by Nate Blanco
Interview by Michael Pollock
Download - Hell
"Death," another song by Nate, was posted last week along with part 1 of the interview.
Listen: Death
LL: Are there real instruments on “Hell?”
NB: There’s a drum in the background, and everything else is just my voice. I recorded the drum part first - it’s a big floor tom - then I layered vocal parts on top of it
LL: How many layers are there? Because it gets intense at parts.
NB: At one point I think there’s 5 layers. At most points there’s 2-3 going at a time
LL: Do you do that on your computer as well or do you do layer it on a recorder?
NB: It’s all done on my computer. I use garage band, which is surprisingly good for the kind of stuff that I do.
LL: Can you tell me about your website, Digital Cassette Records?
NB: Yeah, this is a website that we just started, maybe about a month ago. For a while, in this very room, a lot of us have been playing music, completely improv, just jamming out mostly. My friend Nick and I, we invite people over all the time. We record jams - a lot of them are pretty good and we want to be able to release them and get people to hear them. We used to release CDs. We were making good stuff that wasn’t realistic to release as CDs. It’s a lot of work for me and I’m not that good at promoting or giving people CDs or trying to sell them.
LL: Not good on the street?
NB: No, not at all. So I thought having a place where people could come hear the tracks, where I could post stuff on a regular basis would be a really great thing to have.
LL: The people that you mostly play with are close friends? Do they live here?
NB: Mostly close friends. My friend Nick who is the person I play with the most often, he did live here until 2 weeks ago. Sometimes it’s just him and me. The other people who are regulars are close friends and a few solid people who come kind of often but other times it’s just random people. One day Nick met this girl in the street. He was working at this canvassing job and met this girl and invited her to come over. She brought her friend and instruments. That was actually one of the best jams we ever had. Pretty magical. That jam was the inspiration for the song “Hell.” At one part during this jam we were all so on and on the same page. Three different people are playing guitars and other people are playing hand drums and everyone is singing at the same time. I just started improvising the lyrics that became the song “Hell.” I was singing them in the same way, I think that was one of the best parts of the night. I wish that would have been recorded. That jam session was actually not recorded. The recording of the song “Hell” was me trying to recreate it. I really like it because I was impressed with my own lyrics and ideas and wanted to remember them.
LL: When I heard “Hell,” I wasn’t sure if it was you or not.
NB: Which happens a lot with me. Even with songs where I think I’m singing in my normal voice I’ve had people who listened to it many times and knew that I made the song but they ask, ‘Who is that singing on there?’ or ‘Did you write the lyrics or did he write them?’ I’m like, ‘That’s me, you’ve know me for years you don’t recognize my voice?’
LL: Like, ‘Thanks, Mom!’ Does your mom listen to your music?
NB: I don’t know. I’ve given her CDs. Whether she listens to them or not, I don’t know.
LL: So she hasn’t given you feedback?
NB: Not really, except for the standard mom things like, ‘That’s great.’
LL: ‘That’s so professional’ is my mom’s favorite.
NB: Right. I don’t know if you’re saying that, Mom, or if you’re just saying it because that’s what you do as a mom or if you actually listen to it. But I also feel like, how could she possibly not like it because she is such a mom she’s going to love anything I do even though I don’t think it’s music that she would normally ever listen to.
