INTERVIEW: Al Di Meola’s latest album came after downtime during the pandemic
Image courtesy of the artist / Provided by JP Cutler Media with permission.
Celebrated guitarist Al Di Meola recently released his new album, Twentyfour, featuring the single “Ava’s Dance in the Moonlight.” The album is a deeply personal one for Di Meola, who crafted its rhythms and sonic joys during the pandemic. The world was consumed with COVID-19, and for therapeutic reasons, he began to write some songs while taking a necessary break from the road.
“I was going insane just watching the news,” Di Meola said in a recent Zoom interview. “I just started to write. It’s the only time when I can get my mind completely off what’s around me, negative stuff. This is when I’m either reading music or writing music, so it began as a way to get away from it in a therapeutic kind of way. Then it evolved. It evolved in ways that brought it to deeper places.”
Di Meola said he has never had as much free time to explore as he did when creating Twentyfour. Despite the name fo the record, this is actually the guitarist’s 34th album. He has been recording since he was in his early 20s, and each previous project came with a strict deadline. Not this time. Because of the pandemic, he had many days and weeks and months to go deeper into his original material.
“I was never interrupted, like on other records, with having to shoot out for some touring and pack, get to the airport, do interviews for the tour or the new record,” he said. “There was none of that. It was like wide open retirement, it felt like. On the other hand, we saw the statistics of what was happening around the world, something we’ve never encountered. It was definitely a fear, but what helped remedy some of that was delving deep into writing and bringing it to another place. For me, this record is definitely an evolutionarily giant step, in some ways, as a composer.”
For Di Meola, the process of writing songs is a lengthy one. He writes out the notes, and constantly is changing the sounds as the compositions become a reality. He said he is perpetually writing different aspects, alternate versions and erasing, erasing, erasing.
“The brain is on overdrive when you’re doing something like this, totally uninterrupted,” Di Meola said. “That was the key, just not having the normal interruptions that are all part of our existence as a musician.”
He added: “I was able to … kind of elongate the creative process by going even deeper because of the non-interruption. Usually this was all very, very late at night. A lot of it began maybe at 11 o’clock and ended at 4 or 5 in the morning because it was even less interruption, not that I was interrupted before, but I just think it was so quiet in the house. My studio is downstairs. The main part of that quietness came from the fact that there was less phone [calls]. … I say this all the time. Since cellphones have become an integral part of our lives that we can’t get away from, recordings have suffered.”
What Di Meola means by this suffering is that even musicians are obsessed with their phones, and they get in the way of one’s artistic pursuits. “If you were to go to a studio with a bunch of musicians, they’re all looking at their phone,” he said. “It’s almost nonstop, so even if you do a take in a studio, I’ve had an experience where instead of coming in to hear the track they just recorded, you would think they’d be wanting to hear what they just recorded, they would run out in the hall. And they’re on their phone checking. I’ve noticed a tremendous lack of focus since phones and computers have inundated our lives.”
That’s why Twentyfour is so special. This recording, featuring 15 original compositions, is Di Meola at his purest and most focused, without any pesky phones to get in the way.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Al Di Meola’s new album, Twentyfour, is now available. Click here for more information.
