THE TURNBACK Interview:
1. PGH is all about helping artists highlight their most recent projects, so let us all know what your new project is – and tell us about how it come into the world. What has the initial feedback on it been like?
Our current project is the twelve songs on our new CD “Drawn In Chalk”, which, by the way, includes “Beyond Belief”, the song that also opens this year’s IPO compilation CD. The songs on the CD also make up the soundtrack for the indie film “Drawing With Chalk”, which was co-written and directed by Todd Giglio, who just happens to sing and play guitar in The Turnback as well as co-write all our songs with me and our drummer, Barry Nagel. This all started about three years ago because the band was in a rut and nothing much was happening in our lives. Todd and another friend of ours, Chris Springer, who both graduated college with theater degrees, got this idea that they should give acting another shot and write their own movie. At first, they were just throwing around some silly ideas, but it quickly turned into a semi-autobiographical script about two soon-to-be 40 year old musicians trying to give it one last shot while balancing their family lives and responsibilities. Once the premise of the film was set, they realized they would need a lot of music, so it also became the perfect opportunity for us to get off our asses and create something with a purpose. So after spending our life savings on filming the movie and recording the CD, the good news is that the film and the music from the soundtrack won a lot of awards at a bunch of indie film festivals and the CD is getting excellent reviews, including a Top Ten for 2011 from Powerpopaholic. Hopefully all the good notices will pay off with some more widespread exposure so we can pay off some of those debts!!
2. The Recording Process – there are so many interesting ways that music projects coming into being these days compared with what artists encountered years ago. Take us on the creative arc of how this project came into being and any wisdom that you learned along the way. Also, what were some of the obstacles or struggles that you encountered when you were working on the project?
Well, since I already told you how the music grew out of the idea for the film, I won’t rehash that. But I can tell you that the biggest turning point of the whole project came when the movie was being shown at the MIACC Film Festival in New York a couple of Novembers ago. At that point, we were still using our own rough mixes, which didn’t sound bad on big movie screen speakers but didn’t cut it on CD. At the press conference for this festival, they played trailers from all the movies and afterwards, another composer came up to Todd and mentioned how much he liked the music in the trailer for “Drawing With Chalk”. It turned out that the guy was Siddhartha Khosla from the indie band Goldspot. They got to talking and Todd mentioned that we were looking for someone to professionally mix the album and Siddhartha said he’d put in a good word for us with his producer, Jeff Peters, who’s won Grammy Awards and worked with The Beach Boys and Brian Setzer among others. After we sent him some demos, he agreed to mix the CD. Now, we thought our mixes were pretty decent, but when we heard what Jeff was doing, it was mind-boggling how good everything sounded. So, the lesson learned is that professionals are who they are for a reason and the DIY credo doesn’t necessarily work for everything.
As far as obstacles go, aside from the financial issues, the biggest one was finding the time to write and record. First off, the three of us live in three different locations, all about 25 miles away from the other. When you combine that with our day jobs and the fact that Todd and Barry are both raising families, we had to write and record in bits and pieces with little or no time for rehearsal. So we really had to be disciplined to get everything done and keep a true band feel on the tracks. It actually just occurred to me that maybe this fractured approach actually helped keep the feel more spontaneous than it may have been. In the end, it all worked out but I don’t think we’d want to do it like that ever again.
3. Are there any particular songs on this project that are special to you or communicate a message that you’d like to share here?
I can’t speak for Todd and Barry, but for me, all the songs are special because of how hard we worked on them. So I can’t really pick just one. What I hope is that whoever listens will pick up on the attention to detail we took with the music, lyrics, vocals and arrangements.
4. As we all know, the music industry has been devastated for many reasons over the past 10 years, what are your thoughts on these changes and are you finding some of them helpful to you with getting more people to hear your music?
