Q1. Your new album, while leaving a feeling of nostalgia in your songs, this time, we could also hear a new aspect in your music. There are songs that give us some emotional feelings that mixtures of nostalgia, warms, and makes us remember past memories while others are up tempo, powerful and there are also pop songs. How do you view this new album?
Wow, thank you. That is very kind of you to say. I view the album in a similar way, it makes me feel very nostalgic for time I spent with my family in Kentucky, where I grew up. A lot of the music is inspired by sounds, big guitar sounds and intimate folk sounds, that I listened to a lot when I was a teenager. I remember spending time in my bedroom, listening to Sufjan Stevens and Green Day. I love contrasts like that, and I am happy that our record provides similar moments of contrast and variety.
Q2. Drummer, Marcuss Nuccio and Bassist, Sean Neumann participated in this work. After releasing your previous work ”GL”, you toured with them together and came to Japan. And Julia and Dave, you two are support members of Jupiter Styles which is Sean Neumann’s project.
You’ve worked and experienced many things with the two of them, and there’s a lot of good influences in this album. Are there differences between this record and your previous record regarding this?
Exactly, yes we have known Sean for many years now - the first tour we ever did for Ratboys was with his old band, Single Player. We met Marcus in 2016 and started touring with him in 2017. He is a rock solid, amazing drummer. We have spent so much time together, so we are all really good friends, and we have great chemistry playing music together. For Printer’s Devil, we spent a couple months working on bass and drum parts and rehearsing songs live together as a band before we went into the studio to record. So, we were a lot more prepared at the beginning of the session than we had been before we recorded GN or AOID.
Because of this, we were able to record many songs live, tracking all four of our parts simultaneously. That was really fun and new for us. I think it sounds really good that way.
Q3. You and Erik Rasmussen produced this album. Why did you decide to work with him? How was it working with him?
Erik is an old friend from college. Dave and I met him in South Bend, Indiana when we played a show with a band he was in. We had not spoken for a few years because we had been so busy touring, but in 2018 Erik contacted us and invited us to check out his new studio, called Decade. We went over to visit and ended up staying all day, just catching up and talking about recording. We have a lot in common, as far as music we like and how we like to approach making a record. So we instantly felt the pull to record with him.
Q4. Please tell us your favorite songs in this album and impressive stories while you were creating the album.
My favorite song is probably the title track, “Printer’s Devil.” That song is based upon a single guitar loop and a series of drum loops. We had finished recording every other song, and we planned to tackle PD last because it was the only song that didn’t really
have a plan. We wanted to leave it open to give ourselves room to experiment and change things. We added lots of instrumental elements that we had not used before, including organ, electronic drums, and drums manipulated using varispeed. That song was incredibly fun to record because it felt so free and formless - I am not a painter, but it felt like how I would imagine painting feels. Every other song took a few tries to mix, but PD took only one try. It was a really fun and memorable experience creating that song together.
Q5. In our last e-mail interview, Julia, you said “It’s my favorite day of recording because Dave knocks out so many awesome takes”. In this album, which guitar sounds did you find impressive or attractive?
Yes, Dave’s guitars are always so pleasing to hear and so inspiring to me, as a musician. I really love Dave’s distorted guitar on “Victorian Slumhouse” and his country-sounding guitar on “Listening.” Dave is a very versatile player, and he rarely plays a part the same way each time. He is very creative and spontaneous. It is so fun and refreshing to watch him record guitar overdubs because we usually have a lot of good takes to choose from (and therefore some tough decisions to make).
Q6. Which song was most challenging in the creating process and please give us your reason why it was so?
The most challenging song was probably “A Vision.” I wrote that song really quickly in my bedroom, and I immediately thought it would just be an acoustic song, just acoustic guitar and my voice. But, Erik and the rest of the guys encouraged me to think bigger and expand the idea of the song to include many different elements. Once we decided to go down that path, we knew we would need to record the song live, because it breathes and cannot be played to a metronome. But, in order to record it live, we needed to have the drums be played very quietly, because we were all in the same room. So, Ian, our friend who played drums on “A Vision” and a couple other songs, played as quietly as he possibly could. It was very challenging, but it turned out to really work when we listened back.
Q7. I feel all your songs are “open” and it has a mood of brightness in this album. What were you hoping to express in this work? Please share with us any concept you have in this work?
There is not any sort of strict “concept” for this album - it’s not about a single person or event. I am happy that you feel an “openness” in the songs because I feel that too. Sometimes the songs remind me of different people or make me feel different ways, depending on the day. I hope that the songs can be flexible and accommodating for everybody in that way. There are a few themes that unite the different songs, though - mainly, themes of restlessness, nostalgia, and curiosity. I feel like pretty much all the songs I write explore those themes though, so these new songs are not very different thematically from the songs I have written in the past.
Q8. I think your vocals are even more expressive and impressive in this album. Were there any changes regarding your expressions?
