If the name “Geoff Byrd” isn’t on your sonic radar yet, don’t worry—it will be. With a successful independent release, a new single, an upcoming coast-to-coast tour, a series of recent cover stories in music industry trades, and top 20-charting on a number of Adult Contemporary radio stations, the unsigned Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter is poised for national success. When that breakout occurs, an event his legions of dedicated fans have no doubt is mere moments away, it will have come by a path never taken before. Byrd is being touted as the first artist to achieve stardom via the internet rather than traditional media channels. With a #1 song on Garageband.com, and impressive support from Live365, MSN Music, and other stream providers, the 29 year-old pop sensation’s incredible momentum has come from people logging on not tuning in. By the time he attracted the attention of conventional radio’s ears, Byrd was already a bona fide phenomenon born of 21st century technology and a trend some say is changing the way we discover new artists. Recently we spoke with Byrd from his home in Portland to find out more about the road he’s traveled and the destinations he’s got in his sights.

Tell us how you got started in music.

I would say high school choir. That was sort of the real beginning. I’ve been singing since I was five years old.. I used to harmonize with my mom in the car, and that’s when she kind of figured out, “Well, I guess he’s got some talent so I guess I should try and nurture that.” My parents were really supportive so I never really thought “Hey, maybe I can’t do this, or maybe I’m going to look foolish.” It was always just like “Of course you can!” I think that helps. Being in a culture that’s supportive always helps. In junior high and high school, I started getting involved with classical music. Really heavily getting into it, signing up for every choir class I could. That taught me to sing properly. I did some band stuff in high school, but not much. And then I went to college, and the day I went to college was the day I started writing songs.

Let’s talk about that. How does a Geoff Byrd song happen?

You know lately, it’s been really interesting because I’m stretching a lot on the new record. I’m writing it right now, and I’m kind of in a zone. I wrote eight songs in two weeks! It’s really cool because it’s hard to get to that space, especially when you’re holding the bar really really high. You know what you’ve done in the past, and you know you (have) to be better than that. So it’s harder for me just to write these songs. But for some reason I got into a period where I was just rolling. I’ve been doing things based on, obviously, what I’m interested in, but one word at a time. Or one phrase at a time. So I’ll just think of words and write them down, and I keep them in a file. They either become a song title, or the subject of a song, or the name of the record. I’ve just been using a word or a phrase, and I have 20 pages of that on my laptop. When I get some chords rolling then I ask myself what I do I really want to say here. What am I really thinking about. What’s really passionate, and what’s pissing me off, and then I delve into that subject.

So in terms of which comes first, the melody or the lyrics, it sounds as if it’s almost a concurrent process.

It’s one of those things where I don’t really have the lyrics come out first, but I need to have a subject. I need to know what I’m actually trying to say. Why would it matter if I wrote this song? How is this therapeutic? (Laughs.) What am I actually pissed off about? What do I need to say. Once that starts then I start in with the chords and melody. I believe melody is king.

What instruments do you compose on? Do you stick to one? Or do you bounce back and forth?

Almost everything I do comes from an acoustic guitar. But I just wrote a piano song the other day. It’s kind of fun. It gives it a little more of a rhythmic hip-hop flavor that I’m trying to incorporate. Something a little more different from our sound, you know… (Plays and sings a sample.) Kind of influenced by Chinese music and then mix that with Prince. That’s what I’m going for with this song. So I have little Chinese chimes and stuff but a real hip-hop beat, and kind of a Prince melody. (Sings the chorus.)

“Before Kings” is your next single. Is that part of this new direction that you’re exploring?

It is. It’s kind of like when (the movie) X-Men came out and right before X-Men 2, they had a X-Men 1.5 come out on DVD. “Before Kings” is kind of my 1.5. It’s still part of the “Candy Shell” thing, but it’s heading in the new direction. So I think we’re going to include Before Kings on a recompiled version of “Candy Shell.” We’re going to put three new tracks on it, including “Before Kings.” We’re going to do all new mixes and mastering, and make sure it’s just as perfect as we can get it. And then we’re going to try to put it out nationally. Get it in all the stores and stuff like that.

Tell us a little bit about the new song.

