Zea

Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities in the world — plus some great music comes from there, like The Ex and Solex. While visiting there a while back, I asked Elisabeth of Solex who was doing interesting stuff recording-wise. She recommended I check out Zea.

Zea is a duo comprised of Arnold de Boer (guitar/vocals) and Remko Muermans (keyboards, sampler and vocals). They have several records out — Kowtow To An Idiot and Today I Forgot To Complain — of their scratchy, fun songs played on guitars, drums and electronics. It's a curious mix, not really sounding like electronica, and not really rock either.

I met up with Arnold at his apartment in Amsterdam on the eve of one of Zea's American tours. His place was full of instruments, recording gear and lots of CDs and albums. After this interview he turned me on to a bunch of music I'd never even heard of, like Jason Forrest/Donna Summer, an interesting sampling artist residing in Berlin. It's always cool to meet new folks and get turned onto new music, especially in one of the coolest cities in the world.

On your record you have drums — both real and not real.

For that record we had a rehearsal room, somewhere on the east of Amsterdam. Before, years ago, the band was five persons. At one point, some people took other directions, decided to do other things — and I was focusing more and more on electronics with my bandmate, Remko, who is doing the electronics live on stage. We sort of decided at one point we wanted to really go for a more electronic direction. But we still have that rehearsal room, which was pretty big, and there was some drum kits there and lots of stuff. So I decided to use it all. I've been drumming myself — I taught myself some drums and an old school friend of mine came over at the rehearsal room and drummed some parts that I told him, because it was too complicated for me — the same for bass guitar. Most things I just did there — guitars in the rehearsal room.

So you could make more noise in there than here?

Sometimes I'll do it here. My neighbor and I are good friends, but he told me a couple of times that, well, I should not make so... [laughter] So that's what I did then. There was one song on the album that I really thought needed a whole band feeling. So I invited this friend of mine and some other friend who is in another band, who is playing bass guitar, and we all played it at once in the studio.

So it's a mix. Do other songs just originate here, like with electronics.

Yeah. What I did was record these drums on a digital 8-track and bring it all home and bounce it in Pro Tools and cut it up.

Is there a song written or are you just putting down beats that you like, and then you're going to construct around them?  

No. I always start from a song. When I make songs, I start with guitar. Ideas are like lyric ideas, vocal ideas, melodies. My mind always says, "Okay I want to make a song," but I want to be able to play it at a campfire. I want to have the song to play first and then — then all other things come to mind. Like lots of ideas for beats or sounds or samples or loops or bass lines or other melodies. But I always start from strumming the guitar.

Do you do a lot of rearranging once you start getting into the process of moving the parts of your song?

Yeah. For some songs on the Today I Forgot To Complain album, I rearranged a lot and some songs were straight there. It was like they had the feeling and I thought, "Okay, this just has to go like this" -the line is set and I just want to add beeps and bloops and samples. But some songs, I record the chorus and some other parts that I had in mind, and then it all comes in the computer. Then at one point I think, "Well I don't know. I shouldn't... it needs more." Then that's when you start to cut, paste, copy and try to find the thing that makes it more exciting.

What kind of Pro Tools are you using?

Well, at this moment I'm using the Mbox on the laptop. I just got that. Before I was using a Pro Tools card. It's an 8-track, digital in and out.

What did they call that kind?

Audiomedia card. I was running 8-track Pro Tools on it. I didn't have any auxiliaries. I had to process everything.

Oh my god.

I finally got the Mbox. So now, 32 tracks and I have auxiliaries. I use some stuff — sometimes I make the beats in Ableton or something. Or just cut it up in Pro Tools.

You've got the sampler too.

Yeah, run the sampler. There's drum computer stuff that I run through MIDI from the Atari.

1040ST. I haven't seen one of those in awhile.

I really like it because it's just one machine doing one thing.

Yeah, you can control that one thing.

It doesn't take space on the laptop. It has MIDI out, so it's really easy. I run that sampler, drum computer, whatever — I run it through the board, which, in the end is really nice as well just to have EQ'ing right there, not doing any plug-ins, and use the [Roland] Space Echo.

I've got one of those.

Yeah. It's amazing. It's beautiful. I still really like to use it.

When you were originally recording, when you were in a full band, did you go to studios and stuff?

