I have a few shots taken from this one session with the Thunderbird Family, the greatest indie folk band no one’s ever known. I’ll continue release more photos from the session as time goes on because I love the way the film came out on my old Nikon camera (which has since broken thanks to my naive trust of American Airlines). This felt like the right one to start with.
This is my old college roommate Ned Sedlak! Ned’s the man! He’s kept himself in the business since graduation working at Sony BMG and Warner/Chapel out in LA until moving on over to NYC to be a Production/Marketing Coordinator at tinyOGRE Entertainment. Ned’s a bad ass.
In this picture, Ned’s jammin’ out on the flute during an awesome session that took place in my old apartment at 1111 Boylston St right across from Berklee. That place was so filthy it was beautiful. He was the ‘utility’ guy of The Thunderbird Family, playing guitar, flute, and saxophone.
Careful, or Mike’s smooth voice and sexy innuendo’s about Christmas will get you.
Does this groove remind you at all of ‘Dick In A Box’? There had to be some inspiration pulled from Michael McDonald…with a little Boyz II Men and Bobby Brown thrown in the mix.
Don’t you know that things go in cycles? Something that was cool twenty years ago suddenly becomes cool today. What I love about this video is that neither tap dancing, bass solos, turtlenecks nor Arsenio Hall are cool today…yet this video will still blew my skirt up in ways I didn’t expect for a Tuesday morning.
SIDE NOTE: Are up-skirt paparazzi photos of wasted celebrities like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears the modern day equivalent of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Seven Year Itch moment?
This video looks like it’s a complete improv between Stanley Clarke and Gregory Hines, two dudes who I have always known I was supposed to think are cool, but didn’t know how to get there. After watching this video, I’m pretty sure I understand a big sliver of why. I could be bias, but I gotta give Stanley the edge on this one. Killer playing on his part and I’ve seen better from Ole’ Greg.
This video is lifted from the start of the documentary Before The Music Dies.Somehow this clip found its way in front of me again. I don’t know, probably Reddit. If you’ve got the time, give it a dedicated watch. The movie came out about five or six years ago and it is a warning cry about the trend away from talent in the music industry. Alarming.
That’s not why I posted this video though! I have faith in Music still, despite that documentary. I posted this video because Billy Preston is a certified bad-ass. Look at that dude go! The day I am as cool as Billy Preston will be…never.
What you’re watching here is a very, very talented presentation of what it feels like to be free.
About two months ago I met with a guy named Nathan Navarro on behalf of Source Audio to put a new pedal in his hands. He had sent in some videos that he had done with the Hot Hand and we loved his work. He’s a great dude, a solid player, and he’s dedicated to putting himself out there. He’s a real tastemaker; someone whose choices influence others. Essentially, we figured that the cost of giving him the pedal was worth the potential upside of him, well, using it.
We had a lot of faith in Nathan, but apparently we underestimated him. About a month after our meeting, he came out with a video using Source Audio pedals that went viral, passing the 1 million view mark in less than three weeks after its release. Within days, our web traffic increased by about 25x and demand for our pedals skyrocketed to levels we’ve never seen.
In a previous post on this blog, The Discoverability of Brilliance, I tried to identify the key traits behind something that goes viral. My conclusion was that something needs to be remarkable and poignant to go viral. Nathan’s video fits that criteria perfectly.
The video is a live band cover of Skrillex, the white-hot dubstep talent who has made 2011 his year. No one had done live band dubstep before. It’s a branch of music based in electronica that in a sense uses the sounds of speakers and audio equipment as instruments. It’s designed to be played LOUD so you can feel the sound in your chest. Big distorted bass scoops known as bass wobbles make your stereo sound like a poltergeist jumped inside. Those bass wobbles are a genre defining sound that has for a while seemed impossible to create using actual instruments.
Fortunately for Source Audio, the Hot Hand that sat floundering for years became the solution to a problem that didn’t exist at the time of its creation: creating ‘organic’ bass wobbles. The problem was vexing enough to merit regular discussion on forums and even to spawn its own popular Facebook group.
