Zaq Baker - "Cardio" | New Music & Q + A

(Photo by Trista Marie)

Zaq Baker has been working out. The Twin Cities piano rocker has been literally running, but more importantly, he's been writing a lot of songs. His theatrical and affective pop tunes toe the line between the solo career of Ben Folds, the musical Waitress, and the platonic ideals of teenage heartbreak. After teasing listeners with a series of video singles in the early days of 2020, Baker went back to put the finishing touches on what would become Cardio, his new record out today.

We exchanged questions with Baker over email to get an idea of what went into the album's making, where his head was at, and more.

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Ear Coffee: How did "Cardio" come together as an album? It's been in the works for a long time from my understanding, with the initial video singles teasing towards a different album, "Good Kid Manic Summer."

Zaq Baker: Yep! In the works for a long time. For me, the intention especially with this album was to have the songs hang together thematically, but to tell a distinct story with each one. No filler. I picked the songbook for Cardio by landing on six [live] show staples — songs the band knew and that really resonated on stage — alongside "Little Apartment" and "Tetris," which the band learned as we started pre-production. So the songs themselves span several years of writing, editing, and rehearsal, with the actual making of the album (pre-production all the way up through mix and master) from spring 2019 to this October.

The idea behind Good Kid Manic Summer was always to release three videos that fit together a little more loosely in terms of storytelling. It was really fun making "Down for Whatever" and "She's Nocturnal." I'm still really scared to release the third one, even thought it's been done for a year and a half. I'm really nervous what people will think. I might release it on New Year's Day. I might not. [Ed. note: we'll update the article if he does]

EC: Give us a timeline for the songs on "Cardio." You released "Down for Whatever" back in January, so I'm guessing at least a handful of these songs have been in the works for a while.

ZB: Totally. I wanted to spotlight those two Good Kid Manic Summer songs with grand piano and the vocals sitting front and center. I like the idea of having the song take its "final form" in a few different artistic places — one an intimate video, the other on an album that offers tons of teeth, a huge band, a lush string trio, harmonies, drums, bass, guitars, all pistons firing. Also, shooting video is really fun.

I wrote hundreds of songs from summer 2017 up to Cardio pre-production. From that June onward, I've really spent most of my time editing that catalogue and adding to it. It's always fun for me to move the queue around for the songs I'm about to teach to the band based on what excites me emotionally. There's always so much to choose from. Sometimes, it's really new writing that I know will work, that just has that spark, and I'm too impulsive to let it wait, and sometimes it's something I've been working on and returning to and reorganizing that's taken months or a year to finally get the structure or changes or story where I want them.

EC: What were your inspirations? The album reminds me of a pop musical from the last decade pretty much throughout and evokes 80s high school emotions at points to.

ZB: I get "you should write a musical" a lot. I love that. My intention is pretty much always to write pop songs that fit together as cohesively as possible, because that's the writing I find most satisfying when I listen to music, that supports a concept or a simple story. So I sit down at the piano thinking [that] I'll use that methodology, and when I'm done editing I find myself having written a total showtune. I think my narrator energy and my melodic instincts kinda drive that idea home. Some of the songs on Cardio did end up being entirely confessional, though, especially towards the end.

Inspirations... I was listening to a ton of Tom Petty at the outset of the writing. [Taylor Swift's] Fearless and Speak Now, obviously. Sara Bareilles is a regular reference point. The band I come back to by the far the most is the Cars, especially their first record  — primarily, the writing and melodies but also those delicious guitar stylings. Talking Heads and Blondie. Style-wise, I leaned into the pop punk thing out of heritage (duh), but also because midtempo melodic rock is a great place for pop writing. There's just no way around that.

(Photo by Trista Marie)

EC: What draws you towards writing from such a youthful perspective? Is it naturally how your songwriting voice tends to come out, or is a conscious choice?

ZB: Yeah, I think it's really just how my writing voice comes out. When you're drawing on your own experience to populate a piece of writing, you can only use the present and the past, right? A lot of my songs are about indecision, or internal conflict. I think those issues feel totally insurmountable when you're young. When you don't really know anything yet. So it's instinctive for me to go to that place to put the narrator where they need to be to tell the story.

EC: How did you come together with your band + collaborators? You've played in other groups with some of them, or at least have worked with them before.

ZB: Absolutely. I'm really, really lucky to have made this album with such an amazing team. I've been playing with Sheldon (drums) in Maria and the Coins for years now. He and Andy (bass) have been performing with me since the early days of this band. They are both amazing people. I've been playing in various bands with Christian (guitars), including his own band, from 2017 to the present. Christian and I have appeared on a bunch of the same records over the last few years, did a bunch of the same shows, were both members of a gigging cover band for a while.

Jillian (violins 1 + 2, viola) was a very easy choice — an absolute luminary in the Minnesota music community and an amazing session player. We became friends at/after her album release at the Cedar [Cultural Center] last May. It was actually her studio that we used to shoot the Good Kid Manic Summer series. Eric, her partner, handled the string sessions. He is exceptionally skilled, an amazing musician, unbelievably kindhearted, and funny. The Aftergreens did the vocal harmonies; my band opened for their EP release years ago and really hit it off with the style pairing. We've had a lot of mutual love for a while. We play-fight about the Killers and Death Cab. Sheldon, Andy, and I always listen to their CD on tour, and I evangelize that album to people all the time.

I didn't know Allison well when we started making this album, but we're quite close now. She's great. I have a very fuzzy memory of asking her to do the sax solo on Cardio after an Alien Book Club show at Mortimer's. Lydia became a good friend after we were brought into the same off-off band to do a Gatsby-themed birthday party in L.A. in 2018. She rocks.

Colin, who recorded this whole thing, is a close friend. His band, Fringe Pipes, is one of my favorites — great songwriting, singing, arrangements, all of it. Rob, who mixed and mastered this whole thing, is a total local legend. Rob worked on my first two records and has worked with a me on a couple other artists' records over the past few years. Also, a major shout-out to Maria and her vocal coaching. She is an unbelievably good singer and an amazing instructor.

EC: What is your proudest moment on "Cardio?" It doesn't have to be something you were even directly responsible for, just the moment + detail you love most.

ZB: The main thing is definitely the outrageously talented team. The songs sound huge to me now after being scribbles/sculpted/edited while super alone before they were brought to the stage and/or studio. And now they sound enormous. The band is what really steers that emotional freight train.

Another source of pride: as with every album ever made, we had to face a handful of factors outside our control. Colin's studio underwent a series of renovations after we tracked the rhythm section. So we paused sessions after tracking grand piano in October 2019. I had to learn how to write string arrangements, then actually write the charts for the string arrangements, which was a steep learning curve for me but a stellar growth opportunity.

Much later, society went into lockdown the same week Colin and I had sessions scheduled for lead vocals, so we didn't go back and do those and then do [the harmonies/backing vocals] until maybe July. Before that, mid-journey, last winter, I was really struggling mentally, kind of hitting an unprecedented scary low and being spiritually deflated and feeling weird and out-of-touch reality-wise during the months overseeing sessions for strings and guitars, even cancelled that solo tour, because, when you have a manic summer, what goes up...well, you know.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.