Andrew Bird :: Armchair Apocrypha :: Making the album with Ben Durrant

Ben Durrant runs Crazy Beast Studio in Minneapolis and has recorded local artists from Dosh to Roma di Luna, but last year, he began to work with Chicago-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird after Bird began working with Martin Dosh as a duo. His last album, The Mysterious Production of Eggs, was something of a breakout hit for Bird, who first came to prominence as a member of the Squirrel Nut Zippers and later as the leader of Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire. He's a notoriously restless and genre-devouring musician, a virtuoso violinist, a mellifluous and sometimes acid-tongued singer and certainly a decent enough guitarist. When all the diverse elements of his repertoire are combined with a nimble talent for looping parts and harmonies, Bird becomes a virtual one-man band, and Dosh brings many of the same abilities to the table. Translating all this work from a live duo into a full studio album was Durrant's task, and I recently got to sit down and talk with him about his part in making Bird's latest album, Armchair Apocrypha, and his general approach to recording.

Signal Eats Noise: How did you get hooked up with Andrew Bird?

Ben Durrant: It was totally because of Dosh. I don't remember how it first happened. They had been here after tour and went and did a couple songs at Third Ear [Studios, owned by Tom Herbers] and they were still just trying to figure out where and what and what kind of songs and how they were going to work together for recording purposes. So he had told Andrew about working at both places, and I got a call from his manager one day and they wanted to do, like, two days to see how it would go. Martin [Dosh] told me that he's kinda ... not fickle, because fickle wouldn't be the right word ... decisive about what he likes and doesn't like. Then [the manager] was telling me the stories about how, with the last record [The Mysterious Production of Eggs], they had done it three times and scrapped it and started over. So I was thinking, we'll see how it goes, but it probably won't be a match.

But we did "Fiery Crash" first, which is kind of loop-based, so it was sort of along the lines of something that Martin and I would've done on one of his albums, and we just ended up clicking pretty good. A lot of it was that we personally clicked well, too. Liked a lot of the same kind of stuff when we were talking about music. So we did those two days and it ended up going well, so they came back for another five days in a few weeks. All along, you didn't really know--it certainly wasn't one of those things like, we're gonna do these 14 songs. It was very much a just-keep-going, see-which-things-work thing. In the end, most of it worked out really well. There are pieces from different places and people, which made it kind of tricky, within the same song, to meld different places, different people playing different instruments, kind of different songs, but in the end it all jived.

SEN: So there was stuff that had been recorded other places that you then had to mix with stuff that you were recording?

BD: In some cases. "Heretics" was the main one. That one, the drums were done in Chicago with his other drummer. I don't know if that was done before any of this other stuff--I'm not sure of the order of things. And I think they did the bass at Third Ear and then I got the tracks for that. On that one in particular, nothing was labeled. The drums were amazing sounding, but I didn't know what any mic was. I think it was like 20 drum tracks and no idea what any of them were. The left side of the room? An overhead? That one was nuts. "Armchairs" was another one that was a shared one. Most of the basic tracks on that one were from Third Ear. Then we did the vocals and guitars and some of that sort of stuff. I don't think, in the end when I listen to it, it doesn't seem like, that was this and this was this. There's enough mixing of things that it seems unified.

SEN: Well, it seems like it has a sonic identity that's cohesive. Sometimes you hear albums--you know Feist?--Feist's first album had 12 tracks that sounded like they were recorded at eight different places because they were all approached so differently. Armchair Apocrypha seems like it has a unity of purpose to it. Is going from place to place way that he had worked before? Is that his general way of doing things?