All of a sudden, the necessary flair of using the Hot Hand that had once been thought of as a bit silly, is now rippling over the internet. YouTube videos of Hot Hand bass wobblers have started to appear en masse in just the last month. Here are a few:
So we went viral! Cake for everyone! Now what?
There’s all this talk out there about making something viral and not enough talk about what to do after something goes viral. I’ve learned from experience that it can be a bit of a let down to go viral and not be prepared to do anything about it:
So here we are with the big question: What do you do when you go viral? How do you capitalize it?
1.) Have an infrastructure in place ready to seize the excitement.
We were fortunate at Source Audio that we had already put a slew of videos in place that served to either ramp up excitement even further or to inform people on the nitty gritty details of each pedal. We had these videos because we were trying to chip away our place in the crowded world of effects pedals. Think of that as our running game and viral as our passing game. You can’t just lean on the possibility of an 80 yard touchdown pass to score. When Nathan’s video went viral, we had a slew of videos right there in the YouTube search results and related video fields ready to answer people who were asking, what is that thing? Even better, all of our videos pointed to a website that was designed to guide someone from ‘interested’ into ‘gotta have it’ into ‘bought it’.
Tip: Make sure to adjust the keywords and descriptions of all the content in your ‘infrastructure’ so that it tailors to whatever piece of content went viral. You’ll already have an advantage over competing search results if something about you went viral, but even the slightest change can make the difference of hundreds of views per day. Literally.
2.) Interact aggressively.
We spend a huge amount of time every day responding to comments on YouTube videos (not just on our own, but on any related to us), fielding questions in forums, generating conversation on our own Facebook page and in Facebook groups related to us.
We’ve found that people tend to have lots and lots and lots of questions before they make a final decision on buying anything. By tracking down their conversations and going to them, we not only get our message out there, we amaze them with our attentiveness.
Below are some really concrete tips from experience that can help you out on this:
Tip 1: Most forums give you the option of subscribing to threads, which is a great way to have updates on key conversations sent straight to your inbox. Make sure to not just push an agenda. You’re not just trying to make a sale, you’re participating in an existing culture and trying to foster your own.
Tip 2: Use Google Keywords to get notifications on any blog that picks up a story related to you. When they do, send them an email and thank them for giving you coverage. Keep in touch with them, interact on their site, and if you support them, they’ll be there for you when you’ve got a story to push.
Tip 3: If you’re serving as a face of a brand, decide ahead of time if you want your personal online accounts like Facebook and Twitter to be open to relationships formed through marketing. I’ve kept mine open and it’s been a really cool way to meet some awesome musicians. But that’s my passion so I’m happy. If you’re marketing toothpaste on the other hand…
3.) Don’t stop at the sale. People don’t exist to buy and sell things, they exist to share ideas.
Nike isn’t just shoes and sportswear. It’s the concept of pushing your boundaries and not letting yourself give up. ‘Just Do It’. Their sales may keep the lights on now, but its the idea their sharing with the world that gives them longevity and legacy. In the case of artists, generating a sincere following is the lifeblood for your entire career. So how do you define what your idea is and how do you spread it after the glow of going viral wears off?
Source Audio has an old-school feedback system built into the sales process. Sure, Facebook and Twitter are sexy right now, but you’ve got to have your blocking and tackling too. In our case, we’ve got a card included in every one of our pedals that offers a free ‘wired hot hand’, an obsolete version of the Hot Hand before it went wireless. To get the ring, all you have to do is email us and we’ll send you one for free.
The key here is that the person handling those emails is either going to be me or one of the other guys in the office here and not a computer or automated process. Even more important is the message we’re sending in our response: Here’s a hot hand. Use it and we’ll promote what you do…and in the meantime, tell us a bit about yourself.
The result is a growing community of constant sharing that exists beyond the realm of Facebook or Twitter. It’s a community full of evolving relationships not just based on Source Audio selling to customers, but based on the question, ‘How can we use the Hot Hand to create awesome music?’
So when Evan Marien, whose video I posted above, puts out that slick in-studio drum and bass video using the Hot Hand, he gives me at Source Audio some ideas for what I can do for the next fun video that we release. I’m sure Nathan is watching too. And so are guys like Paul, Dan, Christoph, Andres and all the other bad-ass bass players who are getting down on the Hot Hand. What can we do next?
