Had you been working on solo recordings before or did Thrill Jockey approach you with the idea of doing one?
No, I had been working on some stuff and over the last couple of years I had made a 4 track tape that sat around the house for a year and then I made some copies and they sat around the house for about 6 months. Finally I got them out to a couple of places and Bettina (Thrill Jockey owner) said, "Yeah".
I thought Matador would jump on it first....
They didn't. It does help any sort of conflict of interest that might arise.
So did some of the stuff from that 4 track tape appear on the album?
No.
Were these songs that Run On didn't use?
Just songs that didn't really seem to fit the band. Or I'd even brought them in but no one was interested. You don't want to push it.
The album was all done on ADAT, right?
Yeah.
A single ADAT?
I have one but I would get copies made so I could add more tracks. Not that everything has that many tracks to it but that way I could try something else. I made three copies, A, B and C. I would try different things. Sometimes it wasn't til we mixed that I realized if it worked or not because I'd never heard them all together!
Were you tracking everything at home?
I tried. There were 4 or 5 songs that the vocals and basic guitars were done at Chris Stamey's house. Then I did all the other stuff at home. Then, when I was mixing, there were a couple of tracks where I was like, "It'd sound good with this here."
So you did a lot of the work on this record with Chris Stamey?
He has a lot of really good tube compressors, ProTools for editing... he's got the business going down there. It was great working with him.
So he does a lot of commercial work? What's his studio called?
Modern Recording. I highly recommend it. It was a really nice experience working with him. He's a great musician, really tireless and has good ears. That's important. I would be, "That's fine, let's stop." He would say, "Let's get it perfect."
Oh yeah. I know how that goes. So I assume you live in an apartment, especially from that song, "Box and You". Do you record in a corner of the place or something?
We have a room, a recording room, and we have a rehearsal room...
In your apartment?
No! Not in our apartment! For loud guitar and drums I'd go down there. Take my ADAT to the rehearsal room.
