On your record you have drums — both real and not real.
For that record we had a rehearsal room, somewhere on the east of Amsterdam. Before, years ago, the band was five persons. At one point, some people took other directions, decided to do other things — and I was focusing more and more on electronics with my bandmate, Remko, who is doing the electronics live on stage. We sort of decided at one point we wanted to really go for a more electronic direction. But we still have that rehearsal room, which was pretty big, and there was some drum kits there and lots of stuff. So I decided to use it all. I've been drumming myself — I taught myself some drums and an old school friend of mine came over at the rehearsal room and drummed some parts that I told him, because it was too complicated for me — the same for bass guitar. Most things I just did there — guitars in the rehearsal room.
So you could make more noise in there than here?
Sometimes I'll do it here. My neighbor and I are good friends, but he told me a couple of times that, well, I should not make so... [laughter] So that's what I did then. There was one song on the album that I really thought needed a whole band feeling. So I invited this friend of mine and some other friend who is in another band, who is playing bass guitar, and we all played it at once in the studio.
So it's a mix. Do other songs just originate here, like with electronics.
Yeah. What I did was record these drums on a digital 8-track and bring it all home and bounce it in Pro Tools and cut it up.
Is there a song written or are you just putting down beats that you like, and then you're going to construct around them?
No. I always start from a song. When I make songs, I start with guitar. Ideas are like lyric ideas, vocal ideas, melodies. My mind always says, "Okay I want to make a song," but I want to be able to play it at a campfire. I want to have the song to play first and then — then all other things come to mind. Like lots of ideas for beats or sounds or samples or loops or bass lines or other melodies. But I always start from strumming the guitar.
Do you do a lot of rearranging once you start getting into the process of moving the parts of your song?
Yeah. For some songs on the Today I Forgot To Complain album, I rearranged a lot and some songs were straight there. It was like they had the feeling and I thought, "Okay, this just has to go like this" -the line is set and I just want to add beeps and bloops and samples. But some songs, I record the chorus and some other parts that I had in mind, and then it all comes in the computer. Then at one point I think, "Well I don't know. I shouldn't... it needs more." Then that's when you start to cut, paste, copy and try to find the thing that makes it more exciting.
What kind of Pro Tools are you using?
Well, at this moment I'm using the Mbox on the laptop. I just got that. Before I was using a Pro Tools card. It's an 8-track, digital in and out.
What did they call that kind?
Audiomedia card. I was running 8-track Pro Tools on it. I didn't have any auxiliaries. I had to process everything.
Oh my god.
I finally got the Mbox. So now, 32 tracks and I have auxiliaries. I use some stuff — sometimes I make the beats in Ableton or something. Or just cut it up in Pro Tools.
You've got the sampler too.
Yeah, run the sampler. There's drum computer stuff that I run through MIDI from the Atari.
1040ST. I haven't seen one of those in awhile.
I really like it because it's just one machine doing one thing.
Yeah, you can control that one thing.
It doesn't take space on the laptop. It has MIDI out, so it's really easy. I run that sampler, drum computer, whatever — I run it through the board, which, in the end is really nice as well just to have EQ'ing right there, not doing any plug-ins, and use the [Roland] Space Echo.
I've got one of those.
Yeah. It's amazing. It's beautiful. I still really like to use it.
When you were originally recording, when you were in a full band, did you go to studios and stuff?
For the first album, that was in a studio and we had a producer. He was doing all the stuff and I, at that point I was learning a lot. He's a good friend, he became a very good friend. That's Zlaya [Hadzich], the guy who does also the Fishtank sessions. [for Konkurrent]
It wasn't so much that you wanted to control the recording process...
No.
You just wanted to create a different way? Make a different thing?
I had lots of ideas for everything, but it would have been impossible to do it again with Zlaya. In the moment I was making the second album, I was doing lots of stuff at home already. And Zlaya was very, very busy with doing lots of other bands and stuff. We were still in touch a lot. He showed me stuff for Pro Tools and things. At one point I thought, "Okay, I can just take it to the end." — In the end we did mastering with Zlaya and some things here and there. But that's when it sort of was growing. I had all these ideas already for everything, like for sound-wise and everything. I learned a lot from Zlaya.
Not like, "You're not going to come work with me, I don't want to talk to you."
We became good friends years ago already. Yeah, we help each other. At different points I can help him with lots of stuff as well. When he needs a Space Echo, he'll call me, for example.
When you take Zea on the road, what are you bringing to play with? There's you and Remko..Yeah. I play guitar and sing and Remko has lots of electronic stuff. It's some really cut up and loop beats that I cannot program in a sequencer. We put the loops on the Minidisc and run it from that and then add live samples to it. Other songs that are based from a sequencer, run drum computer, [Roland] 303 bass synthesizer and run it to a mixing desk, adding again. The sampler is also connected — adding again also live samples. Just like melodies, synth melodies and our keyboard melodies and organs and everything. Just play it live and having the bass and the beats and the loops coming from a sequencer.
You guys are playing together over that?
Yeah. He has this big case that is spread out in two, we have two keys stands so one half is in there and one half is in there, and it's like full-width — the sampler and the sequencer and the drum computers and the Nord Modular for sounds or for vocoder — that sort of stuff.
Yeah. Is he doing the effects live too?
Yeah, delay and distortion, and then we use also the Nord Modular because you can run sounds through it. We try to make it a live show — really have live electronics, put rock and roll into electronic music and vice versa, have the energy and rock and roll feeling good with all the nice, amazing sound things that are possible with electronic instruments.
A lot of your stuff's real abrasive sounding, like some of the drum things.
For some sounds I just combine every footswitch I can find....