Head over to the SOURCE AUDIO WEBSITE to see the videos, pedalboards pics, and quotes that define the evolving Source Audio community.
It’s a hard path we walk as musicians today. Maybe it’s a measure of the current times that we have to carve our creative place out of a world full of labor that has no interest in the songs we want to sing. Or maybe that’s the way it’s always been. The challenge is to beat the labyrinth of obstacles placed in front of us year after year and earn our right to be heard, our right to fully and completely identify ourselves and be known as musicians.
The story of Brown Bird and the story of their album Salt For Salt is about earning that passage. It’s akin to the story of a seedling pushing through the concrete to greet the Sun it’s been chasing as the tree it was always meant to be. In the case of songwriter David Lamb, the seedling was the collection of lyrics and melodies that swirled around his head while he passed the long hours at the shipyard where he worked. Day-by-day, week-by-week, he’d trudge home at night to sit with his partner MorganEve Swain and try to make something grow. MorganEve, still with the dust of her own hard day’s work at a coffee roasting plant, watered each and every idea with her enchanting playing on the upright bass, fiddle or cello. The rhythm and thoughts that weave themselves through the working week, weave themselves equally through Brown Bird’s music.
Through the rigors of day jobs, teaching music lessons and finding the time to rest in between, Brown Bird somehow managed to add in three to four performances a weekend, all while developing and recording a great record. Hard work. It must have been worth it, because here they are. They’re free. They did it. They’ve managed to shake off the shackles of the working world and lift themselves into the life of full-time music. But how?
The most immediate answer is that they have remarkable talent. Listening to the new album is a transportive experience. In songs like “Ebb and Flow” and “Fingers to the Bone” you can hear the grease and dirt in David Lamb’s banjo as he fingerpicks away underneath the smokey hum of his voice. MorganEve’s vocal harmonies lend a warm feminine authority to his words of the workingman’s existence. Her rich bass playing adds an authority that goes even deeper.
MorganEve was introduced to music at a young age through a private instructor who taught her the ways of the violin through the Suzuki method, an approach to teaching that seeks to create generations of students capable of a high level of musical achievement while maintaining a ‘noble heart.’ One of the core values of this method is the importance of saturating a young student with experiences in a musical community. As a result, MorganEve found herself venturing beyond her home state of Connecticut at an early age to play fiddle amidst the vibrant folk scene in Nova Scotia. It wasn’t until convening with David Lamb in Rhode Island that she added the cello and double bass to her arsenal, providing the bottom to Brown Bird. As new to the larger stringed instruments as she may be, her sense of melody and rhythm are so strong that her thumping notes become the very thunder in the beat of the up-tempo ‘whistle while you work’ tunes that permeate Salt For Salt.
It’s natural to listen to Salt For Salt and ask MorganEve and David how many overdubs or musicians they needed to capture the sound of the record. This is where the most remarkable side of Brown Bird comes in. Those flawless takes of soulfully picked guitar and banjo, perfectly cracked vocals, smooth string playing and surly percussion? That’s all recorded live and it’s just the two of them playing it.
As it turns out, David Lamb started his journey into music through the drum kit, living in Rhode Island and taking lessons from family friend and Berklee professor, Joe Galeota. Through the years of living and working in Boston and Seattle, David nurtured a collection of songs that eventually became Brown Bird, a band that at one point boasted five members. At first sight, he offers a lot to study and wonder about. His beard adds age to a youthful and exuberant face, but it feels like it belongs underneath his dark, pondering eyes, permanently fixed in a slight squint. A sleeve tattoo on his right arm leads down to his hands where he has the letters to the words ‘Come Home’ tattooed to his fingers. It’s hard not to wonder what home he thinks of when he looks down at those hands every day.
The imagery of his lyrics evokes the poetry of the Biblical writings that have inspired him. That sentiment, combined with his exhausted experience of working at a shipyard, makes for timeless verses that are as pained as they are proud. In “Fingers to the Bone” he writes,
I work my fingers to the bone
Not a pretty little penny have I got to show
I ain’t lookin’ for much, just a little bit of rest by the side of the road
I lift my voice to the forces above
To the Lords of Labor and the Goddess of Love
Ain’t I been a good, hard-working, faithful, serving son?
