A Conversation with Threefifty’s Brett Parnell & Geremy Schulick – HuffPost 8.23.13

Mike Ragogna: You have a new album, Collapses, and you’re also called Threefifty as opposed to ThreeFifty Duo. A lot’s happened since the last album, huh?

Brett Parnell: Quite a bit, yeah, quite a bit.

Geremy Schulick: I guess it’s been about three years since our last album came out, so yeah definitely.

MR: What are some of the things you guys have been doing and what have you been into lately?

BP: I think getting a lot more musically into different sounds. I think maybe the first records were a little more focused on the guitar. We have a classical guitar background, but I think for this record, we’ve put it aside a little bit while obviously still respecting it and having it stuck in our brains, but wanting to pull out electric guitars and layer a whole bunch of things and trying different effects and shoutouts to different styles of music within the album as well. So we’ve been working at that since the second album and I feel like the new album, Collapses is really kind of a culmination of all of that.

MR: Jeremy, would you say that Brett is telling the truth?

GS: I actually do have a lie detector right here with us so I can tell you for sure he’s telling the truth. No, totally, it does seem like with this latest record, we weren’t as concerned with virtuosity, although I don’t know if we ever really were, per se. But I think with this last record, most of the tunes aren’t really anywhere near as hard to play as a lot of the ones on the second record. There are a few that still required some serious practice from us but we did push a lot of the classical guitar asthetic aside for this one. We just wanted to expand our colors so we had a lot of different instruments on there, a lot of different effects and electronics. I think we were starting to lean in this direction with the second record; we actually wanted to have a lot of percussion on the second record and that ended up being a huge argument that we had with our producer at the time. He sort of won us over and told us not to put any percussion on it except for one track. I really agree with him now, looking back on it. He really thought that we needed to make a statement just with two guitars and all of our own compositions. He thought that should be more of a straight theme for the second record and then expand out afterwards, which is sort of what we did. So yeah, it’s been a really cool process. I think the whole time that we’ve been playing together it’s been a process of getting further and further away from being a classical guitar duo, although the entire time we’re still paying homage to our training.

MR: Even though you’ve expanded what your concepts are, it also seems that this album is more personal. For instance, your brother’s on this album and in my opinion, that’s had its effect.

BP: I definitely would agree with that. I definitely have a love and respect for the two previous albums we did but I think this one we really kind of dove in and really went and wrote from the heart for it. I’ve always loved being part of a musical community, so it was really a special thing to do to have my brother sing on it and my girlfriend and a couple of other amazing musicians and friends of ours.

GS: My wife helped with the electronics on the first track.

BP: It was a great group to have and I think it does make it a bit more personal because there’s even more of an experience involved. Geremy and I have been very lucky, we’ve been playing together for years and he hasn’t killed me yet. I think that’s due to the fact that we’re best friends. But inviting in some other people added to the emotive element of the record for me.

MR: Brett, we’ve talked about how close you and your brother are, very cool, I’m a big fan of family. Do you see your brother participating in Threefifty music even more in the future?

BP: I would love that, to be honest. I like the idea that Geremy and I are starting to write more with the gloves off. We’ll write for anything and we’ve had the wondeful experience of recording a video for one of our tunes that you guys showed on The Huffington Post where we had seven of us–my brother and our friends–and it was just a wonderful experience and it made me want to write more for friends and family and bring them into all the fun and excitement that is Threefifty.

MR: Could somebody describe what Threefifty’s mission is now?

GS: Mission? Our mission is to fly to Neptune.

MR: Been there, overrated. I just mean is there a longterm plan for all this Threefiftyness?

GS: Yeah, I mean we’re just continuing to develop our sound in that more expansive way I think. We’ve been working on some more tunes lately that are really going further in that direction. It’s hard to say exactly what the next album will be like but I imagine it will be more along the lines of that tune that Brett mentioned that you very graciously premiered on Huffington Post. I don’t know, I guess we don’t have super longterm plans, unless Brett has something he hasn’t told me about. We’re going to keep having fun with it, I suppose.

