FEATURE

AT !" MODEST MOUSE LIVE Fulsome beards on faces, fearsome tea-cosies on heads – this is indie rock.

Text: Christopher Holder

Nothing says ‘Indie Rock’ like two drummers on stage. EP: I approach mixing them by not getting in the way. Having someone play a drum over and over and over is It says, “anyone can have one drummer – one wage, counter-productive. For one thing, it simply won’t achieve one set of drum !ight cases, one riser, one ego – but we the result I’m a%er once the two drummers are playing choose to walk the path less travelled.” Mind you, there must !at-out. I could spend hours digging into something with be times when Modest Mouse would look wistfully on at EQ but once it’s back in the mix, it won’t #t. For me, Modest other ‘normal’ bands with only ‘the’ one drummer. Like the Mouse is all about looking at the whole picture, and making night I rocked up to the Prince Bandroom in St. Kilda. "e that sound good. I do that by so%ening things; rounding Prince’s corner stage is adequately proportioned for most things out rather than having everything competing for rock bands, but this night was something else. "e support attention. act’s gear was clinging by its #nger nails to front of stage, while Modest Mouse’s two drum kits, bass rig, two electric CH: So you’re doing your best to ‘stay out of the way’ and guitar rigs, keys, upright bass setup, along with a full- ensure the band feels comfortable? blown JBL side#ll (just for the occasion) made for the most EP: "at’s right, which means getting monitors sorted out crowded stage I’ve ever laid eyes on. Tip-toeing around the #rst of all. "is show is the #rst of the Australian tour so we ‘tulips’ of pedals, DIs, leads and mic stands was positively had a rehearsal yesterday. Once I’m comfortable with the treacherous. mic setup I’m just happy for them to get on with playing. Evan Player mixes the band. He’s been in the band’s orbit for I know I have time on my hands to sort a mix out, so I many a year. He doesn’t have a beard, and generally eschews massage things into place slowly. strange headgear. Saying that, he’s grown a moustache, more At the end of the soundcheck, I thought – I haven’t heard the than likely especially for the Australian tour. Evan’s turned toms yet. So once they were all done and most of the band his back on a life on the road for a settled existence in New had gone, I went through the toms. I did a little something York with his fashion industry Australian wife and two to them and that was it. I had my mix. It may not be totally young kids. He’s the Production Manager of a successful there but it’s as close as I need it to be. Brooklyn venue, Music Hall of Williamsburg. "e band convinced Evan to come out on tour ‘one last time’. CH: By which you mean, it’s going to sound a good deal di$erent when the room #lls up with punters? NEITHER MODEST NOR MOUSEY Christopher Holder: What’s the Modest Mouse attitude EP: "at’s right, we’re rehearsing in a big empty room and in to touring Evan? I’m guessing it’s not about faithful album my experience I’m careful not to paint myself into a corner recreation? with overly dramatic EQ. It’s better to do the #x when the gig starts rather than remedially putting frequencies back in Evan Player: For Modest Mouse, it’s not about recreating – re-EQing for the #rst three songs. With a bit of experience Vocal Sound: “Isaac is using the record, it’s a lot more powerful live – with a lot more an Audix OM! on his vocals. you’ll know the areas you need to address when the gig kicks He’s used a "#, a $%", it really energy – and that’s important to them. "e reason the o$. depends on who’s doing band is so big is because they present a big live experience. monitors. It’s a loud band so I’m happy to defer to the monitor "ey have the ability to have brass on one song, keyboards CH: Sounds like you trust your instincts? engineer most times – whatever on another, with people !oating about playing di$erent he feels will allow him to get EP: I think so. For example, I don’t Smaart rooms. I know the most out of the vocal. It’s instruments. "at aspect of the performance is important to people get great results using Smaart, and sure, it’s a science an aggressive vocal style, and them – the sheer amount of stu$ going on. it’s not about nuance or clarity. but it’s subjective in equal measure – you need to use your Super clean? No, it just needs to CH: How do you approach mixing this amount of stu$? judgement as well as your ears. be there.”