So it was that Brown Bird marched across the country, armed with a catalog of songs that tied the conditions of our present times to the great American Folk tradition. They hit the stage almost every weekend night channeling songs from the Anthology of American Folk Music, Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters. When they earned a spot at the Newport Folk Festival, they were seasoned enough and ready to capture the audience in front of them. Through the sales of their EP at the festival and the support system they garnered through their tireless gigging, they were able to scrap together the money that eventually funded Salt For Salt and their ticket out of the working world.
They’ll spend the next few months hitting venues in northern Vermont, upstate New York, Massachusetts and Maine. There’s no set CD Release Party and they’re not too concerned about that. This whole leg of a potentially endless tour is their personal release party and they’ll keep on doing it until, well, until it stops.
There’s not a clear end to the next chapter in the history of Brown Bird. They’re running from something more than running to anything. They’re leaving the struggling balancing act of work and music behind and hitting the road with a record so brilliantly simple and authentic that it bypasses any and all cynicism and heads straight to the heart. After all, how many readers of this very magazine greet every morning as a new day in an endless fight to claw their way through the concrete of the working world? David and MorganEve have been there and they’ve gotten to the other side. In a way, perhaps they themselves are the Lord of Labor and the Goddess of Love, setting out to spread the Gospel that you too can actually make it happen.
I saw an open submission on reddit for music on the Sagan Series videos and was pretty psyched by the opportunity. As you may have noticed from my other posts…I’m a big fan. I wanted to act quickly so instead of writing and recording something totally new, I chopped up ‘The Hum’ and made it fit with the offered narrative. I haven’t heard anything back yet so I’m getting increasingly pessimistic about my chances of getting the gig.
We recorded this video a long time ago, but we had it spliced up into three separate videos with these goofy talking introductions. Now we are trying to see how a video of straight music stands on the interwebs.
This is all in preparation for a big jam session that we have planned at Boston big-time studio, Q Division. It will be a big investment for us and we’re not quite sold yet on the idea that these types of videos will garner a lot of attention for Source Audio. I for one, think that these videos are awesome, but that’s because I love having the opportunity to jam my pants off.
Recently I met up with Matt Grundy as he came through Boston on tour with Donavan Frankenreiter. Matt is a fantastic bassist with a quick right hand and a formidable presence on stage, but he is also a soulful songwriter. The track above, recorded after our interview in the back of the Frankenreiter tour bus shows the depths to which Grundy’s lyrics and voice can take your heart.
I relate very strongly to Grundy’s position as bass side-man with his heart in his own tunes so it was great to talk at length with him about his experience as a man making it work on both fronts. As you’ll see in this interview, he finds enjoyment in working with Frankenreiter even when their images or philosophies are not one and the same. For me, this was one of many great lessons in learning to guide my career towards a happier, more successful place.
Cheers, Matt for taking the time!
WC: Give us a little back-story as to how you came into your role as the bass player for Donavan Frankenreiter. How did you land the gig?
MG: I guess I’d have to start back with going to college at a Christian university in Costa Mesa in 1999. Vanguard University. I went there for a couple of years, then met a group of musicians and started playing with them. Eventually the singer from this band called Flood that we were playing in, who was a man of means you could say, wanted to hire a bad-ass drummer. So he hires this drummer, Dean Butterworth from Los Angeles who had played with Morrissey, Ben Harper, and now with Good Charlotte. We started playing a lot together and I loved playing with him. His feel was the same as mine. When Donavan ended up calling Dean for his solo thing, Dean called me. I had never met Donavan before, but he was an Orange County guy as well. Dean probably called me because I was young, hungry and would probably do it for cheap at the time. So we did a couple of tours with Dean, who went on to the Morrissey gig and here I am nine years later.
WC: Donavan’s notoriety as a surfer is pretty unique for a touring musician. How does that impact the tour?
