A Conversation with Motopony’s Daniel Blue and Buddy Ross – HuffPost 8.19.11

Mike Ragogna: Daniel and Buddy, how would you describe your group Motopony’s music?

Daniel Blue: Smooth glitch psyche folk soul and roll.

MR: (laughs) Daniel, how do you work your fashion talents into the group’s image and music?

DB: I designed the symbols and the logo for the band as well as worked as an artistic director/wardrobe dude on some of our photo-shoots. On stage, it’s every man for herself.

MR: Buddy, are you responsible for all the instrumentation on the debut album?

Buddy Ross: Yeah. On all but a couple songs–“I Am My Body,” “Vetiver,” I had Daniel come into my studio, The Panther Palace, and track his 3-string guitar and his vocals. I then spent a couple months alone with them, adding programmed drums, bass lines…basically, anything you hear on there that isn’t acoustic guitar. I also wrote a few of the electric guitar lines, but had our friend Nigel Ledgerwood from the Portland band, 1776, actually played them as well as editing together a bunch of tasty original licks he played. Same with the drums. I programmed all of them, then went to a studio and had our friend Ryan Peterson play the same parts with real drums, as well as adding some of his original flavor dancing in and around the loops. I think that’s one thing that makes the drums pretty unique sounding. They are a blend of old soul samples, and real live drums playing the same beats. That’s what gave the record a lot of that lo-fi sound. I also mixed the record. Daniel’s simplistic renditions really allowed me to do what I do best, which is weave all the parts together in a way only one can do by writing them all.

MR: Much of the subject matter on the songs is surreal. Where are these images coming from?

DB: In general, I find metaphor to be surreal in and of itself. I have a “real” thing or feeling that has happened and I build a word picture, or a wordworld for this event, idea or object to exist within. The successful artist or poet or songster is creating something inside of your mind, using thoughts and energy that he/she does not own. This creative action–and hopeful subsequent participation from the listener–in these “unreal” worlds is perhaps the most really surreal experience I can imagine. To me, “song itself” is surreal.

Specifically to this album, these images came from me saying, “What did I see in my mind when such and such happened,” or “What thing does it look/feel like when I saw/felt that?” I seek to link familiar scents in the halls of my mind, in hopes that your mind is at least vaguely similar in construction and operation. I think, “A leaf is like a table is like a stage is like a fishbowl is like a cage is like a riverbank.” The tighter the association in my own mind, the more or less likely I feel you will gain some meaning from my mouth forming sounds forming words forming ideas forming pictures forming places set to strategic vibrations forming song.

MR: Wow. What’s the creative process like?

DB: It’s like life, man. What’s life like? Life is like a chalk of boxed lets. An endless mystery.

BR: On this record, it wasn’t completely collaborative right away. Like I said, I got Daniel’s really simple renditions of his songs, and chipped away at them by myself in my studio. I’d then email him versions as they came to a presentable point. I think I personally really thrive being alone, and being able to dance around in my underwear when I first come up with the real “feel” of the music. But looking forward, now that we have a full band, there are several different avenues of creating. There are some new songs coming down the line that are just Daniel and his guitar again, but we also have some ideas that we as a band came up with together while all at our instruments. Thanks to modern technology, we’ve managed to capture most of our spontaneous ideas on iPhones as we come up with them. There are also now some songs that are basically instrumentals that I’ve made that Daniel is writing to too, kind of the exact opposite of how we did the last record, where the music is basically almost done and just needs vocals. Safe to say, we have several different ways we could go on a new record. All are equally as exciting.

MR: How did Motopony form?

DB: A stormy night on the Ides of March, 2009…we took the engine out of a ’74 Harley Davidson and pushed it into the ribcage of a dying palomino. It was a bloody mess, but the lightning striking the barn caught the bio-diesel on fire…and the thing was spooked to life.

BR: I met Daniel while producing a record back in like 2004, I think. He had tagged along with the artist to help with lyrics as it was a benefit album for cancer, and Daniel had experienced the personal loss of his mother to cancer. We connected then, but never really stayed in contact. In 2009, I had worked on another album for that same artist, and he invited me to a songwriter’s dinner party where I ran into Daniel there. We kinda played some songs in the round, and Daniel played “June”. I was pretty intrigued by his voice and performance especially in front of such a small audience.

I played off my iPhone a horror-electro track I made, and I think made the same impression on Daniel. And from there, he started sending me songs and I did my thing to them. I was really excited about what the music was turning out to sound like. I had honestly given up on being in a band, but knew that the songs we made together wouldn’t translate live unless I was to front the backing band. So, I called my friends and we started learning all the parts. And the rest is history!

MR: Do you feel that you represent the new Seattle sound?

DB: Like ambassadors from another planet, we ride our spaceship to worlds far older than ours…and offer them the audible fruits of a life loved in the hyper-green forests and salty-deep sounds, where the mountains meet the ocean in a jungle of pine. We aren’t depressed anymore…since we realized that our mother favors us with rain. A mystic storm brews all up and down the West Coast…we usher in an era of magic commodified and true power revealed.

BR: I think we have generated enough of a following here that we might play a part in sculpting what is the new “Seattle Sound,” but really there’s so much coming out of Seattle right now, it’s hard to pinpoint what that sound actually is. From Fleet Foxes, Shabazz Palaces, and Pickwick, I feel that good music is good music, and Seattle has a lot of good music coming out of it right now. So hopefully, we can be defined as unique and creative, because I feel that’s what defines a lot of the artists coming up here right now.

MR: Which songs on the album are the most personal to you and why?

DB: “June.” It is the story of how I became myself.

BR: Since I didn’t write any of the lyrics, I think the song that holds the most weight in how it was created was “Euphoria,” that was the only song I didn’t work on alone. Daniel showed me it almost as we were packing up after tracking drums, which we did at the end of the recording process, and we just went in and did it in three takes together. Having only just heard it for the first time, it was a special moment tracking it with Daniel live, and I’m excited to explore a more collaborative style of creating like that on the next record.

MR: Where are you touring?

DB: This year, we have scheduled dates in much of the United States of America and some places in Canada. We hope to see the world.

BR: All Over! We’re doing a few shows late august in the northwest with Daniel Johnston, and actually playing as his backing band too. And then Bumbershoot here in Seattle before we head out for likely 3 months, hitting the northeast from Toronto, all the way down to DeLuna Fest in Pensacola, and everywhere in between. It’s probably best if y’all just keep up on our website as that’s what I have to do to keep up.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

DB: Foster a partnership with the Author of your craft. Surrender to that which chooses to come through you for good. Choose to come through your highest self. Believe that art is magic and it waits with great expectation for a willing channel to manifest itself. Hope for your desire, but release the end result. Learn the beauty of opposites in harmony. Work toward healthy relationships with all that is around you.

BR: CREATE! In the back of my mind, I always felt I could go far, but that wasn’t my focus. My focus has always been to just create, experiment, and explore. For the sole fact that the process of creating something new is what drives me, I never felt higher than when I’m sitting there as a brand new idea takes shape, something no one else has ever heard. So, I would say just strive to find that place where you are excited about what you’re making. That’s all that matters. And when other people start to like it, it’s just cool because they are sharing in that feeling that you get when you’re making it.