AT !" Guitar Blend: “When we’re touring Jim Fairchild uses a RIDING THE WAVE OF STAGE VOLUME So I’ll put the guitars in the mix and %atten out Fender Deluxe and a Twin. I put a Shure SM!" on the Deluxe, which is a bit more present and a Sennheiser #$% CH: !e band is well known to let rip on stage. the EQs a bit. !at way the guitars should sound on the Twin, which is a bit warmer/darker. Issac Brock’s How do you deal with excessive on-stage sound? like they do coming out of the amps and cabs. amp (top right) has two mics that I blend – a Shure SM!" and a Sennheiser #$%. Isaac uses a Soursound custom EP: You’re right, the band has a very loud stage CH: And the crowd will help you get the gain you amp. He used to play through a Fender Super Six – his amp of choice – but they’re very hard to find. So Brian volume. My philosophy has always been to not need for the vocal? Sour reverse-engineered a modern, stable version of that "ght that too hard – because they need that. – easier to keep and repair, yet still very ‘boutique’.” EP: If I can get the vocal sitting on top of the mix !ey’re responsible enough to turn things down during rehearsals I know I’ll be "ne. I may not if it gets out of control – they might turn the be hearing the words but that intelligibility will backline down a bit if I ask them to, to get a increase when the crowd arrives. And that’s club cleaner vocal sound – but I know they need that mixing, for sure… impact on stage. CH: In that everything’s measured by how loud CH: So you’re loath to make that call? you can get the vocals? EP: Well, I know it might impact the show: they EP: Ultimately, yeah. Modest Mouse doesn’t might not be quite so into it, they might be a demand a super-high vocal mix, but it needs to little more hesitant, or a little less con"dent in No-one’s going to storm be present – people are into the words with this “ their playing. I don’t like to be responsible for band so it can’t be buried, but it doesn’t have to the front of house that. If it’s loud and I can deal with the volume, be as high as something like Joan Baez. position complaining then I will. So long as I’ve got enough vocal in the PA, I’ll deal with it. I’ll wait for them to make CH: Folk, eh? Sounds like the voice of they can’t hear the sure they’re feeling it and they’re comfortable. experience. shaker! But not hearing A#er all, when everyone’s the same level of ‘loud’ EP: Right. For a while there I did a lot of mixing the guitar the whole coming o$ stage, it kinda mixes itself! of folk singers. And folk singers do this thing CH: How much of the backline are you mixing where they’ll take out a trio – with an acoustic time… that’s serious through the PA? guitar and a cellist… and all the fans are happy because they can hear a pin drop. !en, as EP: I’ve got mics on everything and normally I folk singers always do, they want to ‘do a Bob would mix the guitars through the PA. Tonight Dylan’ and take a loud band out – with the loud I won’t be mixing quite so much of the guitars drummer and the guitars. So I’ll be sitting at in; it’ll mainly be the drums, bass and vocals. ” FOH in a theatre with an audience who may have But I’ve got to be aware that the backline is on seen the performer with the cellist a few months stage at ‘ground’ level, so the "rst few rows of the prior and they’re now sitting there with their audience will soak up a lot of the backline sound.

AT !" hands over their ears – “you’ve gotta turn the they can’t hear the shaker! But not hearing the drums down!” “Where are you sitting? You’re not guitar the whole time… that’s serious. even hearing the drums from the PA, you’re just HE-E-E-RE’S JOHNNY hearing them o! the stage!” CH: $ere’s some good footage on YouTube of RIGHT (& LEFT) ROYAL PANNING the band playing Letterman. What are those CH: How important is panning in club mixing? shows like to do? EP: I’ll pan the drum overheads hard le" and EP: When you do those shows, you don’t do right. Modest Mouse uses a lot more percussion much. You walk in in the morning for a really – it #gures prominently – and those percussive early load in. $ey have a monitor engineer and elements add good stereo interest. a front of house engineer for the audience sound. $en they have a broadcast engineer. So as a CH: Right. So those mics are quite pivotal? FOH engineer working for a band like this, it’s EP: $ey’re all important! For smaller club your job to interface with the di!erent engineers. shows it’s really quite hard to know where your Come show time I’d #nd myself sitting down input savings are coming from. And believe me, with the broadcast engineer saying – “in this I understand the dilemma because I’ve been on part the guitar gets really loud” or “in this part both sides of the problem. As a club production the vocal is down low.” You need to be there for manager I’m asking “do you really need all this that. Perhaps some superstar engineers get a little stu!?!” and now I’m digging my toes in saying “I more hands-on, I wouldn’t know. really need all this stu!!” For example, I need bi- amped wedges... nothing else will do. Yeah, we’re But the thing is, the TV sound engineers are a relatively demanding act. in a position where they know what’s going on and what the director will be calling. $ey CH: Getting back to panning, do you pan the know the other cues in the show as well. As for guitars much? the broadcast mixer, it’s not someone you just Dueling Drummers: “We have two full drum kits, with EP: Guitars I don’t pan – they’re straight up. want to elbow out of the way and say, ‘let me at no specific mic preferences. Most commonly there are it’. Saying that, a"er listening to some mixes I’m Shure Beta !"s on kicks, and Audix D#s, which are nice. CH: Do you leave a ‘hole’ for vocals in your mix? Toms: Sennheiser e$%&s, and we use the #%& quite thinking ‘eurgh, that wasn’t very good’. frequently – I’m partial to using dynamics on toms. We’ve EP: Panning – taking stu! out of the centre – got Audio-Technica AT&%!%s for overheads, Shure SM'( never really does that for me. And also, there’s the But those shows are fun to do. It’s another aspect on hi-hats, and Shure Beta !)As on the congas. We’ve of live sound. It’s de#nitely harder on the band, tried the Shure Beta $' on the glockenspiel, works nicely practical necessity of ensuring everyone in the – easy to mount, and we were running out of options. room has the same consistent sound. Pan your though, because it’s not as loud ‘on stage’ and it’s a Snare has the standard Shure Beta !)A on the top and whole lot of pressure. an SM!) on the bottom. All our DIs are from Radial overheads? Sure, because people aren’t constantly Engineering – they make a solid DI. The drummer has a taking their cues from those mics. No-one’s going Sennheiser e$*! on his vocal mic – nice tight pattern and rejection of other stuff.” to storm the front of house position complaining

RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL of time trying to determine why club shows which should be good experience is so good from EP: They do alright, because they NEW YORK CLUB you’re not getting a sound down but don’t live up to their promise. top to bottom. And it’s not just play very close together. Even on Evan has taken over the technical a channel it gets frustrating very We had one situation where the about packing a high-end PA, the big stages they scrunch up right operations of a highly successful quickly. room was what you could only room sounds really good and in the middle, always within two club in Brooklyn called the Music I drill my crew with a checklist. So describe as ‘in beta’. They had a they’ve got the most out of the or three feet of each other. Take Hall of Williamsburg. I asked him if a mic’s not working, go through small line array, and they hadn’t equipment. They’ve really paid the corner stage at the Prince. what it was like to get back out on this routine – do it quickly, and figured it out and the installer attention to the detail. When we looked at it and planned the road again. methodically. Keep calm; get it had left them in the lurch – the CH: Because it’s true to say that it out we thought: ‘we’ll show up done. That way visiting engineers company who tech’ed it had put successful bands still love playing and make it fit’. We got more gear Evan Player: I come from it in, left and said “don’t touch on there than we had any right a touring background and I have confidence that the venue clubs, they love that intimate club staff know what they’re doing anything”! Yeah, great. environment, so long as it doesn’t to – risers and sidefill, the whole encourage my crew to go out on shebang. We’ve done well. the road with bands. That’s how and it just makes for a better day CH: You’ve spent a lot of time come with club gremlins. you see what’s good and bad. And from the engineer’s perspective. in Australia as well as The EP: For sure. In fact, the bigger Some bands or crew may not you don’t want to be a club where CH: Have you come across clubs States. How do you find venues the room, the more ways there want the hassle of squeezing you replicate what’s bad. where appearances can be compare? Can you make any are for it to sound terrible, while a semi-truck tour into a small deceiving? generalisations? sound issues in small venues footprint every night. But the CH: So, what’s top of the technical reality of touring now is, it’s much checklist for running a successful EP: We’ve just finished a small run EP: Well, the venue I work for in can be easy and inexpensive to New York is really into sound – address. Get into a $%%% or !%%% more common – spreading the club? in The States – five or six shows. shows you have over a longer Some of the venues that looked much more than most clubs their capacity room and you have huge EP: A neat work environment is size... almost to a point of overkill. surfaces at play. If it’s not working period of time. I see this at my priority No. #. You want to walk perfectly fine on paper didn’t club all the time. Instead of quite stack up. And unfortunately They’re also building a new venue well straight out of the gate, in and see the mics, cables and in Philidelphia I’m helping out going back to do more acoustical playing one big show and coming stands neatly put away, providing some house engineers can get back next year, we see the same very defensive very quickly. I’ll with. They’re getting a brand new treatments… well, the budget you with a clean slate to work d&b rig, and that’s going to be for that can match what you just band three or four times a year. from. Make sure the gear is in normally request to be let into Each show would be sold out. the system processors so I can super. But compared to lighting spent on the PA. The club really good repair – you don’t want a or any other aspect of the venue has to think, ‘can we afford this Go back #% years and they would bunch of bad mics, DIs, cables start from a flat response. I’m have done one or two shows once happy for the house guy to watch it’s where they lavish the most right now?’. So they opt for some etc. That way, when you do have attention. They’ve taken their quick fixes until they get it all put a year in the bigger room. ‘Little a problem, you can troubleshoot what I’m doing and if the amps and often’ mixes things up and start clipping we can pull it down lead from the Bowery Ballroom in together. it quickly, which is especially New York – an amazing sounding keeps the fans interested. And, it important when you have visiting some. That’s the way I like to CH: I imagine for Modest Mouse keeps bookings going, especially work. venue that really brought bands – with the two drum kits – stage engineers who inevitably are back to the city – such quality in NY. short on time – if you spend a lot But it can be very disappointing... space can be a problem in smaller on stage and off; the whole clubs?

AT !"