Billy Mack Collector, a staple in the DIY community with a truly impressive discography going back over a decade, has released another album, Searching for the Pink Elephant. I remember when his previous album, The Boys/The Job came out, and I remember feeling so excited at having found this artist and his work. A lot of his music feels like it would fit perfectly as the soundtrack to a coming-of-age movie, the kind that would make me cry every time I watched it. I find myself putting on his music whenever I’m driving, especially now that it’s autumn and golden yellow and red leaves are covering the ground – there’s something about his sound and tonality that makes his music perfect for autumn-inspired introspection.
Billy Mack Collector is not just an incredible musician – he is also a force of kindness and encouragement in the DIY scene. He lifts others up and celebrates them so often, and now I want to celebrate him and his music because his music is just that good, and he has brought such positive energy to the scene. He is a force of light and I am just so, so excited about this album. In Searching for the Pink Elephant, Billy Mack Collector collaborated with two other musicians/bands, CARACARA (a band that I’ve loved for a long time) and Rayne Blakeman, who has a truly beautiful voice. The collaborations and added sounds give so much to this album and it’s really cool to see how everything blended the way that it did.
Searching for the Pink Elephant is a journey of ten tracks and almost twenty-nine minutes, with the song “Pink Elephant” being the first track, and also one of my favorites from this album. Billy Mack Collector utilizes a lot of different sounds in his work, including brass instruments, a bongo drum sound, and many different styles of guitar. In “Pink Elephant”, Billy Mack Collector starts off the album with a punch straight to the heart. The guitar in this track drives it forward, and what is either a xylophone or a glockenspiel adds a sweetness to the melody. Some of the lyrics in this track, namely when Billy Mack Collector sings “pink elephant in the snow, what do you know, what do you know?”, has been stuck in my head since I first heard the track, and honestly, I won’t mind if it never leaves the turntable of my brain. It is such a sweet-sounding song, such a fun track, and goodness, I am just obsessed with it.
Another track that I love is “You’re A Liar!”, which, as you’ll see in the interview below, contains a lot of really cool theming, but also is just beautiful in terms of both sound and lyrisicm. I’m obsessed with all of the brass sounds that help punctuate the song – they add so much auditory interest and so much depth. Billy Mack Collector talks about this track in the interview that I was lucky to do with him, and it’s really cool to read about some of the behind-the-scene things with this track, where he describes the bridge of the song as an “odd-timed ska influenced section that is supposed to sound like cars zooming by you after being in a crash”, which I think is very interesting. The vocals in this track contain more than one voice, including Billy Mack Collector himself and Rayne Blakeman, and together their voices add so much depth and Rayne Blakeman’s voice, being lighter, helps punctuate Billy Mack Collector’s vocals in a super interesting way. Seriously, give this track a listen.
When I interviewed Billy Mack Collector, it took me a little bit to think of exactly what to ask him. He’s been a powerful force in the DIY community since I became a part of it and it almost felt like trying to ask the president interview questions – what could I say that hasn’t been said before? What could I ask that would make this interview really interesting? And even though I mulled over the questions long and hard, it was Billy Mack Collector’s thoughtful responses that make this interview as cool as it is. Take a look at some of the different things that went into this album:
Valor: Searching for the Pink Elephant is an amazing album – how did you feel upon completing it?
Billy Mack Collector (BMC): Thank you! It was almost surreal to finish it. Some of these songs have been percolating and being tweaked for over four years. It’s a huge relief though. The album feels both like a mission statement and a palate cleanser for me. It’s a public setting of intentions. The album is about finding joy and hope through sadness and it feels good to put a positive but honest piece of art into the world. I feel like my last few have been more along the lines of wallowing in sadness – which has its place – but this is the energy I want to put out there.
Valor: What track was the most challenging? What track was the most rewarding to complete?
