Viva Voce

Kevin: It's all home-recorded. When we mixed The Heat Can Melt Your Brain we didn't go to Jackpot! because... ...you wanted to keep working at home. K: Yeah, we reached out to you because we'd been reading the magazine for years and using it as a resource when we recorded. But we needed that sense of security

of being in our own space.

Anita: Oh yeah! We met at a concert. It was just a matter of time before we started our own band. We were driving several hours each way just to see each other.

K: Music has always been a part of our life together. We grew up in rural towns in Alabama. The few musicians there know each other and play shows together at the VFW halls, Chuck E. Cheese's or wherever. We got married and moved to Nashville. Afterwards one of our cassettes somehow ended up on the desk of a Warner Bros. Records subsidiary. That's when major labels were buying up everything! They heard our demos, we got signed and all of a sudden we were recording in a major studio.

I didn't know this story!

K: So, we made this record and it was emotionally like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in every way, shape and form.

A: We thought the producer was excited about us, but he was a self-described purist and he wasn't into stompboxes at all. Feedback was not something he encouraged. I was into Sonic Youth and he just didn't get it. Every day we were slogging through. He thought we were doing everything incorrectly. This producer told Kevin that he should not sing. It took him a long time to have confidence about that. It was like a battle.

K: He told us how shit was going to go down and it was exactly the opposite of the way we liked to do things. Every day was a fight. Luckily, we were able to get out of that situation having learned all of the lessons. We had battle scars, but we were able to escape.

A: It was out briefly. The label went under within a year. K: It was just a fart in a whirlwind. That was the first year of our marriage and we were going through all that shit.

And you guys are still together.

K: From there on out we realized we were responsible. We decided to take the helm of our own recordings. We made Lovers, Lead the Way on our own. We used our house to track in. We figured out, "Oh, that's why there's compression." There wasn't compression on anything! It started to make sense when I bought a computer because I could visualize everything. It helped me figure everything out.

K: Nuendo, then. We use Cubase SX 3 now — same company and same sort of layout. I worked at a communications center for a while and I befriended this really awesome computer nerd. He showed me how to work Nuendo and he also turned me on to Tape Op. It made me realize that we needed to pay attention to songcraft in addition to just recording. I felt like I knew enough about phase, limiting and how to get sounds. If you hear a sound in your head, you usually know enough to get that particular sound. I do that the same way with songwriting. I know enough to know how to get the songs I want.

I thought Lovers, Lead the Way was really interesting. It's very ornate. If you look at the lo-fi movement, if there was one, everyone was recording on 2-track cassette. Here's the same idea of recording at home, but it struck me that you guys were going over the top instead of making something tiny and minimal.

A: To me, the way we put that album together and kept layering it felt like a collage.

No one told you that you couldn't!

K: Our ambitions have always been a little bit too big for our sonic britches because we're a two-piece band and we make these layered, indulgent records. We slowly figured out from Lovers. .. how to make that uniqueness work for us. With Rose City we tried to make a more straightforward, song-oriented album.

You also brought in a rhythm section.

K: Yes, for the live shows that year. We still recorded it all ourselves. To be honest, I shredded my rotator cuff touring Get Yr Blood Sucked Out. We toured with The Shins for a couple of years straight and, as a drummer, I hit really hard. I needed a change. For Rose City I decided to play bass live instead and be up front with Anita, rather than be immobile behind a drum kit. So for 2009 I was bass-player guy and Evan Railton handled live drum duties. Corrina Repp played guitar and percussion live and sang harmony. With Rose City it was the first batch of songs we decided to record fairly quickly and simply. We didn't want the album to sound or feel like it had been tinkered with until it was dead.

You can make a very ornate piece of nothing!

A: Totally. I really love the guitar sounds we've gotten so far on the new record. It's been so satisfying. The sound I want has been pretty easily obtained with each song including acoustic guitars, which can be a struggle sometimes — getting them to sound rich and full.

K: I use this process now: If it's not right, right out of the gate, fix it immediately! Once we track it, it has to fit immediately. If the tone is not working, we go back to the amp and adjust the tone. If it's not in the mix right off the bat, it's out. We don't have the luxury to sit with it for two days until it works. On other albums we've done mix-wise, there were at least one or two "rescue missions." Not this time! I feel like we're finally "rescue mission free" on this current album. We've got a mastering date set. We have deadlines. Putting the pressure on is what's helping us. We did the same thing with the Blue Giant album [Target Heart] we put out last year.

A: I have to have a deadline. Otherwise I just procrastinate!

K: Man, it was gnarly! When we bought the house, they told us we should just bulldoze the garage for more yard space. But we were just crazy enough to say, "No way. This will make an awesome studio!" It was in grim condition.

A: It was obvious that people had been squatting up here. They'd even set the place on fire!

K: We toured, saved our pennies and worked on the studio a little at a time after releasing The Heat Can Melt Your Brain. We were able to finish it with the help of a synch off that record.