The music industry has changed? I have no idea what you’re talking about Bruce!! But seriously, there’s a lot to bitch and moan about in today’s musical climate, but on the positive side, I think the best and most important change in the music industry is that artists don’t need labels to get their music out to the world anymore. On the negative side, with all the reality shows and Pop Culture constantly being hammered over our heads, I don’t think the U.S.A. takes music as seriously as it used to. So even though it’s great you can get your music out there, it almost seems like you have to do something crazy to get noticed on a larger scale. I now refer to it as Rebecca Black syndrome.
5. Along the lines of this discussion, it would be really interesting to get your thoughts on what you think the future of ‘music enjoyment’ might look like? How do you personally enjoy and ‘consume’ music? Any trends you’ve noticed with your own habits?
Even though I’m kind of old school in that I love to have the option of holding a record jacket or CD booklet so I can read lyrics and look at pictures, I actually love that music is so portable and available. I do hope that we can reach a happy medium where people can enjoy their MP3’s and downloads, but still appreciate the better quality of sound you get on a record or disc as well as lyric sheets and album art. One of my saddest days ever was when Tower Records closed. I hope that someday soon, the tide will turn a bit and something can step in to replace it. It’s not healthy to do EVERYTHING electronically!
6. So many artists are wrestling with different ways to approach the recording process now – I would love to hear what your plans on with your next project – Are you going to a full CD, an EP or just release songs as you finish them. Release them digital only or combine physical with the digital or what?
Well, if this CD doesn’t bring us some more exposure, there won’t be another project because we just can’t afford to do this again, either financially or emotionally. But if we’re lucky enough to keep it going, we’ll definitely record a full CD the proper way in a studio with a producer and we’ll definitely release it digitally and on CD. In fact, if we have our way, we’d love to put something out on vinyl too. That would be cool.
7. What are you finding that is working well for your music right now that others may find interesting to hear about?
We seem to be so-so at business and drumming up publicity and no matter how hard we try, how much money we spend or how many great reviews we get, we only seem to move forward in very small baby steps, if at all. So I can’t bestow any knowledge to other musicians on that front, but if anyone wants to give us any great ideas, I’m all ears! But what I can tell people that works for us is the musical partnership and our friendship. And that’s because all three of us – me, Barry and Todd – realize and accept our own and each other’s strengths and weaknesses, we bury the egos and have 100% faith and trust in each other. That makes it so much easier to write and arrange and get all the musical stuff done and it took us about 10 years to figure out how to do it. So it’s not an easy thing, but if you can get to that point, your music will benefit and your threshold for dealing with the many highs and lows of the music industry will increase big time. In the end, that means you can concentrate more on music and less on which band member is backstabbing you, not pulling their weight or who needs to be replaced. Music is hard enough without all the personal drama.
8. Okay – time for some light humor: Spinal Tap Moment – dig deep. Locate. Relive. Share that special ‘trauma’ with all of us! 😀
Our video shoot for “Beyond Belief”. We planned to make the six hour drive from where we all live in the New York City metro area to the small town in upstate New York where Todd grew up. We planned it for months and we were able to get a local factory to allow us to shoot scenes inside and outside the plant as well as a local club to let us use their stage and film inside the club. We had put out adds in all the papers for people to come down to the club and act as the audience and we got a big response. Our plan was to film the outdoor factory shots on Saturday and then the indoor club shots on Sunday. We even had a plan to switch days if there was rain. As it turned out, the weather report on Friday night said that Saturday would be sunny and it may rain on Sunday, so the schedule was set up perfectly. We loaded the van with all our equipment on Friday night, drove the six hours to upstate New York and arrived at about 1AM in the morning. I had booked hotel rooms weeks before and confirmed non-smoking rooms, but when we got there, all they had were smoking rooms that smelled like garbage. We’re all allergic to cigarette smoke and the rooms weren’t too clean besides the smokiness, but at 1AM in a small town, there’s no place else to go. So we unloaded the equipment so nobody would steal it, went to our rooms and wheezed through the night. We woke up Saturday morning, loaded the