Born Mike Goulet, but prefers to hide behind the moniker Sanity Inn. The name was derived from “insanity” during a period he wanted relief, a place to escape, “if you will. Its about music more than Mike,” he states, “a secure place to visualize during the rough times, or cleaning day, or party night. A “place” that makes one feel the most comfortable for the time or duration one needs. Sanity Inn (the place)– Music is the rooms in the inn; each room represents the song to which we listen to reach the emotion we are feeling.”
Growing up seven hours north of Toronto, Canada, in the small mining town of Elliot Lake, with a father that dabbled with playing the piano, organ, saxophone, clarinet, drums, and guitar… all these instruments were there and available for Sanity Inn.
Beginning with the piano, Sanity began writing “sucky” songs through his teenybopper years. He didn’t “get into” the guitar until around the age of 14 when he bought his first 12 string acoustic, a ElDegas; with a Gibson Marauder 6 string Electric joining the collection a short time later, “and the guitar phase began”. Sanity headed off to college near Niagara Falls at around seventeen years of age thinking he would become an electronic technician, but figured out that wasn’t his “thing.”
He began going through what he calls the “campfire phase,” where he would learn the basic chords of a songs he liked, but due to lack of chord knowledge never got around to learning the whole song. One of his greatest regrets is never sticking to music lessons. Around 1994, Sanity got more serious about his playing and song writing when a relationship ended; he began writing what he describes as a “therapy song.” Upon sharing it with a buddy, Sanity was talked into going to a studio to record the song Deception Queen. While recording that track, Sanity learned what one writes and how it turns out can be completely different. With no band to work with Sanity had to hire out parts of the song. It turned out, unbeknown at the time, that some very talented people were hired. Seppo Salminen produced and played drums, and Marc Cooper played lead. Luck brought that caliber of artist to his first attempt at recording, and Deception Queen along with what he calls “a writing craze” was the result. This event changed everything for Sanity, even the way he enjoyed his stereo; he left the studio hearing music in a totally different way. Sanity began wondering about how they did a sound “this way,” gave it “that effect,” and gave him ideas about layering. Basically, the production end opened its door and he began slowly gravitating toward production because he suffers a fear of performing. A heart pounding, hand shaking, brow sweating, almost paralyzing fear of performing in public, enough fear that many times he walked into a club, guitar in hand, for open mic night, and walked out again before his chance to perform.
Asking Mike (Sanity) about influences for his music, he responded:
Influences, I read this somewhere, hate to misquote, but can’t recall who to credit. “Beethoven said: good composers borrow, great ones steal.” I guess this is looked at two ways by me. (A) You can blatantly go rip off a song, part of a song, or lyrics. (B) You can be influenced by the song. Hear a chord progression done slightly differently and it sticks inside your head; brewing inside you unknowingly. I guess this is where the artist influences come into play, and of course there’s another point. There are only so many notes and how many songs? Someone’s bound to repeat a phrase without influences involved. I think I have a tendency to write music that is geared towards relationships and observations of them. I try not to make it direct and leave ambiguity in it so listeners can apply their own reasoning behind it. Case in point, when I wrote Deception Queen it was obvious what my pain was, but I had a friend tell me she listened to this religiously because of the line, “you always said you loved me, but never when you look into my eyes”. Her mom was an alcoholic and when she did say she loved her it was through blood shot eyes. It makes me feel great that a song that was therapy for me has done the same for someone else, only in a whole different situation. I know that what you go through in life is generally what you write about. My songs reflect my historical view of how I see it, and how I lived it. Ya know what? Maybe one day there will be a few happy ones.
A big thank you for sharing our space Sanity. We hope to see you rocking The Rainbow's Poet Club's stage this year with one of the great sets you have the secret. See you Sanity and take care :)
Thanks very much for accepting us. It..s a pleasure to invite you to our website to listen to our rock in Spanish; our first work is “La Casa de Dios” (2005), but actually we..re recording the second album, we..ll put some very soon
http://www.ozono3.net
Thanks very much again and good luck, we hope you enjoy it. Greetings from the South of Spain :)
