Music has always been an important part of my life, even long before I ever thought about playing for people. My first real sensory memory is probably that of my dad playing flute to me while I was in the bathtub. I listened, over the years, to anything my parents played: Ziggy Marley, Sting, the Beatles, Mozart, Chopin.
In 1992, my family and I moved to Koln, Germany. Someone at school there introduced me to Guns N’ Roses, so the following holiday, I asked the Dutch Sinterklaas for Use Your Illusion I and II. I played these religiously on my Walkman while riding the train from Koln to Bonn every morning with my sister. At some point, however, I remember thinking that I preferred the sound of a keyboard to that of a guitar, which was strange because I was mainly listening to rock music at the time. Then again, I suppose it was about that time that I had my first adventure with electronic music, when, toward the end of my year in Europe, I won a British techno compilation at a school fair.
In high school I took a course in MIDI arranging and composition, and have been addicted to this type of production ever since. I was still composing on the piano, but it became a completely different thing. On the computer I was just trying to make the coolest-sounding loops I could, without feeling like I needed to achieve some kind of logical song structure.
I had become used to creating very intricate electronic music, so when I started to play in bands, I wanted to achieve that kind of detail in a live situation. With my current band Brasstronaut, we can actually do this, as my bandmates are incredibly skilled players and really understand the range of sounds they’re capable of producing. While recording our most recent album, Mt. Chimaera, we tried to leave a reasonable amount of room for improvisation and expansion in the sound and arrangements. When I go to a show, I don’t really want to hear a live performance that sounds exactly like the record. I think it’s important for the band to sound loose—for the songs to have room to breathe.
I like the idea that both the band and our audience are slowly and simultaneously figuring out what Brasstronaut is all about. It’s like we’ve all got our hands on an Ouiji board and the triangle is steadily moving towards some kind of manifest destiny. The possibilities are exciting, because we don’t exactly know where it’s going, but we’ve always been comfortable with this organic style of development.
John, our bassist, wrote a new song this year. It’s so different from anything else we’ve done so far; it sits very comfortably between electronic and live instrumentation sonic textures. It will probably serve as a benchmark for the next record. On the Old World Lies EP, things were lo-fi and completely organic, whereas with Mt. Chimaera, things were almost over-produced. For the next one, I want to achieve a middle ground where we intentionally blend some lo and high fidelity ideas. We’re always interested in developing that unique quality in our music, cutting hard in that direction, and creating a strong musical identity for the band.
Photo: Jeff Petry.