For the first album, that was in a studio and we had a producer. He was doing all the stuff and I, at that point I was learning a lot. He's a good friend, he became a very good friend. That's Zlaya [Hadzich], the guy who does also the Fishtank sessions. [for Konkurrent]

It wasn't so much that you wanted to control the recording process...

No.

You just wanted to create a different way? Make a different thing?

I had lots of ideas for everything, but it would have been impossible to do it again with Zlaya. In the moment I was making the second album, I was doing lots of stuff at home already. And Zlaya was very, very busy with doing lots of other bands and stuff. We were still in touch a lot. He showed me stuff for Pro Tools and things. At one point I thought, "Okay, I can just take it to the end." — In the end we did mastering with Zlaya and some things here and there. But that's when it sort of was growing. I had all these ideas already for everything, like for sound-wise and everything. I learned a lot from Zlaya.

Not like, "You're not going to come work with me, I don't want to talk to you."

We became good friends years ago already. Yeah, we help each other. At different points I can help him with lots of stuff as well. When he needs a Space Echo, he'll call me, for example.

When you take Zea on the road, what are you bringing to play with? There's you and Remko.. Yeah. I play guitar and sing and Remko has lots of electronic stuff. It's some really cut up and loop beats that I cannot program in a sequencer. We put the loops on the Minidisc and run it from that and then add live samples to it. Other songs that are based from a sequencer, run drum computer, [Roland] 303 bass synthesizer and run it to a mixing desk, adding again. The sampler is also connected — adding again also live samples. Just like melodies, synth melodies and our keyboard melodies and organs and everything. Just play it live and having the bass and the beats and the loops coming from a sequencer.

You guys are playing together over that?

Yeah. He has this big case that is spread out in two, we have two keys stands so one half is in there and one half is in there, and it's like full-width — the sampler and the sequencer and the drum computers and the Nord Modular for sounds or for vocoder — that sort of stuff.

Yeah. Is he doing the effects live too?

Yeah, delay and distortion, and then we use also the Nord Modular because you can run sounds through it. We try to make it a live show — really have live electronics, put rock and roll into electronic music and vice versa, have the energy and rock and roll feeling good with all the nice, amazing sound things that are possible with electronic instruments.

A lot of your stuff's real abrasive sounding, like some of the drum things.

For some sounds I just combine every footswitch I can find....

Stomp boxes...

...and then connect it all. For guitar, I like the Turbo Rat and all that stuff just connected, and on the synthesizer or whatever, just try to find sounds that I'm looking for — and so sometimes the sounds turn out like that. But when I do it with beats, distortion helps. Like the different sort of distortions to destroy — make dirty beats. But also plug-ins. If you really do what is not supposed to be done, it can be amazing.

What kind of plug-ins?

If you use a gate in an extreme way on a drumbeat, you can really have this really... [makes wild noise]

If it's attacking and releasing too close to each other?

Yeah. There's many. I have this Bass Maximizer, which can really be very destroying, really over the top. At this moment I'm playing a lot with the Moogerfooger, which is really nice and it's a plug-in.

Have you recorded anyone else doing this kind of stuff?

I have recorded some demos for other bands. Now I do mastering and editing for compilation stuff and do some mastering for vinyl. I've been doing like three or four things for the last couple of months.

Do you ever do curated compilations, like people, for a label?

The compilation things, everything I did was friends of mine who will have a label or a magazine — they come to me and ask me and they come with the bands. Also, we have a label. There is a good friend of mine who started a label and we started working together, and that label is called Transformed Dreams. We all work together. We have thirty releases now I think.

What kind of microphones do you have? I see you've got a stand there.

I have been singing through this one for a long time and I really got fed up with it.

Is that the [AKG] C1000?

Yeah. And I got really fed up with it and then I bought the Rhode NT2 and that really changed a lot.

Sounds better.

I was shocked. I mean, I had been singing in studios through a Neumann and stuff, but that's so different when you record yourself. If you are in a studio and you're singing in a room and you just walk around into the other room to have a listen, you don't really, you're not really busy. You're busy with your singing but you're not very busy with the sound. You're focusing on, "Oh did I sing this well?" You're not that busy with the sound. And just being here at home and trying the different mics and at one point thinking, "Oh now I'm really fed up with everything. I'm gonna just scrape all the money together and go buy what I heard what's supposed to be a very good mic," and I tried it and I'm really, really happy with it. And now this one is still good, but for snare drums. [laughs]

What did you have for recording drums in your rehearsal space?

