Ty Morse
St. Agnes Eve
Label: Royalty, Etc.
It was the Old English story of Scandinavian warrior versus dragon that launched Ty Morse into the realm of writing and recording music, and he’s come a long way from that senior English project on Beowulf.
After co-writing and producing Frankenstein: The Rock Opera to nationwide acclaim, Morse returned to the Twin Cities where he found some of his favorite artists were still unappreciated and worse yet, unsigned. What follows is a story of the tenacity of one local man dedicated to the music scene to the extent of creating his own label, Royalty, Etc. Records, for which he’s doing much of the work himself — successfully.
But in addition to reissuing, recording and promoting albums for groups like Space Camp and Middlepicker, Morse has released his own disk of tracks recorded over many years, St. Agnes Eve.
From Drake to Oberst to old Floyd, Morse’s influences negotiate a narrow path of influence — unfettered by his critically-acclaimed rock operas — into a folk-pop gem all of his own.
We sat down with Ty to talk about his start in the rock opera genre, his new label Royalty, Etc., and the psychological judo of chivalry. Read on…
So what’s your story? Tell me how you came to write an award-winning musical?
Well I’m not sure where’s best to start, or what’s most relevant. I guess when I was 18 something tweaked in my brain and I decided I was going to write some songs. So I picked up a guitar, taught myself how to play it, and wrote this piece of shit thing for an English project called “Beowulf: The Rock Opera.” Jon had already established himself in the twin cities music scene, and he was a family friend and offered to help me record Beowulf. After doing the recording with Jon I took off to Davidson College in North Carolina.
My freshman year at Davidson an English professor heard that I had written Beowulf: The Rock Opera and offered me a full course credit to compose another full length rock opera based on a piece of literature. I of course took him up on the offer. I had a friend who knew how to play piano so we sat down and starting writing the musical. I once again called Jon and asked him if he would produce the new rock opera Frankenstein: The Rock Opera. Jon said he would, and he jumped on board. He basically took on the role of producer but he did a lot of composition as well, so it was an equal three man effort.
Anyways, the musical started snowballing and people started talking about it. I’m not sure why people were so interested, I suppose because we were young college students. Anyways we wrote the musical my freshman year and then began recording, adding on, and making changes for the next three years. We did all the recording of the musical here in the Twin Cities in what is now the Royalty, Etc. Records studio. By the time I was a senior in college we had finished the musical and had somehow gathered a following of fans and people who loved the stuff. So prompted by all the media and attention we decided to make a go at it and put our production on.
We formed a company, got investors, got a manager and put on the first performance of Frankenstein: The Rock Opera in the brand new Duke Theater in Charlotte North Carolina. To our surprise it was a huge success and we sold out every show. From there we licensed the play to be performed by schools across the country and then took it to New York and did performances there. We also did a tour of the show across the mid-west. Currently we are planning a large national tour for the show as well as working on future performances. There’s a bunch of articles and an NPR interview we did up on the Web site.
Very cool. And then how did that evolve to the Twin Cities-based Royalty, Etc. Records?
Once the Frankenstein tour was over I took a job in a creative development group at Discovery Channel. While working there I worked with Jon again to compose some songs for Discovery Channel shows. Jon and I had been discussing the idea of a label, and I was getting tired of living in Washington, D.C. which has a pretty stark music scene. The Twin Cities has always been the focal point for my interest in music ever since I set foot here to work on Frankenstein. I only started listening to music a lot when I started playing it at 18. So basically the stuff I was listening too was coming from Jon’s friends here in the Cities. I’m 24 now, so for the past 6 years I basically grew up,in the musical sense, listening to Space Camp, Bagger 97, Grickle-Grass, Soda Pop Jerk and Middlepicker.
Although I of course listen to tons of music not from the Cities, these are certainly the bands that define my musical experience. Surprisingly no one has ever given any of those bands proper attention here in the Cities. I’ve always loved the music from those bands and Jon did too. I couldn’t believe no one had signed them, so I quit my job and moved out here to work full time on Royalty, Etc. Records. I guess that brings us up to speed.
Definitely, except the part where you’ve also released an album of your own on Royalty, Etc. – St. Agnes Eve. Your one sheet mentions Nick Drake, and you can definitely tell there’s some influence here. Can you talk about that?
Basically Nick Drake’s stuff is some of the best I’ve ever heard. It blew my mind when I first heard it, and I was so bummed when I found out how little of his stuff actually existed. There are so many people out there trying to make anything reminiscent of the magical Nick Drake tunes. So I figured why not me too.
So would you call yourself a singer-songwriter?
Sure…I do both of those things…
And when it comes to singer-songwriters, inevitably we come back to the black licorice of the Midwest, Conor Oberst. Do you hate him or respect him? There is no middle ground, I’m afraid.
Conor Oberst is a great guy. The three of us should all hang out sometime, if possible.
I’ve actually met and interviewed his former roommate, Joe Knapp of Son, Ambulance, whom you also remind me. So let’s get into St. Agnes. It starts off quietly with tracks like “Supposed to Be” and “So Long in My Life” and then really builds from there. Is that on purpose?
Whatever you end up with after recording is always partially an accident anyways…so you kind of just plug away and see what you come up with. At the end you just try and throw the tunes together in a way that seems to work. The album definitely builds and that just seemed to be the way things best flowed.
I like it like that. Tell me about the song, “You Deserve No Chivalry From Me,” which appears to have a great backstory.
The story of that song is hilarious. While working at Discovery Channel I had been trapped in a position of working with this Diva. She was young and hot and all and every guy at Discovery Channel kissed her ass and followed her around. She basically got whatever she wanted and expected to be treated like royalty. I always ignored her and never put up with her bullshit. One day she was carrying a bunch of tapes and I walked passed her down the escalator. When she got to the bottom she looked at me with tons of distain. At the bottom of the escalator some guy ran up to her and offered to help her with the stack of tapes. She then turned to me exuding with “Divaness” and said, “at least he is a gentleman.” I had had enough of her shit and just blurted out, “You deserve no chivalry from me.” It completely shut her down, and she had no idea how to respond. I thought the psychological judo on her was funny so I sat down and wrote that tune.
You can download Ty Morse’s St. Agnes Eve 12-track debut in its entirety through PayPal here for $1. Yes, one dollar. Check it out.
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