BD: It seems like it. Mostly just from hearing stories about the last one. I don't know if it's restlessness or trying to get the right sort of vibe for a particular song--whether that's a different place or a different space, I'm not sure, or people--he definitely seems to be someone who really absorbs the people that he's playing with and the people that are around him. For better or for worse. It seems like he can definitely get ... if he gets in a bad mood or he feels like the takes aren't good, he can definitely get [to feeling like] everything sucks. So, from my standpoint, definitely a chunk of this whole thing was to get him to do his best. To feel like he was doing his best, to get him comfortable. I think a lot of that happened because we jived pretty well and when it wasn't working out, it would be OK.

I think that had a lot to do with him moving around to different places, especially with that last one, because I looked at the credits for that and it was like, Whoa. Every song was different places, although I think in the end David [Boucher] mixed all of it, and he obviously did a great job of making it all seem pretty cohesive. It didn't seem as crazy as you'd think it would be.

SEN: Well, I think the role of the person who's running the boards--especially if someone's particularly sensitive to it--has such a huge effect on the album, because ultimately I feel like albums are a collection of little things. You might have an idea about some big thing, but it's going to be made up of all these little choices and little decisions you make. If you have somebody who's attuned to those things--I've always had to work in situations where you go in and do five tracks or ten tracks and then you're done, because I haven't had the luxury to do it any other way. But, if you've got somebody who wants to make sureeverything's right before they proceed to the next step, then you've gotta have the right people working around you.

So did he come to you with distinct ideas about where he wanted things to go, or did he just feel it out as they progressed? It seems like when you've got somebody who can do so much live by themselves--I mean, by himself he's a whole band, and then you bring in Marty, who's by himself a whole band. You've got two guys like that--is that a lot different than working with somebody who just has one perspective from one instrument?

BD: Oh yeah. On a given song, he had a pretty good idea of how he wanted to approach laying down that song. It wasn't like he had a road map, but it seemed like in a given song, there's a pretty good idea of at least the basic elements of what was going to be there and how they would do it. Would it start with Martin doing a loop? Or was it live drums and he plays guitar and sings? Some of them started with him on the guitar and then the drums came afterwards. Almost every song is done in a completely different way. Overall, he had a pretty good idea of how he wanted to do it, or between the three of us, we would sort of figure out what seemed like the right feel for that particular song, but again, a lot of it sort of morphed along the way and kind of took on the collective identity of all the people that were working on it and along the way it got more streamlined as it went.

The earlier [songs] were still sort of--not only were they [Bird and Dosh] figuring out how they played together, but also how they were going to record together, and we were figuring out how we were going to work together also. So some of the earliest ones, in the end, were the hardest because they took the longest to figure out. Some came together incredibly fast. Like "Simple X": I think we did that from end-to-end in like an hour and a half. The lyrics, I think he wrote really fast. Another funny thing is that there's a line in there about "scattered about from hell to breakfast? My friend--that's a saying he uses all the time and I used that in the course of a conversation that day, talking about all our crap spread around the studio. And he just looked at me and said, "What did you just say?" And I told him and what it meant and everything and he said, "That's the weirdest sounding phrase I've ever heard," and sure enough, he drops it into the song. As we got more in tune to how to approach things, it got a lot faster.

SEN: Aside from Marty, there are a lot of other local musicians on there--Haley Bonar and other people. Did you work with them on that stuff or did their tracks come separate?

BD: Yeah, they came here. The Haley things, he had a pretty good idea of which ones he was going to use her on because I think she had sang on a lot of those songs on their tour, because she had opened for him. Chris [Morrissey, bassist], I think it was the same kind of deal because he was touring with Haley at the time. He didn't play with Andrew, but Andrew knew who he was. Jeremy [Ylvisaker] totally happened by accident. We went to see Haley at the Cedar Cultural Center and Redstart opened [Ylvisaker's band with Wendy Lewis, Mike Lewis, Greg Lewis and Martin Dosh] and we got there right at the end of their set and they were playing one of their real pastoral kind of tunes and Jeremy was playing fingerstyle electric. We'd been working on "Scythian Empires" at the time, and that was one where he wanted to add fingerstyle guitar and he had laid down a good fingerstyle part that worked pretty well, but then when we went to that show, he was like, "I love that; I have to work with that guy." He went back to Chicago with some rough mixes of things, knowing that we wanted to do something on that one song. So when [Bird] came back, Jeremy laid that on there and did some other things that were on songs that didn't get on there, but again, [Ylvisaker's] one of those people that, musically, they hit it off and next thing you know he's in the band and playing on Letterman.