I had this one, actually, which is actually very good. At one point I was using the SM57 and some other older mikes, AKG sort of mikes and SM58, but they just have like what I had...

Whatever's laying around.

Yeah. And you just try to get different sounds from different angles and experiment with that. I started using the SM57 for guitars as well — I mean I did that as soon as I bought it. For my new recordings I went to a friend's studio. He was on vacation and he gave me the keys — he's got these great amps, guitars and mics. So I went there and I recorded guitar parts for like, fifteen songs in one week. I used SM57 for guitars, which I was very happy with. But I also used this Neumann, this black one. What number was it? Could it be 240 or something? I'm not sure. It has a bit of a darker... And it's like shaped like this, like a roof, like a Dutch roof. And then...

They made a 193, which was darker. I've used those before. A newer mic.

It's very good for the low sound of guitar when you combine it with SM57s. I was using this AC30, old Vox amp. I have the Fender amp, the Dual Showman Reverb. So I was using this one and the Vox and at some point I was using this Silvertone. But basically I did lots of stuff with the Vox or the Fender and then using this very nice Telecaster from the '50s somewhere that's my friend's property. That was really, really great as well.

You're getting very good sound from the source. Any thoughts like using your home space as a recording studio, and benefits? You talked about the neighbor being mad.

Yeah. Sometimes I have no choice and I record guitars here and I will do it in the afternoon when I know when he's gone. So it's okay. And sometimes I'm working on vocals and I do it here as long as I do it in the afternoon. But at one point in the evening, when I know that the neighbors are at home, it's hard because you don't give everything. You don't go loud because, "Oh they could be really feel uncomfortable" or...

" What's he doing in there?"

So this is a sort of disadvantage of recording at home. But all the other things, all the electronic stuff I do here and it works perfect because I have everything here. I can just layer on — it can be like synthesizer everywhere. It can stay for days and days and use this and that and leave it like that and work on something else and still have it in the same position, everything unchanged and work on different songs on one day or something — that works really nice. Like all the electronic stuff I can do here, it's perfect to do it like this. And so what I do, for example, take the laptop and the Mbox to the studio and record guitar. So just having everything here and you can. Almost all vocals I do here and really you have no time limit — no clock ticking.

What about the street noise? Like the windows?

When I close the curtains I don't have that much problem. And this friend who has this studio also said whenever he is gone I can come. It's always nice to have this possibility to do a lot of stuff. Because the studio's in the middle of nowhere, which has also its advantages, because here I'm busy with organizing, putting on shows and having the label and everything. But I know it was really, "Oh fuck man, this is good," about being in the studio. You're really away from everything and that's very good.

You can focus more. Do you ever want to step away from it too, though? Like your life's kind of surrounded by your music making and you think that, "Maybe if I can get away from it a little more..."

No, not really. That's not really a problem. It's more that I'm like, "Oh shit, I should spend more time." I always want more time for making music. I have also this job, I'm a tutor helping kids with homework. I do that a couple of afternoons in the week. So at one point you can be really, being surrounded with instruments and not having it touched for two days or something. That can be frustrating actually. And at that point I would think, "If I would have only an office somewhere to do all the office stuff and just come back here — when I'm here I don't have to think about emailing or booking — just making music."

Maybe that's what you've got to do.

[laughs] Buy myself an office!

You mentioned before that you had a digital 8-track that you can take to your rehearsal studio and then bring it home.

A year ago, or before for that album, I was using this Roland VS840 — with the zip disks. That was pretty handy actually, for recording four channels at one time for drums. It's very easy to take to rehearsals. But now I have a laptop and Mbox. I'm not sure how I would do drums. I did drums one time a couple of months ago and then I just tried to make sort of a mix to two tracks because Mbox only has two inputs. I might as well use the digital 8-track again.

Are you working on a new record right now?

Yep.

How far along is it?

Um halfway, I think. Yeah but now with the tour, and then there's the tour with The Ex and everything. I have lots of stuff recorded already, which I am happy about, but I know I need time.

You gotta spend some time. And you'll have holidays too. That's good.

Yeah and I really have to put a line and say, "Okay all the other time I need to finish the record," otherwise it's useless... I cannot do every gig that is offered. Which is a luxury position in a way, and it's weird because years ago I could have never said, no I'm not gonna do that gig!