Interview with Daniel Bukszpan and Scott Sanfratello of Slow Horse by Jukka 'Shrike' Kolehmainen, December 2001
Slow Horse
I contacted Dan Bukszpan about doing an interview, regarding the new CD and them losing their bassist, and Dan was all go from the start. He also got Scott into this session, which is good since he seems like an integral part of the band nowdays. Or, as Dan put it "Its not Daniel Bukszpan Experience anymore".
Anyway, i asked and they answered, read all about it!
The new CD is done and out for people to get, how do you feel about it now that you've done a bit of touring for it?
Scott Sanfratello: We feel it's a naughty little CD that shouldn't be trusted- especially with someone's girlfriend.
Daniel Bukszpan: I like it a lot. I actually listen to it for my own enjoyment, which usually doesn't happen with any recording that I make, since I'm too busy listening to the mistakes and all the mixing decisions that I regret. We didn't have any of that this time, which is a wonderful and novel thing in my life. I'm able to just listen to it and enjoy it.
I've been listening to the CD, few times on repeat actually, and noticed that the overall sound is more produced sounding than on the first one. Was that intentional?
SS: I think a lot of people equate "well recorded" = "over produced" = "crap". I don't buy into that bullshit. I don't think music has to be crappy or lacking in sonic quality to be cool or legitimate. The fact is, we had some financial help from the label; put a lot of work, time and money into the thing ourselves and were fortunate to work with a really talented professional, Martin Bisi, who got us great results for probably around the same money as a lot of other bands at this level spend for inferior quality recordings. A lot of it also has to do with the person who recorded it working together with the person who mastered it along with the band being represented at all times to make sure that it never lost track of what it was supposed to be- so it didn't get too polished or lose its edge or bottom end or anything like that. The songs on this CD have a broad range of dynamics and I think we were able to make a recording that allows us to get all of what we wanted across without having anything get lost or not come through the way it was intended, while at the same time being heavy as hell. That was what we intended and that's exactly what we got, we think.
DB: We absolutely wanted to have a quality recording, and there was no way we were going to leave the studio without one. I agree with Scott that a lot of people feel like the music isn't credible if it's well-recorded, and I think that's a crock of shit, personally. I'm glad everything on the CD is audible, especially in contrast to the last CD, whose "lo-fi" quality was kind of a drag. Besides, it's not like we have this really slick recording anyway, like with a huge echo chamber on the drums or anything like that. It just sounds good, and you're able to hear all the instruments clearly. I think that was what we intended, more than anything else.
Very much true. What I was actually referring to was the raw sounds of the first album, which sound very much so when comparing. On that note, what kind of live sounds are you after? Is that still on the rawer side?
SS: Unless you're lucky enough to be able to carry your own PA, gear and sound person everywhere you go, you're kind of at the mercy of each place you play as far as what you wind up sounding like. But, I think that all things being equal, Slow Horse live should be pretty similar to the CD in that we're still going for incorporating the same dynamics. If anything, the dynamics live may be even more extreme where we may play parts even slower, quieter, faster etc. than they are on the CD due to the fact that we're even more comfortable with them or just for our own enjoyment or whatever.
DB: If anything, I think we try and go for a "live" sound in our recordings rather than trying to sound like the record when we play live. Obviously on the new album we did a few things that were a little "studio-ized", but for the most part we all just wanted to go for natural representations of the instruments, which is basically what a good live sound should give you.
You lost yet another bass player, how are things looking on getting a new one?
SS: Well, it's still only been a couple of weeks, so we're still in the process of setting up the first round of auditions. But, right now that have been very productive for me and Dan as far as getting things done in rehearsal, so just because we're not visibly "doing anything" it doesn't mean we've stopped moving forward.
DB: Yeah, we're still playing together and writing stuff. The band is by no means on hold. I can't say how long it's going to take to find a good replacement, but we have some "back-up" plans for what to do if the possibility of a long wait for a bassist becomes a reality.
The lyrics are about relationships (relationship?) going to hell on this one too. Am I to understand that your life is still a bit of an emotional hurricane?
SS: (with German affectation) Scorpions!
DB: No, my life is actually really great, it's probably the best it's ever been. I mean, I'll never be the world's most cheerful person or anything, but I'm really happy with the way my life is going. Outside of the band, my girlfriend and I are engaged to be married next year, and I'm really happy about that. But the lyrics on this CD though aren't really about breakups, although I'm sure it can seem that way on the surface. "Stay" is about that, but I wrote those lyrics in the Slow Horse Mark I days, when that was all I was writing about. But everything else is more just about feeling alienated from people, feeling inadequate, and feeling powerless over your own life. (with Viking affectation) Scorpions!
On the debut CD you pretty much did all the music yourself, was that the case this time around too?
DB: Actually on the debut the music was mostly written between me and Jeff Mackey, the bassist on that one. I'd say it was pretty evenly split between us, for the most part. This one was a total group effort, with everyone involved on every level. Most of the material for this album evolved out of jams that we were doing, so everything was really built pretty organically from the bottom up. There were a couple of finished songs that I brought in, but those got rearranged pretty radically to better suit the direction that it seemed like we were taking with this album. So when you listen to this album it really is a reflection of the three of us, in every sense.
How did the deal with Berserker Records become a reality?