SEN: It seems right, because that community that he's slotted in with here is a group of people who seem very well-suited to what he does. it just seems like a great match with Marty and Jeremy and theRedstart people and Fog. It seems like it a really good fit.

BD: And Andrew plays on one of Fog's tunes on their next thing and I think that he used a loop of one of [Andrew] Broder's things for one of the dance--he just recorded some stuff for a dance performance thing--and I guess he used a couple of Broder's loops for that. So he's become pretty intertwined with that group of people, which totally makes sense. He's just kind of a sponge--he definitely picks up, musically and personally, on the feel of people, so I can totally see why those three [Bird, Dosh and Ylvisaker] fit together so well.

SEN: And for you recording is that the best way for you to work? To just react to what's needed? I know that some engineers have processes and ways to go about things; how do you approach it?

BD: I don't really know how to answer that other than to say that I'm not someone who has a process. Other than that, I couldn't really tell you, but I'm definitely not that.

SEN: What's your background like for recording? Did you study it as a discipline?

BD: No, no. Very much came at it from being a frustrated recording musician, probably like you. The few times I got to record it was 6-8 hours jamming everything in and then you'd move on and you aren't very happy with it. So for me, it was four-tracking to try and record things I was working on and then getting a little Mackie mixer and kind of never really intending to anything all that serious with it and then just gradually, you buy more crap and do more things and you end up somewhere else.

But no, I never studied or anything like that and don't really care to. I'm not all that interested in the technical side of things. It's definitely more coming at it from the musician side of things, and I'm more interested in that. I think, again, that's one of the reasons that we got along, because everybody's had the engineers that are like, "We have to redo this because this moved." That's just not my thing at all. We like the same sort of sounds, and a lot of times I'd play things and dick around with stuff when people are gone. If they like it great, if they don't, fine. So that was part of it, too. Throwing stuff at it and seeing what worked.

SEN: Well, I've done some home recording stuff and I always liked getting the chance to just mess with stuff. I've read some books and things and got a couple tips on starterEQ things, but the exploration of it is nice. A lot of times, you get people who come out of learning to be an engineer and think they're an expert. Well, yeah, you can turn out the same thing that somebody else who went to that school can, but can you do something interesting with it?

BD: Yeah, I'm very averse to that kind of thinking. Most stuff I just don't like the way it sounds; it sounds boring. Or it sounds--I remember when we were getting the mastering done on this CD, which, the first time through we ended up sending it back because we didn't think it quite was right, but I remember telling the person that we wanted it to sound good on the radio, but to not sound radio-y, you know what I mean? There's just this certain kind of radio-y sound that I personally hate. And other people, that's the deal. But that's not my cup of tea.

SEN: Yeah--the album's got such a nice, warm--warm is the kind of thing that when I listen to stuff, that's a lot of what I like to get out of things: a sense of place about it, a character, and that warmth, which is sort of antithetical to what you hear on radio-ready stuff. It's crisp and clean, cold. Here's the guitar, here's the kick drum.

BD: I remember afterwards listening to [Armchair Apocrypha] and thinking that it didn't jump at you in the same way that Eggs does. Both the songs and the way that it was done. I remember sitting down and listening to it all the way through and thinking that it doesn't say, "Pay attention to me," in the same way that that one does. And that was all right. At least for my way of thinking, that it rewards sitting down and listening to in its entirety. Ideally a couple of times and that then you really start to get the layering of things. And I think it's really sort of comforting if you can do that. But if you're wanting it to bonk, it just doesn't. Some of the songs are that way, but I think even in the way it's mixed, it's maybe not as glossy and that's me, I guess.

