Gregory Page is one of San Diego’s best signer-songwriters, and a very prolific one at that with almost 2-dozen albums in his discography.
He has worked with some of San Diego most well known artists and has experienced events that very few can claim to witness. I recently sat down with Page to discuss everything from his beginnings in London, how his mother opened for the Beatles back in the day, to watching those around him rise to fame.

Mesa Press: So you came from a fairly musical family. Did you ever feel any pressure to play music from your parents?
Gregory Page: There was never any pressure. It’s interesting; no one has ever asked me a question about the pressure. It was just [pauses] pick an instrument day, you know? “Play something like you like.” Naturally it was guitar. I think my second choice would have been piano, but it was guitar. Classical guitar. I studied classical guitar at Trinity College, which is a satellite college just outside of London that my mom would take me to every week. I studied music theory and I would always, even as a kid and a teenager, when I was playing this music I would add in my own little bits. That’s a no-no in classical music. You just read and play. It’s very much repetition. So even then, I had the spark of trying to manipulate and create outside of the realm of classical music. Now I did write some of my own little pieces just privately to myself. Just instrumental music, way before writing a song. The idea of writing and composition was always first and foremost in my mind.

MP: Your mom’s band opened for The Beatles?
GP: The band was called the Beatchicks, and there is limited information up online about her band. It was an all girl band. They traveled all over Europe and opened for Johnny Cash [pauses] I mean her band opened for a lot of other bands, but opening for The Beatles was just a huge break. In 1965, they opened for the only two times The Beatles played in Spain; in Madrid and Barcelona. It was a crazy time. My mom was singing and playing bass, and writing songs for this group. They had a small hit called “You’re gone”. It never made them famous, but it gave them work.

MP: When you moved to America, did you come straight to California?
GP: We went to Chicago first, and the came to San Diego right after that.

MP: You were sixteen at that point, right? Was that a hard transition for you?
GP: You know, I might have been even fourteen when that happened. I was really young when I came here in 1976. As a kid, I liked California. I liked it more then than I do now, you know what I’m saying? I feel like as an adult it’s a difficult place. I mean, San Diego is a great city with all these great things to do outside, but I honestly feel that, as an artist, this is the hardest place to create. It’s hard to make a living in any climate, but for some reason there’s something about this particular climate that makes it extra hard. That’s why I think I write and I created when I’m away. I write my records when I’m either on tour or away from San Diego.

MP: You wrote your most recent record that’s available, Bird In A Cage, while on tour in Australia. The one before that, Love Made Me Drunk, was written in–
GP: That was written in Paris. It wasn’t before Bird In A Cage, but it was released in 2005. Every album recently, outside of that one, was written in Australia. This latest record I’m working on, Songs In Black And White, was written completely in Australia.

MP: Would you say that your travels have a lot on influence on your songs?
GP: Yeah. It’s like my eyes aren’t as open in my familiar places. But if you’re walking down streets you’ve never been down before, or you’re in a town you just don’t belong in, it’s just a different energy. My ears are more open. I’m more receptive to certain things. I don’t take a cell phone or a laptop, so I have absolutely no distractions. I take a little recorder like the one you have here. When I get back here I have tons of shit to do. I could be on the computer all day or talk on the phone all day. It’s not really that conducive to creating. So maybe it’s just about San Diego; maybe it’s just about being around familiar things.

