by John Lester
Hausmusik Medley
First of all, hello again. You and I met at European Bass Day in 2006. It's a pleasure to interview you for Bassmagazine and see what you've been up to since then. My first comment about the new CD is ...wow! Putting the first track on and sitting down to listen to this project I was immediately floored by the huge sound jumping off the speakers. Deep phat grooves and all those horns! The bass is big and round with a nice high end that just cuts through the band without being overpowering. I must admit that when I listen to most projects that are led by a bassist, I find that the playingis often amazing but I rarely like the ‘music’. Not so here! You have great compositions, arrangements and playing as well.
While we will of course be talking ‘bass’ I wanted to ask first about your writing and arranging (well I guess it's a ‘bass’ question anyways). Do you conceive all your horn melodies and lines on the bass or do you use other instruments to write with?
‘Juggernaut Blondes’, the opening track from my last album ‘Falling from Insanity’, was the blueprint for ‘Hausmusik’. My concept was to create up-tempo ‘four-on-the-floor’ beats with a big band horn section on top and a good amount of funky bass and guitar chank in ‘the middle’. Once I had this creative framework in my mind I conceived further ideas with my bass, guitar, keys and loops in no particular order. Alongside this process I was listening to a lot of music for inspiration, more specifically big bands like the Count Basie Big band with Quincy Jones and Sammy Nestico arrangements, Tower of Power (so great to have their very own Stephen ‘Doc’ Kupka and Lee Thornburg on my record), Blood Sweat and Tears, and Earth, Wind & Fire, the absolutely amazing Jerry Hey horn section with Seawind, Rufus/Chaka Khan and Michael Jackson, as well as ‘Soul Jazz’ records from the 60s by Jimmy Smith (check out ‘The Cat’ – totally awesome), Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes, Lou Donaldson, Cal Tjader, well…all the Greats from that special period! Contemporary bands like the Dap Kings, The Budos Band, Mark Ronson, Groove Collective, Herbaliser and Incognito were also on my radar. It’s great to check in how other contemporary artists digest the wealth of great music that came before us. I also studied a fair amount of arranging books (Henri Mancini’s for example) at the time and even took a few private lessons with experienced arrangers in London. I guess all this filtered through from my particular music vantage point, being a bassist who loves to write and arrange. By the way, one of the things that I’m very happy about is that there is no programming on the entire album (except the remixes). All parts are played by musicians and although at times I asked myself during production if I’m going mad by multi-tracking between 50 and 70 tracks per song, I persevered because overall it was a fantastic journey. I also want to give Rupert Christie, the man who mixed my last two records, a big cheer for his great work. You should have seen his face when he booted up the first track and this huge amount of tracks were starring him in the face. That was one of the reasons why I was there all the time in the mixing process (which took a long time) as with this amount of layered material the question of what should be fore, middle and background can totally reshape the music and I had a good idea of how I wanted it to be.
Stefan with his Funkestra at the European BassDay 2006
Yes, the CD definitely has a shape. A few things I really like is the panning of dense horn parts to the sides, leaving room in the middle for the bass and soloists. You also seem to have compressed most of the horn solos so they seem ‘smaller’ than the other horn parts, but loud enough to be heard clearly. When the horn parts come in around the solos, they really punch. Was there a particular arranger you listened to that gave you this idea?
Thanks for your kind words. The horns are obviously a big feature and early on I made a decision to write for four trumpets, three trombones and five saxes. Smaller horn sections (three or five horns) are often mixed as one unit, often in one particular sonic space. After I decided on the amount of brass and reeds I thought it would be great to spread the horns across the stereo spectrum. After quite a bit of listening it seems that a lot of big band records have the brass (trumpet and trombones) on the right side of the panorama and the reeds on the left. One record that completely fascinated me during the writing of ‘Hausmusik’ was Paul Anka’s ‘Rock Swings’. Besides the amazing re-arrangements of rock classics and killing performance, the sound is outstanding. It is my dream that one day I will record an album of that caliber. In the meanwhile…back to my record. I’d say that the overall volume of the horn section is probably unusually loud but after experimenting with Rupert Christie, the mixing engineer, I wanted to make sure that the horns are punchy and ‘surround’ the soloist. I’m aware that some of the things we did in terms of sound and relationships between the instruments is not what would acoustically happen if all the musicians would have recorded at the same time but hopefully we have achieved something musically pleasing but slightly different too.
Well, I for one, think you have certainly achieved a unique sound. What's your studio setup at your home studio, Holly Lodge? I see when you mention your home studio on your CD credits you mention also 'Rudi van Gelder appreciation'. Does this mean you set up mics in your living room like van Gelder was known to do when he recorded the greats of jazz?