MG: I’ve been around the world I don’t even know how many times with Donavan. We tour like eight months a year usually, maybe six, but it feels like we’re on the road all year. We’re never home. We play places that American Rock bands don’t normally go to. Because some people know Donavan for surfing, we’ll do like Hossegor in France or Fukuoka in Japan on the beach. We’ll also play in Australia, being the surf continent that it is. We’ll do Byron Bay Blues Festival, we’ll go to Perth at least once a year. We go all through Europe, Japan and South America. In some places, the music is almost secondary.
WC: With all this time spent traveling the world with Donavan, what can you say about his life philosophy? What kind of fans does that philosophy attract to the band?
MG: The whole Donavan Frankenreiter thing is not just surfer, but like a soul surfer with a vintage vibe. I don’t know much about surfing, but I guess his whole trip is to surf like the old guys and that’s why he’s so famous in the surf industry. He’s a real free spirited guy. A business man for sure, but his whole deal is kind of like the modern hippie surfer, easy, laid-back, everything’s okay musician sort of a vibe. Jack Johnson is obviously the kingpin of that whole thing. His fans are cool. For the most part, his fans are nineteen year old surfer kids, but since he’s a Triple A (Adult Album Alternative) artist so in big Triple A radio towns, you’ll get people that are mid forties or whatever.
WC: What elements of your playing have served you best as your career has progressed towards touring in an internationally recognized band? What did you learn along the way?
MG: Here’s the deal. When I joined Donavan’s band, I was young. I was twenty-three years old and I was just about to turn twenty-four. My whole bass playing thing up until then was being real flashy. I was into crazy flash. I spent countless hours laying out Victor Wooten stuff like under-thumb techniques…or at least trying to. I actually got to the point where I could do some of those sixteenth note triplet things and tap things though. Then I learned real quick that you’re not going to get a gig doing that. Maybe you could get a specialized gig, but if you’re going to show up and do a rock record and you’ve got those kind of chops, they’re not going to help you at all. You’ve just got to find a good part and pocket that part.
Donavan’s music really got me to start doing that. When I was young, I met Merlo Podlewski (bassist for Jack Johnson) and he’s about the most simple, groove oriented bass player you can get. There’s a lot of low end and hardly anything that’s going to cut through the mix. He’s just feel and just really super simple lines. I remember thinking when I first heard it, “that’s too simple.” But really it’s not. It’s really a lot of the reason that Jack’s music feels so good. This guy’s just thumping away really simple stuff and that’s what I call on, the real simple stuff. I kind of like to think that I’m driving a lot slower than I can go.
WC: How do you identify yourself as a bass player? Are you more of a creative whose focus is on writing or are you a workhorse with a focus on being able to play anything put in front of you?
MG: I’ve never really been the guy that’s going to sit down and work out bass parts. I always feel really out of place when people say, “hey do you know this Jaco tune?” or whatnot because people sometimes hear me doing some fast stuff and think, “oh this guy sounds like Jaco so he must know his Jaco tunes.” Really I don’t. I’ve heard a couple of songs, I understand his tone, the whole rear pickup jazz bass thing and the real fast stuff and I dig it. It’s the same thing with Francis Rocco Prestia. He would be an influence too but I couldn’t play you one Tower of Power song. I’ve always been the guy that’s like, “I can do this so now I’m going to go join a band and write my own music whether as a collaborator or something else.” That’s all I’ve ever been. I’d be the worst top forty bass player ever so I’m glad I don’t have to do it. Except when it comes to the blues. I grew up playing blues with my dad and I can play all that blues stuff. But that’s all the same songs in different keys so it doesn’t really count.
WC: There are a lot of players out there who would certainly identify with that sentiment. What advice would you give those players on practicing their skill set? How do you practice creativity?
MG: My advice is that if you hear a song in your head, try to make it happen. Those are your songs in your head and they’re there for a reason. You’ve got to try to get them out. With everything that I write, especially some of the solo stuff that I write, it’s really not something that I ever have any plan for. It’s just kind of something that happens and I try to capture it. If you’re a kid coming up now, well, I don’t know how I would have done it if there were things like YouTube and Flip cameras and Garageband. If I had Garageband when I was ten, twelve years old, it would have been a whole different game. Stuff like this is going to make some amazing musicians come out of the woodwork. I just hope it doesn’t put me out of work.
