How did you end up with this recording gear working on your songs? Had you been recording on 4 tracks for years?
Yeah. I'm sure my story's pretty similar to a lot of people. I just ended up buying a microphone and a Yamaha MT 100 cassette 4 track. I had this job where I used to make a reasonable amount of money but it didn't leave me with a lot of spare time. I would just work and buy stuff... fill up this bedroom at my parent's house... hoping that one day I could just quit and use it all. I ended up quitting and I got this house with a basement. I think that's when I really started to write songs. The songwriting and the learning of the recording process all bloomed together.
So you weren't even writing or recording much but you accumulated this gear and it all came together?
Yeah, it's kind of weird. The whole recording and songwriting thing... it's almost like they've been siblings. I wasn't like some huge, aspiring songwriter who needed to get their ideas out.
Had you played in bands or wrote songs before?
Uhh... I started out playing drums. I didn't really like the whole "band" thing. I would hear stories about people having to answer ads at music stores... the whole dating service thing. That never appealed to me. The people that are in my band right now are people that were my good friends. People that didn't even know that I played music. I'd rather have a band full of mediocre musicians and be really good friends than where so-and-so commutes from this town and there's all this pressure. Varying degrees of potential career-minded people there.
What led you to start acquiring all the recording gear?
The simplest ideas are what led me to it. I got the 4 track. I would record things and I would go, "Wow. That doesn't sound anything near what these things I do like sound like. What can I do to try and get them to sound a little more like that." That leads to having to read about the different types of gear and what different things do. It's kind of been this ongoing quest to make records that I would want to listen to. I pretty much don't like 80% of the recordings that I've made to date.
Just 'cause you know what you'd change?
Maybe that whole unsatisfied artist-y thing too. You're never gonna be pleased and you're always gonna just try to better your craft. It usually turn out that the stuff that I spend the most time on and really labor over ends up not being anywhere as neat or magical as the stuff that you just kind of plopped out and is riddled with accidents.
You had told me before how trying to work out of a different ("real") studio didn't work out for you. It seems like a lot of what you're working for is avoiding a "pressure" situation.
I think the main thing, which can be said for many facets of life, is the fact that you just need to find out what works. The studio thing was a real good example too because the two people I was working with there were super nice and it was such a pleasant atmosphere and it was just us three the whole day. If anything should have worked it should have been in that sort of atmosphere but... I think I've always tried to be really accommodating. I don't want to bore the shit out of people and I want everything to chug along at a nice pace. I guess it would be my problem, 'cause I should just not give a shit. They're all big boys and they can take care of themselves. The fact that somebody is there and something is taking a long time... you just feel that pressure. You just want to say, "Go away for 3 hours and come back." All of a sudden you're saying go away for another hour and come back. Shit, you might as well say, "Go away all together." I found this really good way to work. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It seems like you want to be left on your own to work everything out. A "studio" obviously isn't the best environment for that.
It seems like the place that I try to get to is kind of this "other-world" that doesn't really exist. When I feel like I've really succeeded is when I feel like I've tapped into this whole transcendence thing. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with people. It's a place that you have to get to. I don't want to start sounding all mystical.
It seems to me, that in a recording session everything becomes organized around the process and not the art.
Salvador Dali would sit there with a spoon in his hand and fall asleep in front of a canvas and as soon as he would drop it and awake he would immediately start painting. If you can have everything all set up and ready to go and hopefully get inspired and then get there as fast as you can. That's the thing I'm trying to shoot for. I'm really good about having notes. I'll have cassette tapes and pieces of paper taped to those cassette tapes. Songs, what I was thinking and what I was trying to get across. Do everything you can to document everything that was going on when the song hit and then you can actually put it away and let it sit. If you're really lucky, you can look back into those notes and you can get right back to that place where you were.
Do you find yourself coming up with stuff when you lay down right before you fall asleep? Do you run down and start recording?
Yeah. I've heard people say that you can't sit around and wait to be inspired. The whole elbow grease thing is so important.
You mean, like when something isn't terribly inspired but to keep working it out?
You don't even know what'll happen from there, though. I read somewhere that Tom Petty said he didn't worry about not being able to remember songs because there'll always be another one. I don't really agree with that too much. One of the best things I did was that I bought this little teeny guitar that I can put behind the seat of my truck and one of those notepads that attaches to the front window and a minicassette player. Sometimes what should have taken me an hour will take 4Ω hours 'cause I'm constantly pulling over to the side of the road. I told myself that I had to take the responsibility to do what it took to document this stuff. I don't always feel like it will be there forever. I see it dissolving and being gone one day.
I doubt that will happen but it's probably a good attitude to take. So where's your studio stuff set up at?
Right now it's in an industrial warehouse space next to cabinet and sign shops. There was two rooms within it already and I just kind of threw a bunch of mattresses up against the walls and a bunch of couch cushions to make the control room not as ridiculous as it was. The bass response was just wacko all over the place.
So that's a temporary setup?
I'm in the process, right now, of relocating but I'm not sure where.
As far as a living and recording space?
Yeah. As a matter of fact I'm living in a tent right now. Our manager has a house and I'm living in this tent for the time being.
Until your tour starts?
Yeah.
So what kind of gear are you using these days?
