There are elements of Neil Young and his Crazy Horse band, the clean Telecaster chink of soul, and a rhythmic whiff of reggae (though distant) in Doug Martsch’s Built To Spill band. Martsch, guitar player and songwriter/singer, has been banging on this song gong since 1992, working around a revolving crew of players but before finally settling on its current lineup: Martsch, of course; co-guitarist Jim Roth; and bass/drummer Brett Netson and Sam Coomes respectively.
On the new record,
You In Reverse, Doug marches his charges through a parade of 60’s influenced rock janging with non-distorted guitars and bare-bones rhythmic arrangements.
Doug is a funny, self-deprecating soul who lays in all down in this conversation.
Ultimate-Guitar: In your bio it states that you wanted to create a “vinyl-sounding CD.” How did you go about creating that?
Doug Martsch: We always have recorded our records on to tape (analog). We’ve always kind of used old Fender amps and other sorts of tube amps and stuff. This time, though, what we did a little differently was not so much overdubbing. We tried to make it sound more like just people in a room together. We did a lot of re-miking of amps – actually tons of re-miking of the drums or re-amping of it. So we recorded all the drums and then when we were mixing, we would then send the drums out into a live room through speakers, and then mike that again and things like that to just make it sound more like a band playing in a room together. That was sort of the main difference.
Like I said, we kind of always used the same equipment basically. Just a couple other techniques and we recorded with a different guy, who I think had the same aesthetic as us, someone who really listens to stuff. I don’t think he listens to anything that wasn’t done before the 70s. So that was just his aesthetic. As far as like the details of engineering and stuff, I wouldn’t be able to answer those questions.
I hear that Neil Young-Crazy Horse-Buffalo Springfield clean guitar in your songs. Did you listen to those kinds of records?
Yeah, but actually, really it came more from listening to lots of reggae and soul music. That was what I had been listening to for the last few years. I know we’re not a reggae or soul band, and I didn’t want to try and make that kind of music. But that was really where my head was musically and what I wanted us to sort of sound like. So it was really more based on that sort of stuff. There really weren’t any rock bands that we influenced this decision. You’re right, though. We have listened to our share of that, all of us, of course, through the years and stuff. But the immediate thing was definitely soul and mostly reggae stuff.
Talk a little bit about the guitars and amps you used.
See, I’m not a very good gear person. Jim has lots of amps and lots of guitars. I mostly play a Strat – I don’t even know what it is. Like a Deluxe Strat or something. It’s like from ’88 or something like that. While we were making the record, our sound guy just started making guitars. I basically got that Stratocaster right when I started my old band, The Tree People. I just kind of got it randomly. I just went in and bought a new guitar. I didn’t really know much about guitars, but I wanted something that was just solid. They suggested that was kind of the basic good guitar they have. And I never really played other guitars, except tiniest bits, just because I just was not that interested.
While we were recording the record, I played someone’s Telecaster and couldn’t believe how cool it was to play. Our sound guy started making guitars and he had made a couple Telecasters. So he made me one and I play that a bunch on it.
What is it about the Tele that you prefer over other guitars?
I don’t even know how to really describe it. It just feels super-solid. It seems like…I don’t know how to describe exactly what it is that feels different about it. Everything kind of seems to really jump out more. It’s more direct or something. It’s not as subtle as a Strat. The Strat is kind of softer. This seems like every note you hit just really is more present or something. And just kind of the shape of it. Maybe it’s a little flatter. It just felt cool to play.
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| "I'm not a very good gear person." |
What kind of guitar sound or tonality do you look for when you’re writing?
Just a natural overdrive of low-wattage tube amps turned up. Another thing that I discovered there was the guy who ran the studio had a Fender Tweed Deluxe from like the 50s. When we were doing our basic tracking, I played through that and I just loved it because it does that. It just kind of squishes things and gives a really nice, natural distortion. I ended up finding one and buying one. I didn’t play it too much on the record because after a while I realized it was kind of specialized and didn’t really work all the time. Those guys all know a lot about guitars and amps – Jim , our guitar player, and Steve, the producer. They were telling me that that’s the amp that Neil Young uses, and he has hundreds of them.