BP: I would say if there’s one longterm plan at least for me, I’d love to get into the film side of things. That idea of scoring, writing for films, it’s always been something that I’ve had an interest in. That was one of the things that was so cool about playing with the group for the video. I was like, “Man, I’d like to write for a film using just these guys.” Having friends doing it is very, very appealing to me along with going out and playing shows and whatnot, which I always enjoy immensely. I’d say that’s kind of the one thing that I’m always picking up in the back of my mind.

MR: What about playing live? You guys seem to have been more on the road than you have been in the studio, right?

BP: Right, yeah. But a little more in the studio as we were trying to finish things up. I would say we tend to be out more, and usually not playing in New York. I feel like New York is kind of a hit-or-miss city to be playing in, so we’ll head out to the Midwest or down South where I’m from, Northeast or overseas a few times and whatnot, always having a good time.

MR: The live platform is different from the recording platform. When you’re playing live, are you staying conscious of the fact that these pieces either will eventually become recordings. I’m imagining you’re testing some of your recordings on the road, right?

GS: Yeah, for sure. We’ve written some things that haven’t ended up on any of our records, but I do feel like the vast majority of the stuff that wind up keeping in our live repertoire always end up on recordings. We don’t have that many discarded rough drafts of things; we tend to write really intensely on one tune that we believe in and we make it work. There are some tunes that we write that don’t really work well live because there are too many parts and they’re too complicated to do with loops and stuff, but whenever we play things live, I think we’re certainly testing it out for potential use in a recording, although it’s always completely different recording something as opposed to playing it live. There are so many more possibilities.

BP: Yeah, I think my general rule is when we’re first playing something live and we get it into the studio I want to make it better than it is when we play it live, and when we get done with the recording I want to make it better than the recording when we play it live. So it’s definitely a process.

MR: Interesting. You’ve been doing this for a while–recording and playing live. You want to do some film scoring as well. But what do you want Threefifty to have acheived by the time you become Threefiftyone?

BP: [laughs]

MR: Do you want to redefine “classical” music or are you more interested in expressing yourselves?

GS: That’s a really good question. We think about that a lot. It’s a tough balance. I think the music that we write, we actually really try not to consciously write with the idea that we’re going to change the world and break boundaries of music.

BP: I think we used to be that way.

GS: That’s true. I think with Circles, a little bit, we thought about that a lot. I think now that we’ve essentially been writing music for a while now, I just find that the best music comes when you’re just noodling around and you’re just trying to discover what feels emotional and what sounds good. I think our only criteria when we want to stamp our name on a song finally is does it make me feel something, does it stick in my head, and does it sound like us? It’s personal. I think it’s really up to the listeners to decide if it’s breaking boundaries or anything. The thing is, especially in New York now, there are so many people that are combining various influences and genres. That’s a lot of what we like about the music scene here. It’s so eclectic and so diverse, it’s just one big melting pot. But I feel like for us to say, “We’re going to break the boundaries of classical music,” I feel like the boundaries have already been broken so many times over by so many bands and musicians that are combining genres in a very interesting way as well. I think our different influences just sort of naturally come out when we’re writing and we just embrace that.

MR: You guys studied with a purely classical approach for a while, maybe some jazz, too, when you were at school?

BP: Not at college, but I took about six months of jazz lessons and discovered that I was beyond awful at it. Then I was like, “Well, let’s see what classical guitar’s like!”

GS: It’s always funny to me that sometimes people hear jazz music our music, or they say, “Oh, Threefifty is jazz and folk and classical and rock.” If Brett’s saying he’s awful at jazz, then I would be his bad student. [all laugh] I have enormous respect for it. We know a number of really amazing jazz musicians, but it always just boggled my mind how people improvise like that. It seems like a completely different skill to me.

MR: When you look at classical and how it’s taught in school or in the field right now, what are your thoughts?

