Wiktor Fejkiel: After three years after your debut “OK BOOMER”, it’s time for your second album – “Kaprysy i Ruminacje”. What are your feelings?
Patryk Pietrzak: – Every time I release something, I feel the same excitement as at the beginning. In the case of an album, it also often has the dimension of new hope, which is very uplifting.
Do you feel pressure and high expectations from listeners after your well-received debut?
– No, I rather create pressure on myself. I’ve never had the “second album syndrome” either. I didn’t feel that way before when I was releasing records with the band. It may be that there was no situation in which the first one made an incredible success. I just never felt like I had to jump over myself. I treat releasing albums as a natural progression in the creative process.
How much has your approach to making music solo changed since four years ago?
– “Caprices and Ruminations” is an album that made me wonder for a long time whether to continue the nomenclature of solo activity. In fact, the entire album was created in close cooperation with another person – my brother – as producer. However, we came to the conclusion that these songs are so personal that I will release them as solo songs. At the end of the day, these are my songs and my lyrics. The composition was different, because sometimes I wrote them to ready-made music, and sometimes I brought a composition concept myself. This is how my approach to releasing music as a solo artist changed. The entire work on “Caprices and Ruminations” was much more intimate and homely than the previous one.
What emotions do you want to convey in “Caprices and Ruminations”?
– This album is a record of a period in my life that, fortunately, is now passing. I didn’t plan to create a concept album, but it turned out that way. It is the story of the formation and breakdown of a relationship with another person. Listening to it now, I see that it is the record of a desperate man. I’m surprised that I survived all this, because I remember very clearly the emotions that accompanied me with each song.
“Caprices and Ruminations” show how feelings for another person were born and then how they fell apart, along with all the difficulties when you are the rejected side. With this album, I would like to draw attention to the experience of emotions, especially by men, in the modern world, which we still have a problem with. We are often expected to hide certain feelings, which then has unhealthy consequences. We should take care of our mental health and allow our emotions to flow through us, regardless of gender. This album is my personal story, but I hope someone will find solace in it. For me it will also be a confrontation with myself, because I decided to come out to people and not hide it. “Caprices and Ruminations” is a record of the time and emotions I had to go through, while at the same time seeking professional help to deal with it all, and I’m glad I can talk about it.
What did the creative process itself, writing lyrics for this album, teach you?
– First of all, I understood the importance of working through these problems before I start talking to anyone about them. I am in a therapy process that – let’s be honest – saved my life. I couldn’t survive this rejection, I wanted to understand what deficits I had in myself. Which in shaping my personality made me suffer in an unimaginable way. Why is my psyche so structured that it can’t shake itself off and move on? I realized that I had to put it into songs because it was the next step in working through these things. Just like writing and releasing this album. Only when it was created, when we chose the songs, did I really understand why I was creating it at all.
The lack of guests at “Caprices and Ruminations” is due to the intimacy of this project?
– I didn’t avoid them on purpose. My brother and I talked while we were working about whether we should invite someone or do a collab, but somehow our work went so well that it didn’t happen. We just didn’t push for it. For me, this album has some essence that says everything about the emotions associated with it, but I didn’t see any space for anyone to write their lyrics on it. However, there are musical guests, such as Paweł Cieślak, who recorded beautiful clarinets. Marianna’s cello and Igor’s saxophone also appear. So instrumentally the guests appear.
When promoting this album, you focused on four songs – “More”, “Maczugi”, “Chyba” and “Hieny”. Are these the songs that, in your opinion, best reflect the atmosphere of this album?
– There is a certain chronology written in them, which became clear to me only now, during the release of the album. It wasn’t intentional at first. However, I see that all these songs have their own key.
The first one, “More”, captures the moment when you still hope that the relationship will work out and that things will end happily. But already then I was in a spiral of emotions that I got to know during therapy. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that you become addicted to, similar to the one-armed bandit syndrome – you win once and it intoxicates you, motivating you to continue playing. In “More” you are still in the middle of this storm of emotions, addicted to the act of playing, to the feeling that maybe something will work out after all.
I wrote the second single, “Maczugi”, in February, when I was at the beginning of the process of recovering from this state. It was a time when I tried to distract myself from the emotional chaos by working on the album. It was my form of therapy – I threw myself into work so as not to lose control of myself. “Maczugi” is a song that helped me remember who I am when I rejected my needs in favor of saving others. It was about rebuilding yourself.
Then came “Chyba”, which I wrote in one night, after “Maczugi” had already been released. This was my final release. After months of isolation and bed rest, “I guess” was the moment when I came out to people and the world for the first time in a long time. It is a musical record of coming out of the emotional shell, from what I call Dracula – living as if in a coffin, being locked in your apartment.
Finally, we have “Hyenas”, which I would call post-traumatic. The clip shows the process of recovering from trauma and allowing yourself to experience positive emotions after a long period of isolation. It’s a story about how you slowly start opening up to life and other people, even though you’ve had your emotions closed off for months. In “Hyenas” I go back to those first moments when I managed to get out of this emotional quagmire and start enjoying life again.
I didn’t plan this order, but now, in hindsight, I see that each of these singles accurately reflects the process I was going through.
“Caprices and Ruminations”, as you yourself mentioned, was co-created with you by your brother – Olek. How did your cooperation go? Did the fact that you are family help you get along or did it hinder you?
– It was a collaboration in which my brother is listed as the producer of all the material. We often started with a loop that Olek created, and then we composed a song together. So the process of creating subsequent songs was quite organic. The album was created entirely in our homes – mine and my family’s. If we weren’t a family, I don’t know what this cooperation would look like, because our emotional connection and common sensitivity helped us a lot. I didn’t have to explain my emotions to him – he just knew what and how, because we experienced the same moments as a family. I could be completely honest without censoring myself, which allowed me full creative freedom. Often we didn’t even have to talk because everything was implicit. Of course, there were also arguments, because emotions in our family are very intense – both positive and negative. But we always went back to work quickly as if nothing had happened. This connection was crucial, without it this album would not have been created. He was the main driving force behind this cooperation.
What are your plans after the album’s release?
– By the end of the year there will be two concerts strictly with “Caprices and Ruminations”. We have also played support for the Coma band in Wrocław and at Spodek in Katowice. We are planning a tour for next year, where we will play a lot of club concerts. It will be definitely more energetic playing. I also invite everyone to these concerts!