When did you begin recording yourselves?
Justin: Winter of 97/98. Replikants and Long Hind Legs on a Tascam. That was at the old house with different equipment. We began recording here about a year ago. Vern: As soon as we were finished putting up the walls, which was March of last year. In fact, the guy who helped us get set up came here to an empty room, and by the end of the day we were getting drum sounds.
Did you have an electrician put in the wiring?
Justin: The guy who helped us build the walls kind of knows everything, so he put in a ground.
Vern: Put everything on two different circuits. We still need to put the live room on a separate circuit though.
So the toaster oven doesn't come through the guitar amps?
Vern: I don't really notice that too much.
Justin: We both get a weird knocking thing though. That's the ghost. It starts knocking on the wall, and then through our amps.
Was there a murder here?
Vern: We haven't figured that out yet.
Justin: No, but its not a malevolent one. It just likes to play funny little tricks.
So why record yourselves? After doing six albums with Steve Fisk why take this approach?
Justin: We learned a lot by working with Fisk and Vern already had some equipment which we wanted to set up. Not necessarily to record an Unwound record, just to use. But then it came time to start thinking about a new one and we all wanted to create different circumstances.
Vern: Originally we were planning on recording basic ideas so we would have a better idea of what to do when we went to a big studio, but the longer we did that the more we realized how it was all coming together.
Justin: Yeah, and this way we could spend as long as we want recording without having to worry about cost. And do things we had talked about for years. Then it expanded into, "Hey, we can record anything, any band, blah-blidy-blah," and the whole production aspect is under our control.
Vern: And instead of paying someone a bunch of money and only having a record done, this way we can end up with a studio as well.
How does recording yourselves affect the creative process? Being in your own home, and being able to work as long as you want, does it affect the music?
Justin: Definitely. We can record ideas, give it a few days, and then decide if something isn't working. This way we have a lot more time to filter out the bad ideas. [laughs]
Brandt: You think a lot more about permanence when your not in this kind of situation. You feel like everything has to be done before you go to the studio, whereas working here you can be a lot more contemplative and not feel pressured. There is always the possibility of approaching something in a totally different way.
Vern: We would let things sit for a couple weeks and then listen back to them which is a total luxury.
Justin: Normally that's only for people with a million dollar budget! But now that technology is so available, with digital recording and everything, it's easier for people to do it themselves.
Brandt: You can surprise yourself more too. There have been a lot of situations where I didn't know something could sound so good. It's possible to totally expand your horizons and get a good sounding song. You just have to use your ears.
So is the new Unwound material more pieced together?
Justin: Its almost the same [guitar, bass, and drums] but then we could add to it.
But it wasn't like lay down one riff and then come back later and add in some other idea?
Justin: There are only a couple like that. We actually wanted to do more that way, but we kept writing new songs. I mean its already a double album, did we want a quadruple? [chuckles]
Vern: Now that this is done we will probably do more of the patched together thing in the future. More orchestrated.
Justin: Getting a taste of it, its a really fun way to write. That's how we did the Replikants record — just lay one thing down, listen to it, and figure out how to make it into a song. Especially after playing in punk rock bands for years.
Brandt: It can be really liberating!
Vern: There is one song on the new record, "One Lick Less", where we just had a guitar part and then built from there. I don't think you can even hear the original part except at the beginning of the song.
Justin: Yeah, that's the most "studio" one. A lot of it is mix down too. I don't know how we are going to pull it off live. [laughs] You know, we're getting the backing chorus, a guy playing lyre, the bongo guy.
So how do you know when a song is complete? It seems like by having an unlimited amount of time it would be hard to know when a song was done.
Justin: Well, working on an 8-track is kind of a limitation.
It kept things from getting out of hand?
Justin: [laughs] No, it didn't do that! But at a point a song would become so dense that one of us would just say, "Stop, that's enough already." I mean we could have kept going, but you wouldn't have been able to hear anything anymore.
Brandt: I think it's a good thing to have limitations. It forces you to communicate more. I used to think this was a cheesy way to write songs, like Lennon/McCartney or something, but now I realize that's the way you make a recording sound good.
Justin: If we could take a time machine back ten years, and we were little miniature people eaves dropping on our conversations now we would be absolutely appalled. But now we can articulate our ideas better and communicate them to each other.
One thing I noticed on the new record is how different the drums sound in relation to the guitars. They are less like big rock drums and more homemade sounding.
Justin: Some of the drum sounds that come out of big studios sound really unnatural.
Brandt: Yeah, our ears have been trained to think that is how drums should sound on a rock record. Which is fine, but I think these guys used the limitations of the 8-track to their advantage. Getting interesting sounds rather than, ahh, hmm...
Justin: Killer sounds. [laughs]
So how were they done?
Justin: We just experimented with what we had. Sometimes just using overheads, or a mic in the middle of the room. Other times micing the whole kit up tight. Phil Ek [Tape Op #29] and Kip Beelman helped some too, and they had their own ideas. We didn't move the mics around much, but they did.
How did you guys deal with Vern's bass sound?
Vern: It was actually easier here, and I don't know why. I think we got better bass sounds here then anywhere else which is pretty amazing. I just used my same live sound, and it just worked. Some songs I plugged straight into the board.
