We were very lucky to be able to put Susan James and Richard Buckner, two musicians’ who are old friends together, to discuss Richard's new album 'Surrounded' plus a whole host of other musical topics; writing, recording, band mates, microphones, state of mind, playing live and more.
Susan (SJ);
I was at the beach sitting on a deck in the shade with headphones on when I first listened to it. And it absolutely made sense in this setting. The sun glittering on the ocean, pelicans diving fearlessly head first into the water. It blended. Just as it would on a future rainy night..or a foggy morning. Richard Buckner’s new album ‘Surrounded’ is like an ambient daydream with a pulse. He’s an old friend and we’ve toured together. We had a chance to talk about his new album, touring, performing, and the need for privacy, for space after a performance.
After I read it back I worried a bit on some parts of this, but it shouldn’t come off as anything but a quest to put ones’ self in the space that is needed to create, for writing a song or a performance. And the space to recover when you’ve spent an an hour or two onstage, finding that place to pull the songs forward from. I say this for Richard, myself, for any creative moment or inventor: Any flaws in the creator, it seems, shouldn’t eclipse the beauty of his/her creation. And oh what a beauty his new creation is.
SJ So …How’s it going?
RB (Richard Buckner): You know…(laughs), woke up again.
SJ: Congratulations! That’s great! (laughs)..Meanwhile, Lets talk about your new album a bit. So, which number is this?
RB: I think it must be ten..
SJ: I think you should get something, some special gift for that. You know, like a wedding anniversary. The gift recommendation at first starts out as, like, cotton or a piece of grass and then it gets to the precious metals. I think you’re at a precious metal stage in album releases.
RB: Well, you know heavy metals can be bad for you too, you know, so you gotta be careful.
SJ: Well maybe you’ll get a metal album to listen to or…
RB: I would love to MAKE a metal record!
SJ: That’s what you should get, free studio time to make a metal album!
RB: I’d love to get a metal band to do all the songs, all the playing and all I have to do is get up there onstage in front of the microphone and do my thing without playing anything. That would be great
SJ: That would be awesome - you would be really good at that.
SJ: I could see it happening. Would you do that for real?
RB: Totally. Totally!!
SJ: So I know and you know that recording an album can truly test your sanity at times. How did it go this time? How did you do this one?
RB: Well the last one I did, “Our Blood”, I did in the same setting as this one – In my room. And I didn’t think I could do that again. I didn’t want to do that again. Because I’m one person and only have a few tricks, as well as limited equipment that is sometimes working or not working.
But when these songs started coming out all of a sudden after I finished my last one, some were written with certain musicians and recording situations in mind. I initially set about trying to just demo them as completely as I could. So when I did take them in the studio I would have these sketches that the musicians could work off of and do their own versions of.
As I finished the demos, there was no money to do that or any way to pull that off. My only option was to take the demos and give them to someone who could polish up what I had done at home and reassemble them in a way that maybe was something, I could pull off.
Because I record myself and I’m not an engineer, I just hit erase and record, and erase a lot more. I don’t use compression or any of that kind of stuff, because I don’t have use for it when I’m working fast and trying to get things in my head on to the recorder as fast as I could. So it was just a matter of putting the songs down the best I could and when I was done, I had what I had. And then had to expel it from the house the best way I could.
SJ: So you used these recordings in this fashion..
RB: The songs were written with a certain story in mind and the sequence on the record is the order that I had the story so when it came down to sequence, it was already sequenced..
SJ: Oh that’s great because sequencing can be agonizing
RB: Yes it’s agonizing and this way it helped take it out of that side of the mirror and put it in the lap of the subconscious. Which is much more trustable than the second guessing of an artist who’s looked at his over-painted piece of furniture too many times and can’t tell what it is anymore.
It took that control away at a certain point, which is good. It’s good to have that control taken away to have a fresh view. The story was already known. All I had to do was plug it in and make sure the songs followed it musically.
I also was giving myself certain handicaps or rules to make sure I didn’t go through and record a bunch of songs all at once and then think, “OK, I’m going to do these five songs and all the overdubs on them with this one instrument”. I really wanted to do them all separately. So I only worked on one song at a time and then put it away to ferment like kimchi. Then I’d come back to each song later with a fresh view. That way I wouldn’t screw with them too much and not make them into too much of a factory piece.
SJ: But you did work with producer Tucker Martine on this, so how did he produce what you’d already recorded?
RB: Yes he’s a producer but he didn’t produce in that sense. With this, basically I gave him exactly what I’d recorded and he reassembled exactly what I had given him. He didn’t add any overdubs, he added some effects and made things sound better, He’s as much the producer on this as I am and the neighbors who allowed me to record.
SJ: So a collective production somewhat..
RB: It was mostly produced by ennui.
SJ: Ah, mais oui! The arrangements are all you, yeah? Bringing in harmonies, deciding where..this n that
RB: Yeah, but it was all accidental. For example on the first song on the record, I didn’t set out to put 3 or 4 part harmonies as pads on sections of the song. That happened because when I recorded it as a demo the guitar was a little bit out of tune. So keyboards wouldn’t really fit as my vocals weren’t normally in tune or veer a little. The nature of human error made the vocal harmonies fit on the already flawed recording. So things didn’t happen out of decisions I had made ahead of time, but more out of necessity and panic.
SJ: Well speaking of your vocals, your voice, my friend is sounding better than ever. It really is. It sounds beautiful.
