10 Fragen / 10 Antworten
1. When and why did you become a musician
I’m from a musical family. My uncle is a professional
clarinetist, my parents met playing in an orchestra together, mymother was a talented bassist, and I still play my great-aunt’s
violin. I’ve been making music nearly as long as I can remember. I
didn’t start recording until the mid 90’s, though (and that early
stuff was oh so terrible).
2. What are your characteristics? What makes you special?
I’m not quite sure how special I am, although in college I
studied a lot of baroque music while I earned my computer science
degree, so I spent nearly as much time talking to my music professors
about their computers as I did about the music. And on the flip side,
I spent a lot of time in compsci playing with weird music and sound
software. So the whole „music and technology“ combination was pretty
much a no-brainer for me.
3. Who and what inspired you??
It might be a little trite, but I am inspired by my musician
friends. I hear what they do and watch them perform and it gives me ideas. I’ve collaborated a lot. It’s how Klack exists – Matt and I have been friends for decades and we finally decided to work together on stuff.
5. How do you imagine listening to your music? Where do you like to listen?
Since I’m usually in the thick of the production of our music,
I hear it primarily in my studio. More by necessity than choice, but
I’ve got good speakers and a nice space so it sounds pretty good
there. The rest of the time, the harsh reality of course is that just
due to the circumstances of being at the day job or elsewhere out in
public, I have to listen on earbuds. I enjoy hearing it coming
blasting out of club speakers too but I don’t get out as often as I
used to.
4. Who are your most important role models and why?
I tend to favor musicians who manage to do interesting things
while still remaining decent human beings. Guys like Johnny Marr,
Bear McCreary, and Alex Reed. Great musicians, super nice guys. Is
it weird that many of my role models are younger than me?
6. What role do social media play in your career? How important is YouTube or Instagram for you?
Our band has pretty much gotten where we are almost entirely on
word-of-mouth, most of which is spread through social media. We’ve
gotten some good boosts from a few of our podcaster friends, like the
I Die:You Die crew in Vancouver, too. So we try to leverage what we
can out of social media to keep things moving. In a lot of ways I
wish we didn’t have to, as facebook and twitter can be so awful. But
that’s just the state of the industry right now.
7. Do you actually do anything besides the music?
8. What has been the best performance you’ve seen so far?
I write reasonably boring software for a day job. But It pays
the bills and my company does good work and I can be proud of it. I
also cook a lot. And I take a lot of photos of my cats. Periodically
I travel with my wife.
Ooooh tough one. I saw Hate Dept back in 1994 in a university
cafeteria and it was fantastic. But I might be exaggerating its
greatness a bit, simply because it was kind of a formative experience
for me. More recently, I saw Kite perform in a smallish town west of
here and it was one of the most emotional performances I’ve ever seen.
9. Who should play you when your life is filmed?
10. Last question: What do you want for the next 10 years, what do you need for it?
I’d like to say a young Harrison Ford, but more likely it’ll be
the guy who played „Screech“ on „Saved By The Bell.“
Mostly, I just want to keep doing what I’m doing. I need
decent health for me and my family, and free time to write and perform. Beyond that, it’s all just a Bonus.