Basically it’s kind of whatever the song sort of needed. We’d have 10 amps set up and kind of go through them. If something didn’t sound good, we’d try a different one. It’s going to have to do with the other tones that are going on in the song. Sometimes this might be the perfect amp, but you already have a couple guitars going through that amp and it gets a little mushy. That’s a big thing with the Tweed Deluxe. You can’t put more than one of them on a song because they start to eat each other up. They’re great-sounding by themselves, but they really take up a lot of frequency space.
In the first track “Goin’ Against Your Mind,” what is going on guitar-wise during the song?
The song itself was just based on a riff that Jim came up with, those 2 chords, from one of our jams. When we were making up songs for the record, we just had lots of just jam sessions where everyone just sort of improvised for 10 or 15 minutes on a theme that someone would just randomly come up with. I recorded it all in my little studio here. We live in different towns, so we only get together only once in a while, every month or 2 for a week or so. It was a lot slower. We sped it up a bunch.
After we made up something jamming, I would kind of sift through the things and find certain ones that were more interesting. We’d revisit those and sometimes jam on them several times. Over the course of several jams, there were a lot of ideas that came up for this simple, 2-chord progression that all seemed necessary to include. The song is long just because it had a lot of sort of movements that I thought were interesting enough to warrant the song being long.
How do the guitar tracks get laid down?
We recorded it live. We started out recording all of these songs live in a room together, and that’s how we wanted to make the record. But it just didn’t sound that good. We thought we could get the drums to sound a lot better if there wasn’t guitar amps in the same room. So we recorded the whole record, did quite a bit of overdubs, and then decided, “No, let’s start this over again and do it all separated.”
It was Jim’s guitar, a main rhythm guitar, and we had a few obvious ideas that we knew we wanted. And then for some of like the sounds and sound effects and noodling around, a lot of it was kind of things that I wasn’t real excited about. Sometimes it was something where you were just noodling around, waiting for your punch in to come. But we just kind of left it all on tape. So a lot of it is just sort of accidents that no one was that excited about. When we were writing the songs and we did a lot of jamming in my studio, part of what I liked about the jams was how loose they felt. Sometimes it didn’t sound totally inspired, but it kind of was charming in a way. I felt like some of the stuff that wasn’t that great still sounded cool because it somehow contributed to the feel of it being off the cuff. So a lot of that stuff is from that.
The really loud guitar that comes in at some point, that guitar we wanted to be really loud. We mixed the song and then we came in the next day and made a few adjustments to our mix. It came to that part and all of the sudden, it was like twice as loud as it had ever been. Somehow someone had left something on or turned something off. Something happened where all of the sudden this guitar had gone though something and just completely blasted the whole mix away. We were like, “Oh, shit!” Then we were kind of like, “Whoa, that’s actually pretty cool.” We ended up leaving it. When we mastered it, we had to bring it way down. The actual recording of it, that sound is like 10 dB louder than the whole rest of the song.
So you used parts from the jams as final tracks?
No, not from the jams. From my studio. Not from my home. Not really jams, just sort of noodling around, trying to come up with something and saying, “Oh, none of that’s really good,” but not erasing it from tape. When we went back to mix the thing, we listened to all the different tracks that were there. There was just a lot of things that we thought were uninspired that ended up still working.
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| "We tried to make it sound more like just people in a room together." |
Did you want to create a band that would ultimately remain steady and constant through the years?
No. First of all, I had been in a band for a while and I wanted some people that I didn’t have to deal with too much. I didn’t want a relationship with some people. I also wanted to make sure that each of our records was significantly different than the others. So I thought that would be the way to do it. After doing a couple of records, then part of it was immediately, “I love playing with these guys.” Then it was like, “I do want people to have a stake in what we’re doing. I do want people that are really a part of it.” I wanted to collaborate. I wanted to get to be a good band. Just after a few years of rotating the lineup, I was done with it and really wanted to have permanent members.
So Brett and Scott are the rhythm section now.
Yeah, they’ve been the rhythm section for nearing 10 years. I guess it has been 10 years. It was probably about 10 years ago that we were working on Perfect From Now On together. The other guys are permanent guys, too, but they kind of came a little bit later. Brett Netson, he had played on our first record and kind of played on every other record or so, just because he was the best guitar player I knew around. If I ran into trouble with the record, I would always call him in to help me out. A couple records I felt confident about and I didn’t need his help. Then he toured with us every now and then, but he had his own things going on. He’s a great songwriter, singer. He never really wanted to be permanently a part of Built To Spill until just a couple years ago when he kind of figured he could use the money and stuff.
