Q: Do the visuals influence the songwriting process? Or are the visuals planned/done after the song is essentially written?
A: well, think of it this way, .... there would be no visuals planned BETWEEN the time of song writing and the time of song recording. after the song recording, that is when the visuals happen. but some things were probably obvious during the songwriting process. (i.e. 'lemon song' probably should have a lemon in the video). But here's a new twist that i've found: if you try to come up with visuals at the same time as writing the song, it actually helps you write the song. Even if that visual is not even used.... even if you dont even come up with any specific visual ...... just telling yourself to activate the part of your brain that thinks of visuals, for some reason it makes the songwriting 10x more potent. even if no visual is thought of, it tricks your brain into going to the right place. just to pretend you are supposed to be coming up with the visual. so in other words, when you're writing a song, pretend you're writing a video. it doesn't even matter if you even make a video, just tell your brain you're writing a video, and often you won't even come up with any visual but it still jumpstarts the songwriting when you think that way. hopefully i've explained it. i started doing that with 'best friends with my own front door', and i've been using that trick ever since. it's like opening the door to the next room, to help give you perspective on the room you are in