ESQ: What's the story behind the title track?
DR: "My Favorite Faded Fantasy" was the only song actually written in the studio. Everything else had been prepared somewhere before, but that song came out of nowhere in the process. And it was the song that tied up the era that I'd been through. It felt like writing that song was releasing one era and moving into the next. It also came from this place where I really used to believe the things I was thinking, and now I really don't believe them. There are lots of thoughts that happen and pop in the brain. I feel like I'm moving from a world where I was creating fantasies that weren't real inside—and very often feeling really dissatisfied—to now living in reality for the first time in my life since I was a kid, and learning to appreciate where I am now while actually sitting with that reality.
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"I was writing songs but I wasn't connected to the lyrics that were coming out. The songs would happen and I would enjoy them at the time but when I listened back it wasn't what I wanted to be expressing," he explains.
"I think I had a lot of old leaves to sweep up and move off my driveway so that I could get out of the place I'd been on and then move on to somewhere new. And part of that process was getting a load of those songs out of my system."
"My job is to focus on being as much in the flow as possible and creating music with as much integrity as possible. That's what I consider to be my job, the rest of it, they're passers-by."
Despite his distaste for the trappings of being a successful recording artist, Rice still feels a strong urge to release his work.
"I guess there's desire in me to be able to create a piece of art... a record that I can put on and that satisfies me in a way that other records have satisfied me from other artists. There's this craving to create this solid thing to be able to share."
So once his music is "out there", does he care what the critics think?
"I've asked management to keep all reviews out of my sight, I don't want to know anything. It's none of my business. It can be distracting. If you are looking for a good review, you're looking to boost your ego, and if you're looking for negative things in a review then you're looking for those things you want to beat yourself up with. I'm not interested in doing either... I want to stay centred."
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