Jim started playing live with us because his band was opening for ours. He’s like, “Oh, I can play some of these slide parts that’s on your new record. I figured it out.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s great.” He was such a quick learner I was like, “Oh, well, shit. We have lots of parts you could play.” Then he just basically was in the band. He didn’t play on our next record we made, but now he played on this record, of course. He’s really been a part of the band for 7 or 8 years.
What is it like being in a band with 3 guitarists? Does it allow more flexibility or is it harder to work out the parts?
That’s something we try to be really careful with. It’s fun to try and figure out how to do it with overdoing it. We have a record called There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, which is like a simple kind of pop song. Sometimes those get a little heavy-sounding. But in a way, we just accept that. That’s just what we are now. There’s a couple of songs where not everyone plays. There’s a couple songs Brett sits out. There’s part where people sit out for a little bit or whatever.
We spend a lot of time talking about it and figuring out how to make it work. We’re not all noodling around. When we first did it, there was a lot of that. There are a few moments when everyone is just soloing away. There might be a couple of those moments now, but they make sense if they happen once or twice.
Another thing, though, that I just started thinking about or realizing is you can’t hear us all unless you’re at the sound booth or something. Most people are hearing 1 or 2 of us. We’re spread out across the stage, and our sound guys mixes us in stereo. So I’m in the middle and those guys are mixed over to the side of the PA that they’re playing on. I think wherever you stand in the room, you’re going to get a different experience. Everyone plays rhythm, lead, whatever. It’s all pretty well thought out.
After a while, everyone kind of gets a little sloppy. We might step on each other a little bit. We’ve kind of figured out different tones. Everyone has a pretty significant different sort of setup. We all have like a tonal range that we kind of fit in. It’s still totally a work in progress. We’ve got a ways to before we get it to where it will really be impressive on that level of like anyone realizing the subtle things we’re doing to make ourselves stick together. We’re still in the infancy stage right now.
Did you listen to bands with multiple guitars?
Not at all, no. It was mostly just kind of trying to imitate the things that are on the records. It was no intention of doing this or anything. It just sort of ended up happening this way. It was nothing on purpose.
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| "We're still in the infancy stage right now." |
Do you ever listen to the metal guitar players who use 7 strings and tune down?
I have no idea about that. I know nothing about it at all. I still listen to the same things that I was listening to before we made this record. I’ve been listening to that stuff for a long time – 5 years or so, just pretty much exclusively. I mean, there are things here and there that I listen to different or old things that I’ve always loved. But for the most part, I’m ensconced in soul and reggae.
When you say “soul,” what are you talking about specifically?
I’m not a music nerd, where I have to go out and buy everything by someone I love. There’s a handful of people that I totally love, like The Impressions. There’s a few things. Mostly I have a couple of friends that are music nerds, and mostly I listen to compilations that they make for me. There’s a few kind of labels that are good, that you can kind of trust. I like things from like the 60s and 70s, mostly the 60s.
Like Motown?
Not so much Motown. I guess I kind of like a little bit more obscure things than that. I like Motown stuff, I just really don’t listen to it. I haven’t gotten around to listening to that stuff because there are still other things that are new to me and more interesting or something. That kind of stuff for sure. Absolutely.
Did you listen to Curtis Mayfield’s solo work and the way he used his Tele?
Yeah, see that’s not much an influence to me. Like I said, I love The Impressions. I love the stuff he was doing with him a lot more. I think he was a great guitar player, but I’m not as into his 70’s stuff as The Impressions stuff, actually. I think I like reggae more than soul, though. Like rock steady stuff, especially basically the reggae-soul stuff, where they just do covers of 60’s soul songs. It’s pretty mellow and nice, that stuff. And some later stuff, some roots stuff, bands like The Gladiators, things like that.
Metal, to me, is like…I can appreciate it, but I could never listen to it for real. There’s a lot of music that’s that way to me. I can’t deal with any time signature besides 3/4, 4/4. Prog rock, I can listen to it and appreciate it on a certain level, but it’s just too cerebral to me. I can’t really get too excited about it on any other level.
If you listen to Led Zeppelin, you can sort of hear the influences of Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, and other West Coast-San Francisco stuff.