MP: You’ve worked with some pretty recognizable names in the music industry. Do you enjoy collaborating and writing as a duo, or do you prefer doing it by yourself?
GP: It’s not something that I seek out. They’re mostly just friends that I’ve kind of just at a bar with over the years and played shows together. I suspect that in a city like Nashville, there’ a lot of people being put together because of their record or because of their biography or whatever they’ve done. There’s a lot of paring up, which is fine if that’s the way that it worked out. But in my world, the people I’ve come in contact with throughout the years, I’ve gotten to know them on the way up. You know, I shared a rehearsal space with Eddie Vedder [of Pearl Jam] and his band and my band played together all the time. But I remember the day he moved to Seattle. I remember Jewel came to town and was working in a coffee shop. Her and I were truckin’ around together. But the one that I’ve stayed really close with is Jason [Mraz]. Him and I have worked together over the years, and I gave him his first show in San Diego when he came in 2000, maybe even 1999. I ended up recording his album before he went to Atlantic [Records], and years later he wound up recording my record. I actually just talked to him a couple days ago. I’m always fascinated with his rise, you know? His rise was very stable, and I think that’s what’s kept him so grounded. Whereas somebody like Jewel, she shot up out of the cannon real quick. I don’t know if she knew how to keep friends with some of the people that were her friends, like her anchor friends I suppose. She did stay friends with, I think, Steve Poltz. You know. you’re friends with them for a while and then you’re not. This is not just successful people, but in life. It’s like there’s a wind that just blows them away from you for a while, and then blows you together. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve worked on some great records. My friend Tom Brosseau, I’ve made five albums with this guy, and he’s like a critically acclaimed songwriter and NPR [National Public Radio] darling. Him and I are best friends. He’s always been there. I’ve worked with A.J. Croce. I’ve sang, and written and recorded with him, and he’s recorded with me.

MP: You mentioned that you helped Jason record an album. Are you involved with the recording process on your own albums, or do you just stand behind the microphone and let someone else do it?
GP: When I started to write music, recording and writing came together you know? Like, I had a four-track cassette recorder. So I’ve always been fascinated with recording and producing, which is kind of a bogus term anyway. I mean bogus in the sense that if you have a rolodex full of some talented musicians, you’re calling them in to play some parts, they’re going to make that producer sound amazing. Maybe that producer has a way of being able to produce because they know a lot of musicians, and they come in and the guy might direct traffic. Myself as a producer, I just kind of stay back; I don’t have a sound [as a producer]. But as far as being a technically geeky kind of an engineer or recording guy, I never really embraced gear and I never really embraced the computer. I think that’s what eventually moved me out of making a living being a producer and engineer, because I never really learned ProTools or Digital Performer. I’m just not a technical guy.

MP: In October of 2008, you had announced that you were done with making music. What happened?
GP: [laughs] You know, that was a little bit taken out of context, but I did honestly say that Bird In A Cage was my last album. And I solely did it because I believed that my pattern of making records, I mean I’ve made 21 records and probably about that many for other people. So I’m constantly recording and I’m constantly in a studio or some sort of production mindset. In doing that, a record would be made and then pressed, and then a record would be made and then pressed. There was never any promotion. There was never any getting it out other than a few local stores. There was never any ability to even get it heard. I had some really lovely albums that I made that never anything happened to. I think I sold only 2 or 3 hundred copies of them. It was just a pattern I’ve gotten myself into. So with Bird In A Cage, I really wanted to stop. And I knew that since I wasn’t on the computer I could stop recording; I stopped taking production gigs; I dismantled my studio; and I wanted just to say “That’s it. This is my last album.” And this will give a chance to promote Bird In A Cage. I honestly believed that at the moment. I didn’t think I was going to write or record for a very long time. Writing for me is like, I don’t write all the time, although I have the appearance of being a very prolific writer. I write in seasons, like this the time that I write and this is the time that I don’t write. When I went to Australia, I didn’t think I was going to write. There was forty shows booked in two months. I mean, there was a boat-load of work to do. I didn’t think I’d be sitting there writing. I didn’t go there to write. But inevitably, out of adversity and out of the weirdness of the first month there, I just escaped back to writing. Before I knew it, I had five songs written. I didn’t even know what songs I had written that I wrote just to write. And then I wrote a couple more. By the time I came back to America, I sat down with these songs, which I hadn’t even played at or looked at, and I realized that I had an album. And I realized the songs, especially a couple of them were really special. And I though “Well screw it, I’ll make another album.”

MP: Well I’m glad that you did.
GP: [laughs] Good! Thanks.