I’ve been following the career of Portland, Oregon's Blitzen Trapper since their first self-titled release in 2003. I think I bought the CD based on the name of the band and album cover alone. I was taken with the homemade quality of the recordings paired with the interesting songwriting. It reminded me of Lou Reed, as well as The Beatles at times. I’d even occasionally find hints of The Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead or Pink Floyd’s Meddle. Whatever the reference, it always had a hint of Northwest isolation with a side of fog and drizzle. I loved it. They remained a bit of a secret to the world until 2008’s album Furr. That record, and specifically the title track, brought them into the mainstream’s consciousness. “Furr” was a simple tune, recorded in an evening on a 4-track cassette machine in the rehearsal space the band’s singer and songwriter, Eric Earley, was living in at the time. The year 2020 brought the release of Blitzen Trapper’s tenth release Holy Smokes Future Jokes. It is a concept album of sorts, based on the George Saunders book, Lincoln in the Bardo, which is a loose interpretation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is a lyrically rich and sonically satisfying collection that examines death, dying, living, and our very existence. It is humorous, hopeful, and poignant. A perfect record and document for the times.
Blitzen Trapper records have always had a unique sound. Has interest in the recording aspect of your music career always been there for you?
Yeah. When I was about 18 or 19, living in Salem still, I’d always played music growing up, from a very young age. After high school, my dad bought me a Yamaha 4-track cassette deck. I started multitracking with that in my bedroom. This would have been in ‘96. I made tons of recordings. I still have a box of cassette tapes full of those. I don’t have the deck anymore. It died during its 25-year lifespan. But that’s how I got into recording, that little Yamaha 4-track deck that I got.
Was that just you experimenting, or did you have some people you were learning from?
No, I was experimenting on my own. I didn’t know what I was doing. I would read things here and there. But, honestly, it was me figuring out how to use it over time. I didn’t know anybody who had a 4-track. Then, a few years later, people started to get them. The Tascam especially; the Portastudio came out with these smaller models. I had it in my bedroom and was experimenting with it constantly.
Did you have a [Shure] SM58, or something similar?
Yeah, I only had a 58! What I started out with was my dad’s old 2-track reel-to-reel from the early ‘60s. It had an 1/8-inch jack microphone that came with it. I found a 1/4-inch jack and used that for quite a while at first.
Was that one of those old TEACs?
It was a Sony.
My dad had this crazy wood-paneled reel-to-reel TEAC.
I recorded with his 2-track a lot too, and then I would dump it to the 4-track. I had all kinds of weird, dumb schemes I used.
I love hearing that. Are you always making home demos for your records?
Oh yeah, definitely. I’ll record everything. I’ll record everything at home, and then take it into the studio and pick what I want to replace. Sometimes it’s a lot of it. It depends on the song.
When is the band getting that material? Are you sending it out and working it up with them, or are you driving the recording and album-making process yourself?
Yeah, I generally will have these demos pretty well made, and then I’ll share them. We’ll rehearse and then go in and do sections. It depends. I don’t think I’ve ever done a record the same. They’ve always been totally different experiences, for the most part.
How much are you leaving from those original demos?
The album Furr is kind of a home demo. I recorded it at a rehearsal space that I was partially living in. It was made with the same Yamaha 4-track, and then a Windows laptop. The album before it, Wild Mountain Nation, was made the same way. The first two records, those are straight-up demos that ended up being the release.
That makes sense now that you say that. Was it something that you were searching out sound-wise, in terms of techniques? Or was it by virtue of you making demos, and that was how they sounded?
You mean in the early days?
Yeah.
Yeah, I was searching out a sound at that point. I was influenced by Lee “Scratch” Perry [Tape Op #136] and his methodology. Even just the tones. As well as early Beatles recordings. In the mid-to-late aughts, I was always trying to get their drum tone whether I was using two microphones on a 4-track tape machine or using the smallest size kick I could find. I was always trying to get that tone; I just liked it. Yeah, there was always me being like, “Oh, I want it to sound like this. Let’s try running the bass through this 8-inch speaker at low volume and see what happens.” There was always that mentality.
Holy Smokes Future Jokes, sounds like such a leap forward. Was this made in the same way?
I did all the demo work in my garage. Then I went into Raymond Richards’ studio, Long Play. It’s Tucker Martine’s old studio [space], down...
