- in Advice for New Artists , JD McPherson , Jimmy Sutton by Mike
JD McPherson and Jimmy Sutton – HuffPost 4.27.12
[Note: While discussing the creation of a JD McPherson album, JD and his musical partner Jimmy Sutton discussed their creative process.]Mike Ragogna: JD, how do you see this project as a whole, how did these songs come about?
JD McPherson: First, I had a couple of songs in my pocket and then I’m in that pressure situation where I can’t really produce unless there’s an intense amount of pressure that gives me ulcers, staying up late in the studio after having bought a plane ticket to Chicago, not telling Jimmy Sutton that I’m out of songs so I’m staying up all night writing songs. Most of the stuff was coming straight out of traditional rock ‘n’ roll and R&B music, but after a certain point, Jimmy and I were talking, “Hey, I like the Pixies, I like Wu Tang Clan, I like this kind of stuff.” So those influences started subtly creeping into the recording and songwriting process, and that’s when you start getting a couple of weirder songs like “A Gentle Awakening” and “Signs And Signifiers,” the title track.
MR: You’re mixing down to a quarter-inch tape, but did you also use tape as the medium with the multi-tracking?
Jimmy Sutton: I built a studio like some guy in 1960 who decided to build a studio in his garage. That’s the equipment I have.
MR: Do you have a Studer?
JS: Actually, what I have is just a bunch of mics, mixers, and I recorded on an old machine, a radio-broadcast quality. It’s kind of like the classic Ampex 350, which are all our favorite old recordings and rock ‘n’ roll was made on early on. We would also record straight to the tape and then it would immediately bounce down to a computer. We did use a computer as a tool, so we were able to layer it. But it wasn’t like multi-tracking, we did the bulk of the band and then we would layer some backup vocals and percussion at the same time to keep things very alive.
MR: In Pro Tools?
JS: Yeah, almost as if we were working on an Ampex tracking machine.
MR: So you attribute the band feel to it, that process?
JS: Yes, it definitely forced us to perform to the environment that we were in that week.
JDM: First, I had a couple of songs in my pocket and then I’m in that pressure situation where I can’t really produce unless there’s an intense amount of pressure that gives me ulcers, staying up late in the studio after having bought a plane ticket to Chicago, not telling Jimmy Sutton that I’m out of songs so I’m staying up all night writing songs. Most of the stuff was coming straight out of traditional rock ‘n’ roll and R&B music, but after a certain point, Jimmy and I were talking, “Hey, I like the Pixies, I like Wu Tang Clan, I like this kind of stuff.” So those influences started subtly creeping into the recording and songwriting process, and that’s when you start getting a couple of weirder songs like “A Gentle Awakening” and “Signs And Signifiers,” the title track.