van back up again and were at least thankful that it was a beautiful sunny day. We drove to the factory, unloaded the van and started setting up the equipment. The whole time, the sun was out and all the weather reports were still saying the day would be bright and wonderful. Just as we set up the drum riser and began to put together the drums, the sky turned black in a matter of minutes and it began to pour. We quickly put all the guitars, amps and mics back into the van and got the drums underneath an overhang in front of the factory office. As soon as we finished putting away the equipment, the sun came out again. So we unloaded the van again and set up the drums again, at which point, the sky got black again and it started to pour again. We packed the van one more time and brought the drums back under the overhang. All this time, one of the cameramen was listening to the local radio station and they kept saying that it was sunny and beautiful while we were getting soaked. The load/unload happened a few more times and each time, the rain started up again. Finally, the weather people said that yes – it was raining and that it would continue through the night, which it eventually did. So after 4 hours of unpacking and repacking, we finally had to call it quits. This meant that we had to get up at 6AM on Sunday and go back to the factory and film the outdoor scenes that were supposed to take six hours on Saturday, in just 3 hours so that we could make it to the club in time for all our extras to show up. Luckily Sunday was a nice day and we were able to do all our outdoor shots in just under three hours, at which point, we packed up the equipment again, drove to the club, unloaded the equipment again, set it up on stage and spent the next 3 hours filming the indoor club shots. Then we packed up the equipment one more time, got a bite to eat and spent the next 6 hours driving back home, at which point we unloaded the equipment one last time. But the non-Spinal Tap ending is that the video turned out better than we had planned and even got a special mention on Mashable.com. If anyone wants to check out the results, you can visit our You Tube page.
9. Is there a particular musician you’d love to collaborate with – and why?
Well, there’s always that McCartney guy, for obvious reasons, but that’s kind of a pipe dream that everyone has, isn’t it? We all love Dave Grohl, so that would be a dream collaboration being that we love his music, he’s a great musician and songwriter and he seems like he’s a cool guy who’d be fun to hang out with.
10. Advance apologies: the ‘classic’ questions. What other artists and bands have influenced your music and any particular reason why? Also, push come to shove: “Your Top 5 Albums Of All Time”? (Pop Geeks really are interested in this, trust me!)
All three of us are Beatle and Brian Wilson people and we also love Foo Fighters. Todd and I also are big fans of Jellyfish, Radiohead and Lee Hazelwood and Barry is a big Rush fan.
I can’t speak for the others on favorite albums, but my favorites are The Beatles – Revolver ; The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds; Radiohead – OK Computer ; Stevie Wonder – Innervisions and The Who – Who’s Next. All pretty epic.
11. We’re always trying to find new music discover here at PGH – what are some of your favorite music releases of 2011?
I’m afraid I’m not too big on the major label releases so far in 2011. But one that I really enjoy is “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes. Other than that, I think the best music these days is made by unsigned indie artists like a band called Quinzy from Canada that put out three amazing EP’s last year. I also enjoyed an EP called “Welcome Home” by Dion Roy that came out earlier this year that’s kind of in a Ryan Adams vein. And there’s a young guy who I think is a budding star named Josiah Leming, who’s a brilliant piano player/singer-songwriter with an real edginess. He was signed briefly to Warners, but they tried to turn him into a Never Say Never clone and fo course screwed everything up. Now he’s on his own and he’s got an album coming out in September that I’m really looking forward to.
12. Yes, it would be great if most indie musicians could work on music full-time but the reality rarely the case for most of them. I always am asked by music fans, what are the careers or full-time jobs that the musicians of the music they are listening to do…so ‘what’s yr main gig?!’ ;-P
Barry’s a high school music teacher, Todd works for Madison Square Garden and I work in Information Security.
13. We’re taking an informal PGH poll of all musicians: Do you own a Kindle or Nook? Any thoughts on what reading books looks like to you?
None of us own any modern reading devices. We like our books on paper!!
14. Okay, last question: Where can we learn more about your music and any other releases you have?
You can find us on Facebook and You Tube and you can get our music on iTunes and CD Baby. Specifically you can find us at these addresses:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/drawn-in-chalk/id430404529