K: Yes. We haven't sold a ton of records, so when those checks come in we feel like we have to use it wisely. We invested it back into this studio. We felt that the studio would be our nest egg.

A: It was 2007 before we could even afford to run electricity out here.

K: Talk about a fucking "never again" process! It was a pain in the ass at every fucking turn. I wanted to do it right and use the right kind of foam or whatever. I didn't worry about sound getting in, because this neighborhood is pretty quiet.

You don't want to bother neighbors though.

A: We practice all the time and luckily it doesn't bother anybody. That was my main concern.

K: The back wall is brick. We can rock at full volume and the neighbors didn't even know. They saw us loading out one day and asked if we were in a band! As you can see, we're still not done. The handrail is an issue. Especially when you get a band like Red Fang — they recently tracked some vocals and guitar here; and they might've been drinking a little!

A: I will say that we don't have the window where we can see each other through the glass. It's not that kind of studio!

But this is your space to make your records. You've got two active projects going at the moment, plus a few friends who have worked in here.

K: We kind of had a breakthrough. I recorded AgesandAges. We were in this downtime before the Blue Giant tour. Everyone was passing on recording Ages because the label wasn't coming through with money. I didn't have a lot of time before we left, but I told them I'd do it if they got their shit tight. That's the thing about them live — they're fucking rad. They just need a well-documented live recording. They're a seven-piece band ranging from seasoned professionals to newcomers who'd never set foot in the studio. It was a breakthrough for me to figure out how to record them. Just to be able to see that we could do the project in a place like this was kind of cool. Too not have to be somewhere...

K: Yeah.

I hate those studio owners! [laughter]

K: Are you kidding me? If we had the money, moving forward, and we were able to circumvent this? You better believe it! At the end of the day, we always say the same shit to ourselves, "We're never doing that again!" You can do anything you want with your life, you just can't fucking do everything. That's part of the problem with indie music — you have to do everything, but you can't do everything well. Something is going to suffer. The one thing that really shouldn't suffer is the songwriting side; but it often does because you're worried about emails, the fact that you have to figure out Illustrator for your layout or need to fix the crackle in your bass input. But getting out here and being able write and record constantly helps a lot. For us, where we are in our careers and our lives, we have to look at the bottom line on pretty much everything.

And you guys don't have day jobs.

K: We don't; this is it. Things get prioritized real quickly. We'd probably both love to have the big studio experience of a snack room with a cheese plate! [laughter]

A: I thought that if we were fortunate enough to make records that we would go into other studios and learn about the process. It was never really my vision to be in our own studio for every project. But it was borne out of necessity and I've embraced it. We also had this attitude of, "We'll figure it out ourselves."

I think the records keep sounding consistently better.

K: I feel that I have certain skills and now I'm at a point where I sorta get it. It's all culminated in figuring out how to get the best tones.

There are a lot of skills that don't require buying new equipment.

K: Totally. We still use the same PC from 2001!

A: Yeah, we don't do that [buy new equipment] around here. K: We get better at the things we already have. It's weird when we come off the road. We got home before Christmas and I realized I hadn't drummed since 2009. The last time I'd drummed was on Rose City. All of a sudden I had to be up to snuff and come up with bitchin' parts to play live! Not to mention record them well. We're constantly trying to marry all of what we've learned. All of that is coinciding with be able to capture it live in a better way.

The fact that you tour as a duo is also part of it. You have to build tracks that you can play that way live.

K: We're fully embracing it now. We used to tour with sample pads and triggers, as well as using an iPod. From now on, we're going to use Ableton Live. I want to be able to run Anita's guitar through a [Korg] Kaoss Pad and play off of her vocals. Stuff like that.

K: Totally, yeah. We've worked with Zach Reinig, who has worked at Bear Creek Studios in Washington. He's a rad dude. He did sound for Sleater-Kinney. We got to play with those ladies once and that's how we met Zach. He came over when we were mixing Get Yr Blood Sucked Out, with some badass monitors and cabling. We put them up next to these Behringer Truth monitors (that I still use). It's all I can mix to because I know how shitty they are and I know all the problem areas. I can tell the low-end immediately. When you mix on these, you have to downplay certain frequencies. It's like I've gotten used to looking at fine art through crappy glasses.

A: We're really confident in this record.

K: We've got 10 rising to the top. I feel like it's the best album we've done. Then again, I feel like that after every record!

A: We've been doing a lot of high-fiving!

It's probably nice having this space.

A: It's changed our lives! There's nothing to hamper either one of us being creative.

Last time I saw you, you were recording in your living room and your house was in disarray.

K: Music invades our lives!

A: Not really. We try, but it's pretty impossible!

K: We discuss how our songs hold up when they come up on the iPod shuffle. I feel like I over-think things in the mix. I'm trying to decide what parts are louder. We're really paying attention to rhythm and beats.

A: Well, we'd like to be able to go back and forth between Viva Voce and Blue Giant. We want to take turns focusing on each project and stay fresh. It's cool to be part of a five-piece band sometimes!