Funny you ask this question because this is exactly what I’ve done. I saw a great picture of Sonny Rolling during a RVG recording session in Rudy’s parents’ living room in Hackensack. Sonny Rollins was sitting on a bar stool in front of a ‘puny’ music stand, behind him a 50s television set with a Styrofoam cup of coffee on it. I loved the intimacy of it – the whole scene looked relaxed. Although I used a few commercial studios to record some of the material, notably the drums and some of the Tower of Power guys in L.A., I recorded most of it in the cosines of our living room. Sid Gauld, trumpet player from Incognito, came around for a day just to test mics. I borrowed a whole bunch of expensive mics and we experimented with placing and my moveable acoustic tiles, the stuff that the BBC uses for live interviews to block out the surrounding sound and noise. I lost count of how many great meals my wife cooked for, what seems, a myriad of musicians coming and going to record on this album. But that was another great aspect of the journey in the making of ‘Hausmusik’ – sitting down for a meal, talking about life and music, recording some more, having a break for tea or coffee, hopefully a relaxed atmosphere for all involved. There are also a few tracks of vibraphone and percussion which were recorded by the players themselves in their home studios and then sent to me, however, the majority of takes were recorded in the front room at Holly Lodge.
I've done a few bass parts for people in my home studio, and then sent them to the artists. With this being more common these days, how did you find working in this manner? Did you need to ask either the vibraphone or percussion player to re-track anything, since you weren't in the room to originally offer your opinions about their parts?
I love that the Internet has opened up new possibilities and ways in which we can make music. I think music making has become richer for it. At the same time I also think that one approach cannot eliminate another, i.e. it is great to work with people in the same physical environment, to work simultaneously across the net real-time, and also to work in different time-lines and different places. They all are valid and produce their own flavor of results and experiences.
For me, as a bass player, it has been great to have my set-up and I have done a fair amount of long-distance bass sessions. It is still a great experience to receive a cheque in the post for a session that I held in the comfort of my own home (I got to play ‘with’ Herb Alpert this way on his remix album). However, I think long-distance recording works best if the people working with each other know each other personally to a certain extent. Things can get a little tricky when working with new people or complete strangers. Everybody’s perception and language around music is different and when one producer says “play a fill in bar 53” to a bassist it could mean a lot of different things. Knowing each other helps tremendously because the involved musicians will hopefully understand what each other mean when giving instructions via the phone or email. Email is probably the hardest way to communicate because the written word can be totally misconstrued. Even a simple yes can have a myriad of meanings in a face-to-face conversation whereas in an email it is pretty finite. Trust is one of these human experiences that are still best formed face-to-face.
When it comes to my music and me being the producer, writer and arranger I also think it is great to use the net for ‘off time-line’ and ‘long-distance’ sessions. However, my personal writing style is that I would want the main parts to be recorded with the musician(s) in the same room. It is just a great experience to record with friends and great musicians and this also often produces the much talked about ‘chemistry’ – good and bad. A lot of my music was notated and that made it easier to send the dots via email and then to collect the audio files for insertion into the pieces. It is also interesting to provide hardly any instructions to a musician, as the creative input of another musician can be hugely refreshing. A good example on the record for this approach is the percussion on ‘Shindig’. The percussion player Gabrielle Nuzzoli (who lives in Barcelona) did a great job and all I gave him was a type of lead-sheet and the instruction ‘Have fun!’ This was after everything else was recorded. I cannot remember any comeback in terms of musical input. I think on one occasion we re-did a long-distance session because of technical reasons but not musical ones.
What bass guitar(s) did you use on the new CD?
I used mostly my main axe - a Music Man Sterling but also my Fender Jazz and Rickenbacker. The guitars are an Epiphone 335 and a Fender Tele with three pick-ups.
Can you tell me how you recorded the bass, what preamps and/or compressors you used, do you mic a cabinet as well as go DI? Is this different from you live rig?
To a certain extend I see my live rig and my studio rig as two separate entities. For the main basses I used mostly a Universal Audio LA-610 or a slightly modified Aguilar DB-680 (one of the first ones they built way back then). There are a lot of plectrum bass parts in the ‘tenor register’, which could easily be mistaken for guitar parts on the album. For these I used The UA LA-610 and had fun with my pedals (Moogerfoogers, Electro Harmonix, etc.), sometimes I even used a little Pignose guitar amp to post-process some of the sounds and on ‘WRBD’ I even sang the melody through a Rocktron ‘Banshee Talk Box’ inspired by the legendary recording of Peter Frampton’s ‘Do You Feel Like We Do’. My live rig is the Aguilar DB-750 which I use with a 2x12” Aguilar cab or an Accugroove cabinet for smaller venues.
As well as bass guitar, you also play synth bass. Would you describe your synth bass and Novation "Bass Station" a bit?