Before Kings is an interesting song. It came from a dream. A lot of times songs that come from dreams have a little bit of magic or pixie dust on them that you can’t really define. There’s just something about that that’s like tapping into your subconscious on some sort of a spiritual level that you can’t normally get to in cognizant form. I look at songwriting as being an archeologist type thing. You’re searching for dinosaur bones, and at first you take a huge crane or a big piece of equipment and start digging a deep hole. Then eventually you move to shovels and then you have little picks and a hand shovel. And then finally the little brush that you dust away dirt with. The songs are like the dinosaur bones. They’re already there under the ground, and you just to have to search them out and find them. At first, it’s huge scoops and then eventually it’s little minute details and then reworking it and revealing it. So it’s already there in the ground in some sort of realm waiting for you to uncover it rather than you’re necessarily creating it from scratch. It’s kind of a weird theory, but that’s the way it feels.

So “Before Kings” is the 1.5 bridge between your debut release “Candy Shell” and the new record. Are you recording now? Or are you still in the writing phase?

We did Candy Shell and then we recorded three new songs. And we said, “Hey, these should be included on this record when we put it out nationally. Right now it’s the independent artist version, which is as good as we can possible make it, but now we’re going to try and make it even better and plus include three new songs that are forward-leaning. And then put that package out, and when we’re supporting that album, meanwhile I’ve already got another record written that’s a sophomore effort that I feel incredible about. I feel like this is going to be my best version of Sgt. Peppers or Pet Sounds. The album that I really wanted to write is the one that’s dancing around in my head right now, and I feel really really good about some of the stuff that’s coming out as far as stretching myself. Making it better. Taking the bar up. And that’s what I wanted to feel like I was doing regardless of what the critics would think or how people would receive it. I feel really good about it myself, and that’s usually a fairly good indicator that people are going to like it.

You co-edited the video for “Before Kings.” What was that process like?

Strange. I do visual art , too. I’m a painter, and I used to work for Dark Horse Comics as a colorist. I did graphic design and illustration. So part of how I see things is visually. When I’m writing songs I often see colors and kind of see the vision, see the image in my head of what the video might look like as I’m writing the words. Sometimes it helps me to actually get the lyrics. So I’m editing (the video), and I’ve never done it before. It’s a weird process because it’s a totally different language. It’s difficult. But I feel like after doing it that if I did it again I’d be a lot better. So that’s why we’re going to go back and work on it some more. It’s difficult, but it’s really fun, and it’s quick. The decisions are a lot quicker and more immediate than music is sometimes.

It was like zero budget. Like everything we’ve done. (I did my record for $59!) And this video we did for zero. It’s really hard to do that unless you have talented people at every single level. Because I couldn’t do the technical stuff. I would fall flat on my face. But when it comes to creative decisions like editing or coming up with concepts. That’s something that I’m good at. However, this first video I wanted to make it really organic, really vulnerable, really personal. Use a little bit longer cuts maybe than a lot of the MTV stuff. For the next video, you know when we have a budget. I want to add some animation. I want to do some crazy stuff, but we couldn’t afford to do that right now.

You mentioned recording “Candy Shell” for all of $59. How do you record a record for $59?

Basically my producer has his own equipment. So we’re not including equipment because he already had that. And we recorded all of it except for the drums and bass in his house. I mean it was a rickety falling apart used-to-be-an-outdoor-school-cabin house. We had these deflectors and we just kind of jimmy-rigged it to make it sound right. There’s curtains and blankets lying around. On some of that stuff I actually sang in the bathroom. We recorded everything at his house except for drums and bass which were recorded at a professional studio. But they liked what we were doing so much, they gave us free time. But that’s basically only two days we spent in the there. For the rest we spent nine months almost everyday at his house. And some of the songs have over 100 tracks. For instance, backing vocals had four tracks of each part. Anything that’s a textural part in the background, there’s four (tracks) stacked up and we had to make sure it was just absolutely perfectly in sync with each other. And then spread them out, panned out from left to right. That’s one example of an approach with stacking tracks. We ended up with like 40 or 50 background vocals.

You’re perhaps the first artist to come to national prominence through internet airplay on Live365, Garageband and other sites. What’s your take on that?

I think that what’s happened so far has been amazing. Garageband is totally completely behind me. Live 365 is totally behind me. MSN is a bigger company. They’ve done some stuff. They did put me on the front page of MSN, which gets like 20 million hits a day, or something like that, which definitely gave me a little spark. But we were on the Mark and Brian show on (radio station) KLOS and the next day we had 100 CDs sold on line. It was like BAM! Immediately. So I think that traditional media is still bigger than the internet but I think that there’s this really cool thing (happening on the internet). We’ve been really lucky and we’ve gotten really passionate fans. And to be honest with you I don’t have a career unless I have those fans. So I make sure to include them in pretty much everything.

