewart said, about his passion for music. “It’s all I do anymore. All I do is play music. Or, play video games and music. It’s therapeutic. I’m kind of like a loner so it’s a good way to kill time and not feel so alone.”

Deep within his soul is where Stewart works best, having penned hundreds of songs, literally, since his days at Blake, and then Riverview, high school. His mother, Liz, is the choral and orchestra director at Riverview High. His dad, Robby, helped fuel Stewart’s passion for music as well.

“I was 11 and my dad gave me a used Epiphone,” Stewart said. “I got off the bus in the fifth grade and he gave me a guitar and said, ‘You’re going to learn how to play this’ and it stuck. It took a couple of years to stick, but it stuck.”

Songwriting came later, in the ninth grade.

“I listened to a bunch of Nirvana and I wanted to be Kurt Cobain, so I wrote like 100 songs my first year,” Stewart said. “They were all bad, but it was fun.

He describes his music as songs that can help heal a hurt.

“Most of my songs are usually about painful things,” he said. “Broken hearts, anything that just feels so overwhelming. I put it into words and I sing about it and I feel better.”

Brandon Patch asked Stewart to reflect more deeply on his craft, both at Arty Party and from his home in Brandon.

Brandon Patch: How hard it is to put music to words, and vice versa?

• Stewart: That’s the hardest part. Sometimes I’ll have lyrics and they’ll sit around a couple years until the music feels right. Or vice versa. Sometimes I’ll have an awesome guitar part, but not quite the right lyrics. Or it will all come together as one. Usually it’s the really simple songs that come together quickly.

Brandon Patch: Do you write the music for yourself or for others?

• Stewart: I don’t know, whatever. I just write it.

Brandon Patch: What does it take to be a writer?

• Stewart: Time. Lots of time. Your first few songs are not always going to be good. Sometimes its takes a really long time to learn what’s good for you.

Brandon Patch: What’s good for you?

• Stewart: It’s hard to explain. Some people work better in groups and they work really well with other people. My thing is I’m way better alone, although I’m not saying I can’t work with other people.

Brandon Patch: You’re in a band?

• Stewart: I’m in Ettison and we’ve been together for three years and I just know started writing music that we really like. It’s rock music. It also is fairly mellow, with pop elements.

Brandon Patch: Your mom teaches voice and musical theater, your dad plays the guitar.

• Stewart: They were always really supportive of everything I did. It was really easy for me to just fall into it. My birthday present this year was a model of a 1930’s [guitar]. My dad customized it for me.

 Brandon Patch: What’s your favorite song?

• Stewart: Right now it’s a song called, “Dancing on My Ceiling,” written by me and a friend when we graduated high school. We wrote, it, we rewrote it, we rewrote it, and we rewrote it. And then we rewrote it again. Then I sat it down for a year and picked it up again. And then I liked it. I  had written another song, but I didn’t like where that song was going, so I just used that old idea for the song. I found a new way to tune my guitar and found a way [to finish the song]. I essentially recreated it using an idea from another song.

Brandon Patch: What’s it about?

• Stewart: It’s about a guy lying down on his bed and he just went through a breakup and he can’t sleep because he sees this girl on his ceiling, in front of his eyes, dancing, and it just bothers him.

Brandon Patch: Can you share some lyrics?

She has been dancing, sweetly night after night on my ceiling,
Her neck wrapped with tears,
Her hands sworn with rings,
On her toes as she spins, her dress flows from her knees,
It’s so blue as I force my face down to the sheets,
My lamp shines through the fabric to project it on me.

 Brandon Patch: What are your musical influences?

• Stewart: I listen to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie. Manchester Orchestra, the Decemberists and Band of Horse.