WC: How do you cross over from your supporting role as bass player to the leadership role of fronting a band playing your material?
MG: I’m a horrible bandleader. I’m finding that out just from trying to coordinate this record. I’ve always been just a side guy. I’m working on this record now with my buddies, Sean McCulley on drums, Blake White on bass and my Aaron Geezer on production and engineering. I’m really bad with organization and I’ve also learned that when it comes to having other people around, I’m totally cool with what they do but it might not be the “right thing” and I can only manage my own parts into being the “right thing.”
WC: Have you found a way to leverage your post as Donavan’s bass player to further your solo writing career?
MG: The type of music that I want to write and play isn’t necessarily going to cross over into fans like Donavan’s. I definitely would jump at the chance to bring my band out and open for Donavan on a tour or something like that if that opportunity were ever to come up. But I don’t know if my music would appeal to his fans or not. As far as people that I’m meeting, I always try to make friends with all the people that help Donavan out. Not that I’m going to send them my CD and they’ll say “oh this is Grundy’s CD so now we’re going to sign him and we’re going to distribute him and book his shows and manage him.” But you’d be surprised at who’s going to help you out just by being a nice and cordial person.
WC: What is your music about?
MG: It’s my first attempt at being a moody, deep singer-songwriter guy like Nick Drake and Neil Young. I’ve always been a literature fan and poetry fan so I wanted to see if I could write some compelling lyrics. On the record everything came out the same way, kind of a finger-picky, Iron & Wine kind of thing. I’m pretty proud of it for what it was. I got a record deal out in Japan, they put it out and it got some radio play so that was cool. I made that album in 2008 on a laptop and an M-Box in my apartment. I had to go to a studio to get some drum tracks. I couldn’t record drum tracks in my apartment or I would have gotten kicked out.
Lately, my trip has been to try to capture the essence of the deep songwriter. Compelling lyrics, not the every song being about a girl or about whether you’re tough thing. Not that it’s bad, but there’s a lot of rock and roll lyrics out there that seem like they’re the same. My friend Gary Jules is an awesome example of what I would like to do. His lyrics are super compelling, his melodies are right on and his arrangements are really unique and they grab me right away. He’s not topping the charts either by any means, but I’d like to do that and incorporate it in an almost smart rock thing. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do, to write things especially in odd time where you listen to it and you don’t even realize that it’s in odd time because it flows.
My second record should be out in February and that’s a little more mature and there’s a lot more upbeat stuff on it. I’m hoping to get closer to a rocking sound that’s not going to put you to sleep. At least put you to sleep if you don’t have an ear for lyrics.
WC: How has the lyrical content of your music evolved?
MG: My first record had a lot of Christian overtones that some people told me seemed like I was a singer frustrated with Christianity or something, which might be the case, but not really. I don’t know. Unfortunately until now, I haven’t had too many experiences with writing lyrics sober. That’s honest. I can’t remember exactly what I was thinking. I connect the dots when I’m sober. I’m actually in a writing slump right now. I have to finish two songs lyrically and I can’t even sit down to start. It’s the weirdest thing. It’s like when it rains, it pours and I’ve literally told people this and I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s like I’m not writing it. Stuff just slips out and then I make sense of it later. It’s kind of strange.
Interviewing David Rhodes turned into a wonderful conversation about songwriting, recording and taking that big leap into fronting your own project that really resonated well with me and I hope it does for you too. It was comforting to speak with such an accomplished musician in such a similar emotional place with his music as me.
This article originally appeared in the August issue of Performer Magazine. It can be read in context here.
After decades working and performing alongside some of the industry’s most respected artists (most notably Peter Gabriel), guitarist/singer/composer David Rhodes steps into the spotlight on his upcoming solo record Bittersweet – a dramatic ten-song collection of rock songs with world music undertones, all fueled by his incendiary electric guitar and riveting vocals. Rhodes evokes the ethereal delivery of early Genesis and the fearless musicality of early David Bowie on his confident, gimmick-free debut – this album is the brainchild of a musician’s musician, ready for his own voice to be heard.