BP: I’ve got many opinions on it. It’s interesting because just on a purely technical level, the musicians that are coming out are off the charts. You can put your very talented master student up against most classical musicians fifty years ago and they’d probably hold their own in terms of putting their fingers on the right notes. However I’m not as excited about it. A lot of that has to do with the competition environment, the “he who hits the most notes in the least amount of time wins” kind of vibe, which I’m not as into.

GS: it’s very impressive but it’s not like an acrobatic act.

BP: Yeah. I think my three classical music heroes would be Jacqueline Du Pré, Glenn Gould, and Leonard Berstein. If you watch any performances of them or you hear any of them talk it’s just riveting. You think that they’re going to jump out of their skin they’re so engrossed in what they’re doing in a genuine way that I don’t see a lot now. Maybe it was just presented differently back then, maybe it was just looked at differently, but I just don’t see that as much now. It’s exciting when you do see that, in any style of music. If you see somebody who is giving out and is honest with what they’re doing, that’s what I want to watch. I hope that’s what we do to an extent, whether you call it classical, whether you call it post-rock, whatever. The most important thing to me is I hope somebody walks away moved in some way, and saying that we gave it everything we had.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists? I know I’ve asked you this a few times before on the TV show, so you must be well-rehearsed.

GS: I don’t know if I have a better answer than I did before; I still feel like a new artist myself all the time. I would just say follow what feels most genuine to you. I personally know a lot of people that told me, “You know, when I was in school, I was told I should write a certain way.” Even writing tone music was just not in style and you weren’t a respected composer if you wrote tonally. I think that’s fine if you’re passionate about that kind of music, but I feel like a lot of people when they go to school for music feel pressured to write in a certain way or play in a certain way that they’re being told to. I think that’s a lot of the responsibility of the teachers to try to bring out a more personal, unique nature in each student, but it’s also the student’s responsibility. It’s a delicate balance, to learn what you can from your teachers and take in as many influences as feel right to you but then also to realize that no one’s going to want to listen to you if you just want to sound like someone else or if you write in a certain style because someone tells you to. You need to discover what’s deep down. What is it that you like to listen to when you listen to music? I feel like if you don’t enjoy listening to what you’re playing at least at first… It’s hard for us to listen to our albums after we’ve listened to them twenty millions times in the recording studio, I think that’s natural. But if you ask yourself, “Would I want to listen to this and would I enjoy it if I were listening to it for the first time,” if the answer to that question is, “No,” then I think you should reconsider what you’re doing.

MR: That’s good, that’s really smart advice. What about you, Brett?

BP: I don’t think I’m as articulate as Geremy. I would say that when it comes to whatever you’re doing, give it hell, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and don’t forget that being a good person is way more important than being a good musician.

MR: I love that answer. That’s my favorite answer of the day.

BP: [laughs] I’ve met a lot of really terrible human beings who are musicians, but maybe it’s just because I’ve started to associate myself with a lot of different ones, or maybe it’s starting to turn around. But just here in Brooklyn, I know a lot of musicians who are just incredible people. I think it helps with that sense of community, which again is something I’ve always searched for. I’ve always wanted to have a community within a music scene. Who knows, maybe it’s turning around and musicians are going to stop being jerks and we’re going to have a whole bunch of nice ones.

MR: For the longest time, I’ve been like, “What the hell is going on in Brooklyn?” Anyway, I guess you’re going to be on the road supporting the new album?

GS: Yeah, for sure. I think we’re probably going to be heading down south in the fall and then probably a New England tour in the near future as well, hitting up our respective hometowns. We’ll see where the music takes us, I suppose.

MR: Beautiful. Any further words of wisdom from Threefifty?

BP: None that I can think of at the moment.

GS: Thank you so much Mike for all your support.

BP: That’s what I would say, thanks, man. We really appreciate it.

GS: We’re really grateful and super excited.

MR: You’re very welcome. Take care, guys.

BP: You too.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne