Jack Drag | TapeOp

Jack Drag is really John Dragonetti of Boston- sometimes. John put out the self-titled Jack Drag album in 1996, featuring 10 perfect examples of home-recorded 4-track cassette pop. Then a rhythm section (Joe Klompus on bass, Jason Sutter on drums) joined up for 1997's Unisex Headwave, which was recorded at Space 67 by John and mixed at the venerable Fort Apache studios. After that things got crazy. A&M Records snapped Jack Drag up and gave them a shot at the "big-time" — briefly. After recording the highly-produced, aural-treat that is Dope Box, the label soon dropped them. Now John has retreated to his Space 67 and offered up, minus his rhythm section, a new record called Soft Songs LP: Aviating (on Sugar Free Records). This is a pleasant return to his "solo" roots and a much more "sonic" listen than his earlier self-produced recordings. And I thought that made it an excellent time to call up for a quick chat.

What kind of studio is Space 67?

Well, it's one room. I don't know how big it is. Kind of the size of a rehearsal space. We've been here the last five years. It's got very tall ceilings. It's an auto garage-type place. There's a kung fu studio in there. I've been in there 5 years. The first two records I did were just Tascam cassette 4-track.ThenIdidDopeBoxwithA&MatSunset Sound Factory. So that was a big jump.

We'll get back to that. So it's like a rehearsal space that you rent for the band?

Yeah, basically that's what it is. It's not like there's a lot of bands in this building. We have a sampler that we were using that I bought with A&M money, so we have that in the studio now. A [E- Mu] ESI-4000. Then I have a Tascam DA-38.

Just a single one?

Yeah. Just one by itself. Then I needed to get a cheap little mixer so I got this Mackie, and it's already falling apart, but I just needed something to monitor on. Then I got the cheapest mic preamp I could find which was an Aphex. It cost me like $250 bucks.

Oh really? You mean you didn't go for ART? ART little Tube MPs? People like them for certain things.

Yeah. Eventually there's lots of things I'd like to have. I still use the 4-track so I can run stuff through it.

Track onto it then dump it to the DA-38?

Yeah. Like for the Aviating record I did some stuff right off the 4-track, then added on to that. So I'd sample a drum loop from the 4-track and then get some overdrive, plug something into the 4- track and then crank the level. That's always fun. It's a pretty simple set-up. I think it's really important to challenge yourself creatively.

Certainly. It seems a lot cleare rthan the previous two, Unisex Headwave and Jack Drag. It seems like a clearer sound. So that's a step up for you, having more tracks.

I think so too.

What kind of mics do you use?

I just used a [Shure SM] 58. The live drums that are on it that have that overdriven, muddy, Tom Waits thing, are something I'd done on the 4-track years ago and then I sampled that. There's a drum loop on "We Could've Been Big" and then my drums come in mid-way through the song. Then in "At the Symphony..." there's that "Tomorrow Never Knows" drumbeat, and those are the live drums and then there's live drums on the very last song "The Only, Only One". The whole idea there was to be really simple. I didn't feel like toying around with drum sounds. Basically, I stuck a PZM on the floor right next to the kick drum pedal and I put it through my Dynacomp guitar foot pedal, cranked that up all the way, and that's the live drum sound.

That's cool.

There's some neat buzz to it and stuff like that.

I think the record's fun. There's a playfulness in using electronics and loops.

Certainly. Not to be electronic musicians, but just kids that love the Beatles and also happen to love Public Enemy.

That's cool. So you did your early records on 4-track?

Yeah, Tascam Porta 2.

Was that in the rehearsal space too or...

A mixture.

Pretty minimal gear on that one?

I had some 58s but never had compressors or gates or anything like that. It was just really simple.

Were you playing most of the instruments on those too?

Yeah, those I did on my own. Except on Unisex Headwave — half of the songs were right when I started playing with Jason & Joe.

That's one of the main things I wanted to talk about in the interview, there's a huge jump. You did two records all on your own with 4-track cassette and then, boom, you're doing this record [Dope Box] at Sunset Sound Factory and it's totally a different world. What was that like, having everything at your disposal, was that daunting?

I was afraid of losing control. I guess we chose Chris [Shaw] [ Tape Op #83 ] 'cause we felt like we really got on with him. It was more like trying to find a partner. And I think that's what we did. I've learned a lot since then and I'd definitely do it very differently. To me, it was so important to have the vibe that we had. A lot of those songs were already 4-tracked in the same capacity as the stuff on the first two records

So they were demoed.

Yeah, basically it would've been a 4-track record if we hadn't gone in to the studio. So I had all these original versions. Beforehand I wrote like a 10-15 page plan of how I wanted to approach these songs. Exactly what I wanted to do with the drum sounds... it was really anal. It probably drove Chris crazy. I just thought then I'll know that it's going to be done exactly the way I want it. It was different drum sounds for every song, so it wasn't like we could just set up drums and go through all the basics. I had a little corner of the room set-up with my 4-track studio, essentially. So if I wasn't happy with the drum or wanted comparison I'd do my own mic'ing with the 4- track and then we'd take the RCA, stereo out and take the drums from my 4-track to the big room. We could blend things if we wanted to do that. The first song on Dope Box, "Debutante", starts with this sort of jungle drum n' bass sort of groove, which is the PZM through the Dynacomp, through stereo tremolo pedal just panning back and forth. We did that on the 4-track. So, in a way, I felt like it was managed the way I wanted it to, but looking back I kind of feel we just did everything the hard way. "Different drum sound for THIS part of the song." Now, in retrospect, I would have done a lot of pre-production, laid out the basic structure.

How long did you spend in the studio?

I think a total of about 6 weeks. We worked hard every day. We had one day off a week, then after a while we couldn't even do that. We had to get it all done. I'm just used to working on stuff for a while. Let it rest and breathe. I really don't like the idea of cramming. I guess that's the luxury of having your own setup. I like the idea of creating a little everyday, so when you do have to release an album its more like compiling material then making it fit as a concise piece. That's kind of what I'm doing now for the next record which is scheduled to be produced by Dan "The Automator". It's bigger sounding. More into production like Dope Box, but it's got more of a homemade vibe.

Do you think that Dan will work better for your music? How do you feel about Dope Box now? Do you feel like it works or do you feel like you just learned things?

I feel like I learned things. I feel like it has cool elements to it. There are certain things I think are really neat. I guess I don't know if I could've made a better album with where I was in my head... I just feel like maybe the songwriting has matured a little bit. It was a different time.

You got dropped from A&M right after.

Yeah, all the rumors were flying around beforehand. So we kind of anticipated it. It wasn't much of a surprise. Pretty much within two or three months of the record coming out.

Did you even get to tour on it?

Yeah we toured a little bit. Toured in the summer. We even toured after we got dropped with Cibo Matto which was a blast. A really great tour. So I feel like we definitely weren't bitter at A&M. Everything was getting setup the way it was supposed to get setup. I'm also not vain enough to say that the reason the record didn't take off was because of the merger. I don't know if that record would have ever done anything commercial anyway.

There's such a temperamental pop world out there. It's crazy. You could've had your one flash hit which sort of taints what you're doing overall.

Yeah, I think this has all worked out for the best with this record it's just this comfortable little thing I spent a couple weeks making, you know. I ended up getting to go to Europe on it in July. Nice things are happening.

You survived.

Yeah.

Are you still playing with the rhythm section guys.

I'm not playing with Jason & Joe right now. Joe is touring with Tracy Bonham. Jason's been here in LA. He was touring with Ben Lee for a while. The live band with Jason and Joe is pretty heavy, and with this album — that didn't make sense for this album. The live show is basically me and my friend, Evelyn Pope. She basically wrote the control center, featuring the drum loops, all the string loops. It sounds really nice. That's the way we're doing this stuff. Then for "The Automator" record I'll try to like get a bigger band.

A lot of things in the works. It's kind of cool you can keep using the same name but mutate it along the way.

I've definitely had discussions with friends and managers about putting out different projects under different names, and that's cool and all, but I think I'm still such an unknown artist in a lot of ways that it still makes sense.

It seems like if you do more things and keep at it you eventually build a following that's big enough that you can do what you want.

I believe in that. And it doesn't necessarily require a major label. Then, I'm starting to get into producing an album for somebody else.

Who is it?

This woman named Blake Hazard. She'll come in with a very concrete song and I'll program a very simple loop to base the song on. Then she'll lay down some guitar parts and scratch vocals and I'll build on that with live drums or drum loops or string sounds.

That sounds cool.

Hopefully we'll be done at the end of the summer. That's my first attempt.

You've never worked with anyone else?

I've worked with friends. I've never said, "Okay, we're going to get the whole album done."

Where are you doing it at.

At the space.

Is there anyone putting it out?

No, it's too early. We're just sort of getting things down now. I think we just want to make the record.

That frees up the artistic end of it. You don't have much overhead, just rent.

Luckily I have the luxury of time to do it right now.

Do you have a day job or are you coasting?

I'm coasting. You know, ironically, one can make more money getting dropped [from a major label] than getting signed.

I've heard about that.

So the three of us did okay. But it's at the end of that now. I do work for regional TV ads — like the music and stuff.

That's funny.

It is funny. Basically that's how I make my living. I don't pursue that, but it comes up enough that I can pay my bills.

Do you record that stuff at your space?

