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A Conversation with Kris Delmhorst (continued)
PM: So we think that Songs for a Hurricane is very strong and really well put together. That's a super record.
KD: Thank you.
PM: I'm not surprised that you're such an eloquent and quick thinking speaker, because there's a very strong presence on your records.
KD: Well, thank you.
PM: Share with us a little, please, about Billy Conway. What kind of a cat is he?
KD: [laughs] He is a serious character that I love and admire. Billy is fantastic. He's a very--let's see, how to describe--he's sort of mysterious, especially when you first get to know him. He's not the most loquacious guy in the world. And he--I don't know. He just has a certain kind of Zen calm about him. [laughs]
PM: I hear that.
KD: I've made two records with Billy now--well, he's played drums on all three of my solo records, but we produced the last two together, Hurricane and Five Stories.
PM: We liked Five Stories very much, too, and reviewed it.
KD: Oh, thanks. And when I originally asked Billy to produce Five Stories with me, he hadn't really officially done any production work, although he'd certainly been involved, you know, with a lot of the Morphine stuff and other things he played on. But I asked him because he just has a very sideways approach to thinking about music.
And it comes through as a drummer. The first thing that I really loved about playing with Billy was that he always wanted the words to the songs, and that was very unusual, and it's so cool. He wanted the words just to feel he was really involved with the music on that level, with the songs on that level. And he never plays what everyone else would play. He just never thinks of the obvious thing. [laughs] I admire that about him a lot. And we both have similar priorities, in terms of recording, which is not to get the perfect take or the perfect part, but to get the feeling that just feels like it's kind of lighting up the switchboard.
PM: Yeah.
KD: Billy is amazingly patient about that. And so he's, for me, great to work with in the studio.
PM: Yeah. If you don't get the spirit in the take, you didn't get it.
KD: Right, exactly.
PM: What's the vibe at his Hi-n-Dry, what's the feel of the studio?
KD: It's fabulous. It's an old five-story brick building in Cambridge, it used to be a laundry building a long time ago. So it's kind of a loft space now, the top floor of this building. It's where Mark Sandman used to live. And where Morphine had their studio set up, where they would demo things and they did a lot of--
PM: Oh, so it's legendary. It's got all that voodoo in the room.
KD: Yeah. It's loaded with history. And when we did Five Stories, that was the first non-Morphine project, I think, that's ever begun up there, and certainly after Mark died. And so there was a lot of grappling with history on that one, and sort of letting the space transform into its new life.
PM: Would you mind telling me how Sandman died?
KD: He had a heart attack on stage. The band was in Rome playing a festival.
PM: Whoa. Oh, my God...
KD: Yeah.
PM: Thanks for all that good stuff on Billy Conway and on the studio. That's great.
KD: Oh, sure. Yeah, it's really a magical place. It's such a great place just to spend time: it's got a beautiful panoramic view of Boston, and the light that comes through that place all day is gorgeous. And so many studios are sort of dungeons.
PM: Oh, yeah. Most of them are dead.
KD: Right. So part of the deal with being up there is that you get the street noise and the setup. There's absolutely no isolation whatsoever. Basically, everyone is playing in the circle, including the engineer. So there's just bleed, and--
PM: The engineer is in the circle as well?
KD: Yeah.
PM: There's no control room?
KD: There's no booth, so it's quite a scene.
PM: [laughs]
KD: Yeah. So it's not for everyone, but I really feel like it's magical.
PM: And so, you just set up a couple of sound baffles, or...?
KD: We didn't really even bother with the baffles.
[laughter]
PM: Oh, that's a trip.
KD: We just sort of accepted it.
PM: And so is there is bleed all over the place? [When a mic is on the vocal, for example, it may also pick up other things.]
KD: Pretty much. On both records, we redid some of my tracks. We did as few as possible. But sometimes, you know, the take felt great, but something about what I was doing wasn't exactly right. And actually, the main reason why we ended up redoing some of my vocals was that very reason: that there was so much drums in the vocals that it made it really impossible to mix.
PM: Right. [If you turn the vocals up, the drums go up too.]
KD: A few of them we had to redo, but mostly we just lived with it. So yeah, on just about any track, you can more or less get the whole feeling of the whole thing.
PM: Unbelievable. That's very interesting.
KD: [laughs]
PM: And I would assume that even though he's a real subtle guy that he's not the quietest drummer in the world, right?
KD: No. I mean, he's certainly not the loudest. I mean, he plays a pretty small kit, but no, he's definitely there loud and clear. continue