Thank you, the vocals are something we worked really hard on to get right this time. I decided to ‘single track’ my voice for the majority of this album, rather than ‘double tracking,’ which is essentially layering vocal takes on top of each other to achieve a certain ‘smooth’ sound. I think the single track vocal technique allows for a more expressive and emotional delivery. It makes the singer sound more vulnerable, but also more confident at the same time. I really like that.
Q9. I like the song, “My hands grow” in this album. The song includes your comfortable vocals which gives us an impression of a gentle breeze. I think it has a good balance between subtleness and gradual powerfulness. It is a very pleasant song. How did you create this song?
Yes, “My Hands Grow” is about spending time outside with friends. The inspiration came from a memory I have of spending a summer day with my friends Emily and Biv when we were all home in Kentucky. We drove around the country roads and spent time walking along the banks of the Ohio River. It was a really fun, peaceful day, and I wanted to crystalize that memory in a song, and I wanted to proclaim my love for them and for the summer. Listening to it now, when we’re all stuck inside because of COVID-19, it feels like a nice escape.
Q10. The song,“A vision” starts with impressive beautiful vocals and guitar sounds. While respecting the simplicity in the song, it also develops into like a story. It is really beautiful. What instruments and arrangements did you use in this song? How did you record it?
Thank you. The instruments are my acoustic guitar and voice, Dave’s electric guitar, Sean’s bass, and Ian’s drums. We also added some extra percussion (tambourine and these ‘goat hooves’) and some lap steel. The song took us quite a while to mix because we wanted it to kind of unfurl like a winding road, not like a straight line. So, oddly enough, the mixing almost feels like an instrument in itself for that song. I talked before about recording it, but it definitely took us a few takes to get right. I remember we ended up going home exhausted one night saying, “We’ll get the take tomorrow.” We did end up getting the take the next day. It took a lot of focus and concentration, but also a lot of feeling and relaxing. It was almost like a trained meditation.
Q11. I think the last overlapping part of the chorus and some instruments are impressive and romantic in the song “I go out at night”. How do you come up ideas like this?
That song is actually the oldest idea that we used for the record. I wrote the first verse and the “hook” (the overlapping guitar and vocal part in between verses that you mentioned) at home in Kentucky when I was 19. I really love the band Death Cab for Cutie, and I knew I wanted that part to sound like they might have written it. So it’s really just finding a nice melody and putting some familiar feeling into it.
Q12. In your song, “Anj”, you sing “I’m not alone/ You’re not alone”. It sounds like the lyrics express strength and its purely straight forward. What were you feeling when writing this song? Also, in this present situation, what kind of emotions run through your mind when singing the song?
When I was writing that song I was feeling really excited, because we had just started demoing. It felt like I was writing something really simple and clear, yet really powerful. I wrote the song to comfort a friend of mine, a woman who had been my babysitter when I was a small child. I wanted her to feel loved, and I wanted to feel close to her and to all of my loved ones. Now, when I sing that song from home while everyone is isolated and feeling distant, it reminds me to reach out to the people I love and it reminds me that, no matter what, solidarity makes us stronger. It gives me hope and makes me feel comforted no matter what.
Q13. I sometimes feel that music could light up our lives in different times. What is music to you?
To me music is a way to feel things, a way to stretch ourselves and understand each other better. Music is an opportunity to celebrate each other, to appreciate the impulse of the human race to make art. It’s so primal and so universal, but also songs themselves can feel so deeply personal. It’s an invitation to know each other or to just escape from everything.
Q14. What is performing and singing to you? To you, what does performing in live venues and/or events mean to you?
I love performing in venues, in front of an in-person audience. I love the energy that people provide during different parts of songs or when a song ends. I love connecting with people and telling stories. I really miss that feeling of being present with people,
in the same room. Performing online during this quarantine period had been nice, though. It feels good to get to answer questions and to connect with people in a different, more intimate way. I will always enjoy performing - as long as people want to watch me play, I will be there and I will love it.
Q15. Please give a message to music lovers around the world.
Have faith in the power of a song. A song can save your life. I know things feel scary and uncertain right now, but music will always be there for us, to keep us sane. I feel so lucky to get to make music and to listen to music every day. I send my love to you and I hope that you find joy today. Thank you for listening, not just to my music, but to anyone’s music.
--------------- Answer from Julia Steiner
【Release】
『Printer's Devil』
Now on Sale
1. Alien With a Sleep Mask On
2. Look To
3. My Hands Grow
4. A Vision
5. Anj
6. I Go Out at Night
7. Victorian Slumhouse
8. Clever Hans
9. Listening
10. Printer's Devil
■Official HP
■Bandcamp
https://www.facebook.com/ratboysmusic/
Ratboys@Ratboysband
= Topshelf Records =
https://www.topshelfrecords.com/
＝Friends of Mine Records＝
0コメント