RB: Oh thanks! A friend of mine loaned me a Neuman U-48 a couple years ago, which we’d used a long time ago on another record. He told me he thought it was the best mic for my voice. He hasn’t been using it and he had given it to me on sort of an indefinite loan, so I’ve used it on the last couple records. I would have preferred a couple of other vocal mic options but I didn’t have any other good vocal mics around, so this is the one I used. It picks up everything completely. All the little tongue clicks and saliva things but most importantly it seems to capture the air and the molecules, it’s just one of those microphones.
SJ: Yeah, I know it, it’s a great one. But I’m on something else here. I know you’re attributing your great vocal performance to the microphone when what I’m really talking about is you. Your voice. The way you’re singing, it’s always unmistakably you, and it’s always great, but there is something subtle, stronger and nuanced on this..Just beautiful. Better than ever.
RB: I think part of it too is recording at home. Whereas in a studio you’re trying to get these things done while you’re seeing little dollar signs flying out the window. Or maybe you’re not feeling the moment. And when you record at home you can get up at 3am in your boxer briefs and go do your take. And that’s the take that just seems to work right because that day has been really fucked or whatever and, it’s taken a toll on your mind and your voice responds to it. Recording at home you have a little more freedom to settle on those moments that seem most appropriate.
SJ: Yes, you can do it right when the notion strikes. Then you are in it, and it feels right to get it out now and you want to sing it right now.
RB: Yeah if you’re really feeling it, like you get up at 3 am and you’re like…. oh my god, this week I said no to everything, and this song makes sense to me right now. So when you’re singing it you’re really feeling it instead of just trying to get a good take in the studio.
SJ: Whatever it is keep it up because you sound so wonderful. You know, .I noticed from the first stuff I ever heard from you, you definitely have your own take, your own unique way in your lyrics. The way you write, you definitely have your own style and you’ve struck out on your own path. So when I say what I’m going to say next it’s not that you write like this person, it’s more because you have your own distinct voice and so did he. Your lyrics somehow remind me of James Joyce.
RB: Oh wow, thank you.
SJ: He’s a figure in literature that stands out to this day for a reason. Because he created his own dialogue beautifully and I feel you have done the same thing. But in your own way. I’m not saying you write like him but when I read your lyrics, or let’s say if someone had handed me some and didn’t’ tell me who’s they were, I would know they are definitely Richard Buckner lyrics.
You’ve gone your own way and there’s the external detail and there’s a stream of consciousness, there’s the personal and the confessional, even when your writing a story not about your personal life, there’s something very distinctive about your lyrics that is totally you.
Not many people can say they have their own voice like that and you definitely do. No one can touch you because of that. I mean that
RB: Thanks Susan. Thank you so much. Did you receive the whole text for this?
SJ: Yes, the songs embedded in a larger text.
RB: . The songs are songs, but the words for the songs are for the songs only. So when I put them down with the extra words and extra parts in there I really felt like that was a necessary part of the whole text.
It was liberating to be able to have the songs represented that way as well as the way they are on the record. Because I felt like it was more complete, having a different way of reading it. I like when there’s more than one way you can see things. That’s kind of important to me. I wanted to do it on the last record too but because of a series of mishaps I couldn’t bring the whole thing to light. I’m getting closer I’m still not there but I’m getting closer to doing things the way I want to. But I think dissatisfaction is a very useful emotion.
SJ: It really is. I think that’s what drives us forward is that dissatisfaction. That’s the dangling carrot. That ‘I haven’t quite done what I want to do, I haven’t written quite the way I wanted to write’, etc..
RB: Oh yeah, I’ve been in studios watching other people work where they’re behind the mixing board and rocking out to their own shit and that’s the most suspicious thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
SJ: You’re right!! I know!
RB: If you’re rocking out to your own shit, then just go for it and come. Don’t waste everybody’s fucking time. Get the money shot, get it over with and go back into your closet.
SJ: (Laughing) So true!… Yes well dissatisfaction is a wonderful thing, It’s good to feel it although at the same time it’s a miserable thing to feel ..
RB: You’re right it’s a miserable feeing. It’s like therapy. You know you need to go. You might not necessarily want to go, but you know you need to go.
SJ: That’s why I asked you how sane did you feel at the end of this one. Every single one has its’ trials and tribulations. And those moments where you think ‘I might not be getting what I want from myself’, or ‘I’m not quite getting what I want from other people involved’ and all the dynamics in between. In between all the great moments when you DO get the things the songs are asking for.
RB: And those people have their days too. I have worked on records with people who did amazing things and then on other projects with the same person and it’s not happening. The failure rate is not necessarily a failure. It’s just, you don’t know what happened to that person that week, or month or year or what’s happening in their personal life…Maybe they just can’t bring it that day but that’s the day they’re there. And if they don’t bring it, then everybody’s fucked.
SJ: Yes exactly..
RB: there’s nothing that they or you can do about it You just pray that inspired moment comes it cant’ always happen it can be something as simple as your breakfast sucked!
SJ: it’s like chemistry, or conjuring magic…it has to be just the right levels of this and that, emotionally and physically. Even with singing, the physical aspect of singing.. Have you drank enough water? Did you eat some dairy earlier and now there’s a ton of mucous and you’re stopped up…I get almost superstitious about it, it’s a science project for me, how do I get the right chemical ph balance whereby there is some saliva but not so much so that I’m drooling, and not too little that I’m choking on a parched throat…
RB: Yeah yeah absolutely I think about those things too…the time of day, did I have too much sugar..
Part II next week
Susan James & Band are currently on a European tour .. details HERE
Richard Buckner has U.S. tour dates HERE
'Surrounded' is released via Merge Records on 09 September 2013