I’m sure those guys were into the soul music and reggae music as well. I don’t have any proof that they were, but I’d be really surprised if they weren’t interested in reggae because they were from England. In England, people grew up more on soul and reggae than they did here.
Do you sometimes feel like a man born in the wrong time?
Not at all. In this day and age, anything goes. Any sort of genre, there are people that are interested in it. Everyone I know listens to nothing but reggae and soul, too. People that I grew up, that have kind of took the same musical path as me, listening to punk rock and stuff like that, then classic rock and things. Then in the last few years, they’ve discovered soul and reggae. I got turned on to it by some friends. I was always intimidated by soul music and liked it all right, but I didn’t know where to even start.
With reggae, I hated reggae. I rejected it as a youth until someone kind of turned me on to some interesting dub stuff that sounded sort of psychedelic and cool. Then I went from there and discovered other things. So no, I don’t feel that way at all. I feel like anyone can make any kind of music these days and there’s gonna be an audience, a group of people that are in the same boat.
What about the track “Wherever You Go”? I get a Crazy Horse feel from that song.
Yeah, that’s definitely what I thought, too. The beginning of the song, that whole lick was something from one of our jams. I think I called it “Neil Young” on some of the jams. That’s exactly what it sounded like to me. Then it turns into something a little bit different, something a little more hard rock or something. That’s the thing, we didn’t set out to make a Neil Young type of song. We just jammed and came up with something along those lines and then kind of fleshed it out sort of in that vein.
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| "The next thing we do is going to be somehow different." |
I didn’t mean to suggest that you ripped off Neil Young or anything.
I don’t think there’s a problem with doing that, with consciously copying someone. To me, that’s what music is all about. It’s about just imitating what you love. I don’t think you can avoid doing that. I think no matter what happens, that’s gonna happen. If you’re in a Led Zeppelin cover band, you’re not gonna really sound like Led Zeppelin. You’re going to sound like you. That’s just the nature of music.
A band like Modest Mouse, they’ve always really impressed me because in their younger days, they would kind of rip off The Pixies. It was real kind of shameless the way they did it. But it was really smart and kind of got them a lot farther than a lot of bands that are so worried about having their own sound, that they end up avoiding, doing something because it sounds like something someone else has done.
Is that you playing the rhythm line in the beginning of “Wherever You Go”?
Yeah. It is.
I think to be a great rhythm player is the hardest thing there is.
I agree. Thanks, I’m glad you think that. I’m glad you like it because that’s one of my more self-conscious moments on the record. That’s interesting you say that about rhythm guitars because the song “Conventional Wisdom,” those rhythm guitars on that songs are done by the producer, Steve Lobdell. For some reason, Jim and I just couldn’t really get an interesting groove going. We were just playing simple, strumming-out rhythm guitar. Basically we tried a bunch of times. I was sort of muffling it, using delays, and doing kind of complex stuff. It wasn’t working. I was probably like, “Steve, you try it. I give up.” And he just strummed it out and played it like Keith Richards.
On “The Wait” acoustic guitar section, is that you?
Yeah.
Are you a big acoustic guitar guy?
It’s just another instruments sort of, to me. I’m not really a big anything guy. I just kind of do whatever sort of fits. I think of myself more as a songwriter than a musician or any sort of music nerd or anything. I like the song a lot, but it never seemed to have a good hook for me. I always wanted to come up with some guitar part that was interesting. The acoustic was almost like a place holder that just sort of got stuck.
Has the latest record opened up new places for you as a songwriter and an artist?
I wouldn’t say that, but I’m definitely happy with the way it all turned out. With any record and with this one a lot, there’s always a point where you’re like, “Does this all just totally suck?” You lose your perception and you’re not sure what you’re doing anymore. I felt that real strongly at a few points during this record, also because it took so long to do for various reasons. In the studio, there were some technical problems. We had some touring to do and recording it a couple times. So I had my doubts, but once we sequenced it, that made a big difference.
It was so hard to try to imagine what song was going to start the record or come second or anything like that. Every song on this record should be the fourth song, you know? It didn’t really grab me in any way. But once we sequenced it and mastered it, I felt pretty good. I hadn’t listened to it in a couple months, and when I got back from tour a couple weeks ago I gave it a listen. I was really happy with it. The next thing we do is going to be somehow different. I don’t want to try to re-create this.
2007 © Steven Rosen
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