Yeah. What's great about it is a lot of these people at the ad agencies are pretty young music hipster-types and they have these glorious ideas that you're bigger than you really are. It's like, "Oh wow. We can get Jack Drag!" and it's funny 'cause they'll be like, "We really like this song off Dope Box, but it would cost too much money to actually license those songs, so basically rip off yourself." So I just kind of do the same thing I would do [if] working on my own song.

Just with a different goal in mind.

Yeah. Basically it's 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes. But I think I've lucked out with that — they've liked what I've done. I think as soon as it got into, "Oh, give us a bossanova piece," then I'd be running into problems. I think if you want what I do, I'll do it for you. But I can't really cater to you.

That's cool.

Better than pushing coffee for a living.

A lot of times that work is there and people are doing it but you don't hear about it that much.

Yeah, I think probably a lot of people that we know are doing it. Just one of those things you don't necessarily go out blabbing about, cause it's not how you want to be defined.

It's helping you make a living. It's not like that is corrupting your art side...

I think questions come in more when maybe it's a song from your album that means something to you and then I could see how it would become a tougher decision. Do I really want that song on a macaroni and cheese commercial?

It's like hearing those Beatles' songs in all those ads now. It bums me out. But someone's getting their publishing money. What kind of headphones and monitors are you using at your studio?

Well, for the longest time I was using my Aiwa boom box.

No way.

Good sized box, like two feet long. It's got really nice bass. You can turn it up really loud. More recently I bought Event 2020s. They're powered monitors I can afford. So I didn't really compare, cause I didn't want to spend more.

You didn't put them up against Genelecs or something?

I just decided, "Well, this is cool." So I got those and the headphones I've been using for many years now, Sony...

7506?

Yeah. They're really nice. I love them.

That's what we have here at the studio. They're a little bright, but I kind of like that. What kind of mics do you use for vocals?

I bought recently an Octava, the thing that looks like a coffin... [thinking] you're talking to the wrong guy here... it's an MK something... The vocal mic I bought, it looks like an old school one, it's a big tube mic... So I have that $300 tube mic for natural vocals but I still end up going back to the bullet mic a lot.

The Shure — like the harmonica mic?

Yeah.

Is it kind of mid-rangy?

Very midrangy. I use the E-MU sampler. I use that Dynacomp stompbox compressor. I put vocals through that, I put drum loops through that a lot of times... all the electric guitar sounds on the Aviating record were through the little mini-Marshalls.

The little toy plastic ones?

Yeah. I got lazy. I didn't feel like going to the other side of the room.

Do you ever use any direct guitar stuff?

I bought that POD thing [by Line 6] and I've done bass through it. I actually got a really crazy compressed drum sound with it, like a mono mic'd drum sound. I also bought their delay pedal, the green one.

A friend of mine's used one in the studio a bunch. It's really cool, like reversed loop and things.

I like that a lot but I still think you should go back to the Memory Man. In fact, I do a lot of vocals when I'm mixing...

Just patch it in? We do that here a bunch. It's kind of gritty. It almost overdrives it a bit sometimes and it gets this really good sound. What other effects do you run stuff through.

The Memory Man a lot. When I first sample string sounds I'll put it through the Memory Man without delay, but with the signal all the way on the delay so it gets muddy. I think when you're using sampled strings they generally sound bad, so I'd rather make them sound a little muddy. I have a stereo tremolo box from Dunlop one of those purple things. Sometimes I'll put drums through that that are sort of pinging back and forth. Like vocals through that. I've got some of those Z-Vex pedals...

What are those?

This guy makes them — they're hand-painted. Fuzz Factory is one of them.

Oh yeah. They come in the little bag?

Yes, exactly. One's the Seek Wah, it's the same size as Fuzz Factory. It has eight teeny little knobs on it. Essentially, one controls the speed and the other ones, each one controls a different sort of wah tone. So you can turn every other one off — turn two and three off — you make this weird time signature thing. I don't know what I'd use it on yet cause it's so strange. Then sometimes direct sounds to the 4-track. Sometimes you can get cool fuzz bass sounds and even drums.

You don't have any rack mount stuff?

I have a [Yamaha] SPX 90. That I use for the pitch change or to put a slight chorus on something. I have a Bellari compressor, the small one. I'm just learning about compressors. I want to buy the thing with the "Nuke It" switch on it..

The Distressor?

Yeah, I want to get one of those.

Those are pretty amazing.

It seems like it. But that's the SPX-90-I use that but I try not to use the reverbs on them. I guess that's about it. I have some nice old guitars and amps. I just bought a nice old '66 Ludwig [drum kit]. Just like a Mitch Mitchell kit. Really beautiful.

Oh, cool. Those are the drum kit of choice.

I have that and then the Vistalites. I've been playing drums a lot lately. I'm back in to my drum mode.