BMC: I think Clumsy Monotone was the hardest for me. I originally wrote it as an acapella song. It is deeply personal and vulnerable and I felt like I had to handle the song carefully to have it not feel overwrought. I originally wrote it with a drum machine and a bunch of cheesy midi sounds and recruited a bunch of musicians to bring it together with sounds that closer matched my dream for it. It went through A LOT of interactions. You’re a Liar! was also very rewarding to complete. I’ve had a deep love for 5/4 time signatures for a long long time and I think this song has the most groovy usage of it I’ve ever written.
Valor: Albums take inspiration from a lot of places – what is your favorite piece of inspiration that went into the album?
BMC: I brought influences from food into the album. Broccoli Rabe is literally written from the point of view of Broccoli Rabe. Potato Brain is another food song, but my (at the time) 5 year old son helped me write the last lines of each phrase. You’re a Liar! has a musical bridge that’s an odd-timed ska influenced section that is supposed to sound like cars zooming by you after being in a crash. There’s influence from writings on urban planning and third spaces throughout the album. There’s a lot going on here.
Valor: Are there any musicians or bands that you took a lot of inspiration from in the creating of Searching for the Pink Elephant?
BMC: This album was fun for me because instead of mostly wearing my folk influences on my sleeve, I used every musical inspiration I could think of. Repeating phrases with slight melodic variation influenced by Don Caballero, Cheeky MiDi and electronic songs with weird rhythmic shifts influenced by 100 gecs, Low Tone intricate grooves influenced by Pinback, Droning detuned sounds influenced by Slint.
Valor: You worked with other bands/musicians on multiple tracks. What’s your favorite track from the collaborations?
BMC: I’m also fond of songs that take people who never met each other from disparate locations and puts them together to create something unlikely. I think, for that reason, the vocals on Pink Elephant may be my favorite. I connected more than 5 musicians who hadn’t met before to sing the whole song and their voices create this homey, comforting, but offkilter chorus and I’m so thrilled with how it came together.
Valor: You have been releasing music for over a decade – what’s been your favorite moment from any of the releases?
BMC: I think the most exciting moment of releasing music for me was when my song “City Without Limits Theme Song” was covered over 90 times by people who had never heard the song and were just sent the chords and lyrics. I then released it and used the buzz to crowd fund a coffee shop/art gallery/venue/community space and ran it for over 3 years. Truly an unusual experience. The “Billy Mack Collector Covers” album was a gift from a bunch of friends when my children were born. Finding that in my inbox made me cry true tears of joy and feel a level of appreciation I never have known before. That will always hold a special place in my heart as well.
Valor: If you had to say that Searching for the Pink Elephant was an animal, what animal would it be? If an elephant is your first choice, what’s a secondary animal it would be?
BMC: Oh, It’s definitely an elephant. But it could also be a whale. Huge, Elusive, Stunning, But also with a sense of grace and gentleness.
Valor: f you had to assign the album a color palette, what would it be? Feel free to use pictures to describe it!
BMC: It’s album that is mostly white – as in, absent of color. But every song brings a vivid set of hues to the proceeding. I see it with lots of bright pictures with thick black outlines. Like a cartoon draw by a child – Which the album cover represents. Lots of Pink too of course.
Searching for the Pink Elephant is such a powerful, incredible album. It’s almost like a Trojan horse – you don’t expect it to hit you as hard as it does, and then when you’ve finished the album, you’ve got multiple new songs stuck in your head and you’re trying to figure out if Spotify will let you queue up an artist’s entire discography. Billy Mack Collector never stops creating powerful art. He is an incredibly talented songwriter that packs a punch with his lyricism and his instrumentals. It goes back to the album sounding like it’s from a coming-of-age movie – as I prepare for two new, big steps in my life, moving to another state and getting married, when I hear this track, I keep looking at the orange leaves on the trees outside my bedroom window and daydreaming about what it’ll be like when I leave this city for another one, and when I have that day that a lot of girls dream about from the time they’re kids. Billy Mack Collector encapsulates so many powerful emotions into both his lyrics and into the sounds themselves, and as the world around me changes and shifts, I’m so happy that I have the perfect soundtrack to put with it.
Written by Valor