SEN: It seems like a good match for his stuff, because I know that I had at least one Bowl of Fire CD and I'd heard stuff on and off, and it never really totally grabbed me. I saw him at the Pitchfork Music Festival two years ago and that was the first time where I realized--he's an amazing singer and I got more of an appreciation for the looping thing, but then it takes time. Despite the fact that his stuff is really pretty--you know, it's not difficult--he's got a great voice, his stuff is a little elusive. It's not the type of music that's gonna jump up and grab you and say, "This is what I am," and I think matching those things is a good thing for his stuff.

BD: Exactly, because he's a little elusive, too. It just makes sense that his music would be also. I think that's the same reason why he changes stuff live so much, because he gets bored with it. He wants to keep it interesting for him because I think if he's not interested--and this was true for recording, too--he's got to be in the right mind frame to give it up. And seeing him live, too, you can tell--at least I can--when he's in the groove or not.

SEN: Is it strange for you to have done an album where it's getting so much attention? Where you can read reviews of it all over the web and in major publications? Have you done anything that was like that before?

BD: No. It's really strange. I wouldn't have at all been surprised if it didn't get very good reviews. I think I personally was prepared for that and I think he was, too. Just because it is pretty different--there's guitars and it's in some ways kind of more indie and in other ways is a little more accessible. Whatever, it's hard to describe. But I was prepared for a lot of people being like, "What's with the guitar? Why isn't there more violins or whatever?" I hadn't listened to it in six months; I think that was part of it, too. When we got done, I was like, "It's done; I don't want to obsess about it." Didn't want to think about it, and how it would end up getting reviewed. It is what it is. It just represents this period of six months and, at least for me, a lot of work. So yeah, it's been wild, but it doesn't affect me day-to-day. It's been interesting ... and my mom is excited.

SEN: Going back to working with Dosh and Ylvisaker, it's great to hear that he's so able to be influenced by what happens around him. I think that's a great quality--it can be a difficult quality, like you said, but it's really good to be able to have so that you can constantly change what you're doing and he's already been like that through his career.

BD: That was definitely the most fun thing about it: He's totally not afraid to just scrap things. There's different versions of most of that stuff, some of which started out a lot more like the older stuff. Whether it's from different environments or Marty or me--you know, I like distorted guitars--most of the stuff on there is him playing my old Jag[uar]. It just kind of lends itself to a certain thing and next thing you know, "Dark Matter" is more that kind of song. There's another version that was more like the old one, and it's fun with people like that that are not afraid of trying things different ways, whether it's new instruments or new sounds. Speed, slowing down, all that stuff is fun, because most people are so ...

SEN: Well, I think with most people you get attached to a certain sound you have an idea for and you get so tenacious with it, you don't want to let it go. It's tough, it's one of those upper level things about making creative stuff that you can't just teach somebody to be able to give up stuff like that. You either need to be like that or just sort of acquire through experience that that's the best way to work. You're never going to go study music and have them tell you to just give up on an arrangement and do something else. It's such a meta way to think about this--how do you think about thinking about this stuff? To have somebody with that ability is great.

BD: Yeah, the idea of not being that precious about things and to just do it this whole different way was pretty neat. But then there were things that got scrapped that I still don't think should have gotten scrapped and there was this one song ("Sycophants") that was totally one of my favorites, that got scratched and sort of replaced with another one, "Cataracts." When I saw him in New York I told him, "Taking that off there was a bad idea, that was a mistake," and he said, "Yeah, in hindsight we would have cut that one and kept the other one on there." Then there was another one--and I still bug him about this, too--another version of "Sparrows" that's completely different and super-sparse and that's still my favorite of all the stuff and it didn't end up on there because they wanted something a little more upbeat. Not that I don't like the one that's on there; I like that one a lot.