You actually communicate with your fans on your web site’s message board. How important is that to you?

It’s extremely important to me. I think that I’m not really a celebrity. What’s cool about the web is that there’s kind of a mystique about it because I’m an underground guy coming up from the internet, which a lot of people have given me props for. They think it’s very cool because it’s not a traditional approach. But this internet thing has given me people who know about me. To me that’s cool. They send me e-mails that are like, “I’m in the hospital. You’re record is on spin the whole time, and it’s really been healing me.” And I get a lot of e-mails that are real personal. And I answer them all. I think it’s really important until you can’t do it all. Until your time is absolutely nonexistent, I think it’s important to communicate. I answer every single e-mail. I’m the one that fields every e-mail that comes from my web site. It’s not my management team. It’s not anybody else. It’s me, and I also do that on the web board, and I find it really, really, important because you know that if they buy my record and if they support me and come to shows that that’s what’s making me able to do this full time. Period.

What guitars are you playing these days?

The two guitars that I like as far as acoustics go are Martin and Gibson. I love Gibson acoustics and I also have been playing a Martin sunburst, a handmade Martin. At shows I play an Ibanez because when you plug it in, that guitar sounds better than any other guitar. It’s like a $700 guitar and it’s not even solid top. It’s all pieced together but the acoustics are really good and the electronics are really good. When I played with Jem, her guitar player had one. When we played with the Calling, they had the same guitar. All of these people had the same Ibanez. It’s really weird.

How did you discover Elixir Strings?

Elixir Strings have always been my favorite strings. Ever since I started playing acoustic when I was in college. Actually since you guys started your company. Someone told me “Oh, you got to check out these new strings. They last way longer, and they have this really cool glassy sound.” So I said, “Yeah, let me check it out,” and I literally never went back. So it’s one of those things where it’s always been my favorite string and I always bought them. And then when Elixir said that they wanted to sponsor me, I was completely stoked.

You’ve said that “Pet Sounds” is a favorite record of yours. Have you heard Brian Wilson’s new “Smile” release?

I’m purposefully waiting until I’m done with writing this record. Because I want to be able to totally completely enjoy it. I want that record to influence my next record after this one. Because this one’s almost done, and I want listen to Smile when I have a clear head and clear ears because I’ve heard it’s awesome. I’m like two maybe three songs away from being done with this next record and at that point I’m going to start listening and gaining influences again. I go through periods of not listening to music at all and then listening to stuff really intently.

Are you listening to anything these days? Or are you in one of the non-listening periods?

I’m listening to the new Green Day record, which I think is phenomenal. It’s really good. I love Billie Joe. He’s one of those people that’s totally completely himself. He’s a brilliant guy, and he’s a great under-rated singer. Under-rated big time. I’m kind of known as a real accurate singer live, kind of a singer’s singer, classically trained. And I’m telling you… That guy? He’s a really under-rated singer. He’s always in tune. He’s got a great snotty tone. And he’s phenomenal. I’m also listening to Good Bye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. I can’t stop listening to the song “Harmony.” He had me from the first word, “Hello”. As soon as I heard that, I said I have to listen to that about 500 times. I can’t help it. I don’t know if it’s autism, or if there’s something wrong with me! I’m probably a little bit obsessive compulsive, but I’ll listen to (a song) over and over again until it sinks into my soul.

You have a tour coming up. Are these new cities that you’re heading into?

Yes. Because we’ve mainly tapped into a West Coast thing. You know, we’ve done really well in Portland. And we’ve done really well in Seattle and L.A. and San Francisco. And we just played New York for the first time. So we are going to play California, but we’re going to play places like Sacramento and Bakersfield, try some new places. But also go to Atlanta, Boston, New Orleans, Nashville.

It sounds like a very exciting time to be Geoff Byrd.

You know the bottom line is that I’m hanging out with my best friends, and we’re going all over the country and playing music and developing really good fans that are amazing. I can’t tell you how dedicated my fans are. They’ll fly and drive from Portland to go down to L.A. and Las Vegas. There were some of them that even ended up in New York. Pretty soon we’re looking to do the Good Morning America Show and I think that will give us a really good spark going into this tour. But like I said, I’m really happy. I’m not making very much money! But I’m extremely happy. And I’m doing what I love to do . So if it never goes beyond this, I’m still living the dream baby.