Rhodes will tour the U.S. this summer, opening for Cyndi Lauper on a series of dates, and headlining shows of his own. In his dynamic live performances, which have earned raves following a recent European tour, Rhodes performs solo but creates layer-upon-layer of sound via his electric guitar and vocals. Using Native Instruments Guitar Rig 4 and a Gibson Les Paul Studio Robot to create loops of audio on-stage, Rhodes builds his songs as he goes along.
WC: In your songwriting process, how much of your work is done between you and the guitar and you and the mixing board?
DR: When I start, I just start fiddling about. But generally I start with rhythm so I go looking for grooves and start creating drum loops or I have a little groove part that is my starting point. I don’t consciously think I want it to sound like a specific thing or aim for a specific thing. Then it’s just about experimenting to maybe come up with sounds and then try to create a part that suits the sound and also suits the song. It’s better to let [the sonic structures] grow because then you’re not disappointed by what’s going on. It should always be experimental, exciting and exploratory.
WC: What was required of you both personally and musically to step up to the leading role on your latest project? Any words of wisdom for someone looking to make the same leap?
DR: Well, I’ve been nurturing my ego for many years and finally it’s bursting! It’s like trees or cacti that spend many years building up reserves to flower. I’ve always written a bit at home and done things aside my other projects. I was just really waiting to be confident enough in the material to take it stages further. So I guess that took quite a long time. Also maybe getting happier with technology and being able to do quite a lot of demoing quite well on my own. Just gotta keep plugging away and trying ideas. Exploring, experimenting and not getting knocked back.
WC: What are you hoping to accomplish with this album and tour?
DR: Well I hope that people will like the record enough to want to own it. If I can just get to the next stage, I’d like to tour with a band as well. I’ve done a few shows as just a trio, which was quite exciting and that’s quite different for me since I had never done that before. I’d like to be able to up it to that level and do well enough to make another record. Little steps.
WC: Let’s get technical. What guitar effects did you employ on the record? How about your distortion sound? Tube? Solid State? Digital?
DR: I use Rivera amps, which are nice and punchy and have got some good weight to them and I use a pedal board of junk. I’ve got two or three distortions on it. The Rivera has great overdrive and I also use an old Matchless HotBox for tube distortion. I’ve got a couple others that are all digital.
WC: Where do you land on the debate of Analog vs. Digital?
DR: I prefer to work in an analog way that’s very hands on where you just fiddle with something and things happen quickly. Having said that, I’m performing solo and I’m completely in the digital domain. I just use my laptop when I go out and do solo shows.
WC: How much of the recording process on Bittersweet was live band and how much was tracking?
DR: I started off with my demos which I spent quite a while fiddling around with. Then I had the band in for four days during which I rerecorded a lot of the guitars, reacting to what we did record live as a band. I was very lucky to work with some very nice people. Charlie Jones on bass who used to be in Page and Plant and is currently touring with Alison Goldfrapp, Ged Lynch on drums who plays with [Peter] Gabriel as well and a guy called Dean Brodrick playing a very funky keyboard…a kind of clavinet through distortion pedals and delay pedals. He was doing some really lovely, strange, off the wall things. If you listen, there are lots of lovely little details in his playing.
WC: What are the challenges of taking this record on the road and translating the music to the stage?
DR: Multifarious! The biggest challenge is feeling bold enough and courageous enough to do it. I’ve just done a little tour of Europe where I’ve been traveling by train completely on my own…guitar on my back, laptop in the guitar case, a little pedal board in the suitcase and just me with two bags [running] around Europe. It’s kind of scary because there’s no safety net at all. There’s no spare guitar and no one to help you out when things go wrong, but it’s exciting.
WC: With the increased availability of a quality home recording set up, we see more and more readers of Performer self-producing at home. What are some tips for home recording that you can share from your experience?
DR: It’s funny because Richard Evans who co-produced my records, he has a studio we work in a lot. We’re kind of going back more to recording live instruments and performances. I think the main problem with people fiddling around at home is that you can get so absorbed in the detail of sound that you forget about the performance almost. I think the really crucial thing is to get people still really playing so they mean it. That’s the toughest hurdle to overcome. All the other stuff you can spend hours fiddling around with but you’ve still got to have a high level of performance to make things sound good.