My Novation Bass Station is fun. I think they went out of production a while ago. Basically it is a monophonic bass synth with two octaves and only a handful of presets. I think it was more a toy for DJs initially but I feel that a bass synth gives you a whole different angle into low frequencies, very different to bass guitar. I played this little bass synth life for a while (just propped on top of my amp) but have since treated myself to a Moog ‘Little Phatty’, the modern version of the classic Minimoog and I can’t wait to use it for a new album and possibly live – space and muscle power allowing.
Have you transcribed some of your favorite bass guitar lines and played them on keyboard to develop you bass synth chops?
There is a great repertoire of synth bass lines like ‘Boogie Down’ by Al Jarreau, ‘Living in the City’, ‘Too High’ and ‘Keep on Running’ by Stevie Wonder, ‘Ain’t nobody’ and ‘A night in Tunesia’ by Chaka Kahn, ‘Speed Demon’ and many other tracks by Michael Jackson, Jackson Five and Parliament, well…I could go on….I transcribed some of them but mostly to play them on my 4-string bass. I don’t really have ‘chops’ as in ‘technical proficiency’ on keys but I think I can hold down a tune with some phat notes. I’d love to have Greg Phillinganes or Bernie Worrell’s synth bass chops but I need to do some serious shedding first.
I gotta know, how did a white boy from Austria get SOOOO funky?
Ha-ha, that’s a funny question... well, I guess we all like to play and write what feels good to us and I feel lucky that I had the opportunity to study in the States where I really got into Funk music after my desire to become a ‘serious Jazz Cat’ lost its appeal. The Funk called and I felt I had to respond… it felt a lot better to me than playing standards, although I still love to listen to them and check them out. Right now I’m totally inspired by the writing and arrangements of Thad Jones. Feeling the gravitas of the cultural melting pot that is London is also great for inspiration, influence and ‘feeling the beat’ in general. My hometown Salzburg has its own great music reputation but as you might imagine it is not particularly funky…. ‘The hills are alive with the sound of [funky] music’? ...not quiet!
When did you move to London?
I moved to London in 1996 after I graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston.
As well as leading your own band, do you play as bassist in other bands in the UK?
Yes, I do indeed – recently I recorded with London singer Noah Francis (with Wu-Tang clan guest appearances), an album with soul singer Sam Brown, another album with her very talented brother Pete Brown and played a gig with their dad, Joe Brown, who has a well respected career that spans the last four decades. I think the Beatles opened up for him way back then and it is great for me to step in as a sideman to his gig and think: ‘Wow, this guy has been going for 40 odd years and has this abundance of energy – I hope I will be able to do the same with my music in 30 years time’. Another fantastic band I sometimes play with is called Talc. You have to check them out – I think they are most outstanding – Steely Dan 2.0. kind of thing. Also, besides everything else – their bass lines are fantastic. What is even more astonishing is that Nichol Thomson, one of the two main writers, sings, plays keys, vocoder and trombone and also punishes the bass with the greatest sense of flair and pocket… don’t you find talents like this totally awesome… oh, yes – and he played trombone on all of my last three records too.
So the short answer to your question - It’s great for me to step in as a sideman into somebody else’s band. There is always a lot to learn and I always get inspired for my own thing too.
After leading your own band, do you find it relaxing to ‘just’ be the bassist for someone else?
I think that both being a sideman, or a bandleader, have its challenges and rewards. Of course it is easier to only have to manage yourself without the responsibility of the overall outcome, but being a sideman puts you in a place in which you have to accept being in the passenger seat rather than the driving seat. This can be relaxing when you are heading in the right musical direction, or stressful when things come off the tracks. Being a bandleader can be relaxing when you are heading in the right direction or stressful when you have unruly passengers or customers. Ultimately I like both roles if the music, or the people, or the circumstances are great. In case these three all come together…well, what is there but heaven after that?
Do you produce other artists as well?
Currently I’m finishing off my fourth album ‘Concubine Chronicles – Live at British Grove’. This will be released sometime in spring 09. As I have not produced another artist for a while (the last CD I produced was for a London singer/songwriter called John Thwaites and I hired Danny Gottlieb to play drums – that was fun too!) I’m looking forward to working and producing some recordings for the outstanding vocal talent Brendan Reilly who has worked with the Funkestra for the past year or so. I also frequently collaborate with my good friend and producer extraordinaire Thomas Foyer and we have a few spin off projects, one of them is called ‘Kampfanzug’ – it’s definitely not funk, but fun to produce.
I see you play The 606 Club in London on a regular basis, what a great place that is! Any plans on bringing the Funkestra over to this side of the channel, perhaps here in The Netherlands, in the near future?
We would love to come over again but would need a little help from someone local on the continent. Know anyone by any chance? Currently I’m planning a small tour in the south of England in March with Hammond organ player Dave Limina from Boston to celebrate the release of our fourth album, hence the tour will the ‘Concubine Chronicles tour 2009’. We’d love to extend over to the Netherlands. Just get in touch if anyone thinks they can help.