Cool. Do you ever just lay down a bunch of stuff and then make loops out of little bits of it?

Yeah. Sometimes I'll have an acoustic guitar idea, more of a traditional song idea. But a lot of times I want to try mic'ing drums a different way and I'll just start busting out a beat that I really love and just come up with things that way.

Other times do you walk in with a song kind of figured out on guitar?

It's really half and half. The song "At the Symphony..." on the new album, that starts out with a sample — this chorale/sitar thing. Then all I knew was I liked that loop. So I laid it down for like 4 minutes and then I just started playing that "Tomorrow Never Knows" beat over it, then I just buried the beat every once in a while. And I could hear the note B in there so I started playing a B chord on my classical guitar and it basically built itself. I would be bored if I just had to play guitar and build a song out of that. I think people like Elliott Smith, who are great word people, great melody people, they can do that. I need other sources of inspiration.

Textures and sounds and the moods sounds create?

Yeah. I would love to be a great and respected songwriter. I think that someday I can get to that point, but I definitely don't think about writing that way now. I'm a producer-minded person who tries to write songs.

Do you hope to do more production jobs for other people in the future?

I'd love to. But it's easy for me to idealize it, 'cause I think of something I'd want to work on. But when you start to work on things that are more just "part of the job", then I'm not sure I would do so well.

Yeah, it's a two-headed coin. I think you can do it in one way, work at a project at your place and work with people, small groups and songwriters where you build and work the same kind of way you do. And there are people that searched you out cause they liked what they heard you doing. So that might be a safe way to pursue it.

I think that's how I would do it and that's kind of what I'm doing now with Blake Hazard. I'll do that and hopefully I can do enough of a variety of that kind of stuff to make it. And if I need to do some commercial music to pay my bills. And then if things take off from that point that's great. I'm not going to chase them down anymore.

I think in some of your lyrics on the new record you mention things like that. It's pretty funny. I started laughing after I first heard it. Especially "We Could've Been Big," obviously.

Yeah. I feel like I can really laugh about it now. I don't feel bitter, I really don't. So hopefully it doesn't come off as that. But yeah, there's like the whole Lennon/Beatles bigger-than-Christ thing. You know, it's audacious to ever think you could be that huge in the first place. This record, I don't know, it means a lot to me for some reason. It feels more personal.

It does. I listened to your first two records and then Dope Box and I was like, "Man, he's biting off a lot here." It could be a more commercially oriented thing, and I was like, "Oh man, this is dangerous."

Tell me about it! It never felt like a transition to me. It's just like I tried something different at that particular point, but I know what you're saying. When we put out Dope Box the few people that had heard Jack Drag stuff were like, "Cool you made a bigger sounding record," whereas others were like, "Whoa, I like the early stuff, but..."

I figured you'd hear some of that.

Now, I've done some shows recently and it's like, "Where are Jason and Joe?!" But I've talked to some people who are like, "I like this a lot. It reminds me of the first record." So I guess I'll never have it both ways, you know.

The difference between doing a record in six weeks with 12 hour days, and doing a record in pieces while you're able to live your life around it, is really different.

Yeah, I think so. I guess you always have the danger of putting out a record that doesn't sound like it goes together. I think it's important to always keep that in mind, if you want to actually make a good record that sounds like a record, you know. So that's going to be the challenge. I think it will be interesting to see what happens between me and "the Automator". It's still going to be kind of patchwork in a sense, but I think we'll go spend time at his studio.

That's going to be much more computer-oriented, right.

He's pretty organic. I mean he's only recently gone to Pro Tools. And he's really about the preamps and compressors and old sounds, even though he's got this computer and stuff. The funny thing about him that I'm learning is that he's this classically trained violinist — his favorite bands are like Radiohead and Blur. He's known as a hip- hop producer, but he's working with Damon from Blur right now doing this dub record. He's definitely a wanted guy these days. Which will probably postpone our record. The key, I think, is we're attracted to working with each other for different reasons. I like what he's done through listening to the Handsome Boy Modeling School or the Dr. Octagon record, cool hip-hop stuff that he's done. He's interested in the mellower, ethereal — he wants to use string quartets and stuff. So I thinks it's going to be this blend of like Pink Floyd meets De La Soul or something.

I'm sure it will be interesting. You both have really good ideas of what you can do in the studio. And you've worked with him before — he's done remixes for you.

Yeah. For some reason we've built more of a relationship after all that stuff. He's pretty cool. And if that ends up being more of a side project that's fine too. I don't care so much if we do this live either. Records are what is going to stick around. I mean, sure you want to be a good live act if you're out there, but I just want to make interesting records, you know. So someday someone, even if it's just a few people, will be like, "Check this out, it's really cool." I think it's all about that for me.