by Eli Zeger
Photos by Jim Testa

Tommy Wallach is an undeniable Renaissance man. His self-made video for “Whisper” garnered enough attention to be displayed at Guggenheim museums around the world. He just finished writing a grand young-adult novel, entitled We All Looked Up (it will be coming out in 2015). Most recently, Wallach has been putting a lot of time into his music. On his new album I Meant It To Be Sweet, he plays lovely chamber pop that glistens with the authenticity of genre kings Rufus Wainwright and Andrew Bird.

The Manhattan-based aesthete talked about his eclectic world with me in a recent chat:

Q: You’re a musician, author, and music video director. Out of all these modes of artistic expression, is there one you enjoy most?

Tommy Wallach: Not too much. “Music video director” I think would be a stretch. I’ve made a lot of videos, but the only one that was really serious was a joint-venture with Tallie Maughan for my song “Whisper”.

As for writing and music, they meet totally different needs for me. I find them both enjoyable. Music is certainly more immediately enjoyable. I’m almost always having a good time when I’m playing music, whereas the actual act of writing is pretty miserable, but I think I find it a little bit more satisfying in the long run.

Q: The storyline for We All Looked Up reads like a cross between Magnolia and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. What were some of your influences for the book?

TW: I love Magnolia a lot. Actually Melancholia - a very similarly sounding film - was something I saw shortly before starting the book. It had a pretty strong influence. Part of it was that a giant asteroid coming at the Earth has been in a lot of movies, like Melancholia. I couldn’t think of a time when it had been done in young adult literature. I thought it was such a great trope for YA.

Q: Aside from literary pursuits, you have a new album out (I Meant It To Be Sweet). Why did you choose to aspire to the sounds of singer/songwriters like Rufus Wainwright and Andrew Bird?

TW: There’s no “why” - it’s just what I sound like. When you’re putting out an album, everyone always wants know what you sound like. Everybody sounds like somebody, though it’s nice to think that you’re doing something totally new. So you place yourself somewhere in comparison to the sounds that people know. Those artists are the two that pop out these days for people.

Rufus Wainwright was very inspiring when I was much younger just in terms of what he was doing on the piano. And then Andrew Bird, I think I do some things similarly, but I can only dream of having those skills. I’m a big fan of Andrew Bird, so I’ll take the comparison.

Q: On “Cold As Christ,” you sing, “I bet Christ must have seemed cold cause you’d really have to be to truly love everyone.” Tell me about your philosophy behind it.

TW: The song was written about my ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, who I always struggled to get along with - even though he was an incredibly nice person. I’m a nice person, I think, but I’m a very negative person overall. How I interact with the world is through complaining and criticism. That’s how I really bond with other people: by complaining about things with them. The boyfriend wasn’t much of a complainer, so I really struggled to be friends with him. I realized that if I had known Jesus - because Jesus is sort of the most famously nice guy of all time - I imagined that I would’ve had the same problem with him. The song is about my struggles to be a real positive person in the world.

I Meant It To Be Sweet is now available via Bandcamp.