SS: My good friend Ralf Burkart who does the Daredevil magazine and sings in the band Calamus introduced me to Brad Jones, who runs Berserker, through email a while ago. When Ralf and I started talking about doing a tour together around this past Stoner Hand's of Doom in Dallas, he also started talking to Brad about doing a promotional split 7" for the tour. Brad offered to do the split and to help out with initial contacts in setting up the tour and then it just naturally progressed into talking about doing the next full length Slow Horse CD.
Which labels did you contact and which labels contacted you?
SS: I kinda felt bad in a way, and I've expressed that to some people already, because I'm friends with a number of people who run other small labels and I think some of them were a little upset that I didn't even talk to them at all to see if they had any interest in this CD, but like I explained to them, I think I'm a very loyal person and believe trongly in doing the right thing and so when Brad was offering to help the band out so much I thought the right thing to do was to see if he wanted to do something together first- and not to go see what else we could "get" or who was willing to give us the "best" deal or whatever. To me, at this level especially, that's not what things should be about. It should be about everyone trying to be cool to each other and just trying to be fair with each other because that helps the whole scene. People being selfish assholes doesn't. So, no, we never talked to anyone else about doing this CD and wouldn't have unless for some reason it wasn't going to work out with Brad.
Very underground ethics, as I see them anyway. Often the best thing for a new band is a small reliable label. Have either of you had bad (or good) experiences with bigger labels?
SS: When I was 15 I was in a band for literally a couple of days that was signed to a major label. It's a long, complicated story, but the upshot is I joined after the recording of their "hit single". We played our first and only show in front of over 3000 people at the release party at Studio 54 and I played 3 songs- two of which I'd never heard before- drumming on a lighting catwalk 15 feet above the crowd and the sound system because they had no stage. I had to listen to the first few notes of the intro to the songs and then keep time in my head and watch for cues from the others because once I started playing I couldn't hear anything but my drums. I also found out at that time that the "band" was not a band at all, but a fabrication involving lies about musicianship and even the age of the members. I was there with my drums while the other 4 were just standing in front of microphones. We played along to recordings (but my drums were live over it). What a nightmare. Apparently, the label was even less enthusiastic about this development than I was and we got dropped that night. But, I did have a great time before and after we played- I spent the whole afternoon inside the club, just me and the 15 year old girl they sent down to keep me company, playing video games that were turned on to work without money (it had it's perks!). And I signed a bunch of records in the VIP room afterwards...
DB: My only experience with a major label was about six years ago. I had a friend who had become an A & R guy at Atlantic Records, and I brought him my band's album, mostly just to get some feedback about where we should try to shop it. He listened to the first 30 seconds of each song and told me there was no single. Then he put on a demo tape by a band he had just signed, and he literally threw himself backwards in his chair, and started repeating over and over again, "That's a hit song!" I won't say the band's name, but I always see promo copies of their CD in 99 cent used bins everywhere, and if there was in fact a hit song on that album I don't know about it. This guy had also signed a couple of bigger bands who had been somewhat established indie acts for a few years, and they weren't selling as well as he expected. He characterized it as their failure, rather than the label's failure to promote them aggressively. It was at that point that I realized that major labels view their relationship with bands as though the bands work for them, instead of the other way around. It also made me realize that there is absolutely no room whatsoever on the major labels for new bands, unless they're going to sell a million copies right out of the box. There's no such thing any more as nurturing a new band over the course of a few albums. Bands like Yes and Queen didn't see any kind of success until about their third album or so, and that kind of a situation would never fly today. They would get dropped after their first album. So I came away from it with the impression that they want you to be a major phenomenon immediately, with the first album, or they basically don't want to know about you.
Do you have more material ready or did you record everything you had ready?
SS: These songs really came together between the time I joined the band earlier this year and the time we recorded in early July, so that was a relatively short amount of time to get a real stock pile of material. There was one song that didn't make it onto the CD that we had, but that was because once things really started taking shape and the CD seemed to be taking on this cool vibe and flow to it, it just didn't seem to fit into the mix anymore.
DB: We're working on some new things right now, but it's really all in the very rough opening stages. We both feel like it's not really going to take off until we have a new bass player, because they could bring any number of influences and ideas to the table that we never considered, and we want the new stuff we do to continue to be a collaborative effort. If we write too much stuff right off the bat the new bassist might get the impression that their input isn't welcome, or it might end up not fitting the dynamic that the three of us eventually create together.
How old songs there are on the CD or is it all brand spanking new?
SS: A few came from things that Dan already had, but it was all kind of the same process whether that was the case or we were working from a jam or a spontaneous idea that just happened- whether it was new to all of us or just two of us, it's still mostly new and we each added our own things to it and eventually the songs evolved to their final forms.
DB: "Stay", "Coming Unhinged", and "The Last" were all leftovers from the old band, but if you compared them now to the way they used to be you would never recognize them because they got changed so much. The way they were changed really reflected the collective sensibility that the three of us had. We tried doing "Stay" the way it was originally, which was this more plodding blues thing, sort of like "Dazed and Confused", but it didn't really work too well that way. It wasn't plodding in the sense that it was crushingly heavy, it was plodding in the sense that it was really boring. The arrangement we gave it, the one that made the final album, really brought it to life in a very refreshing way, I thought, so even though the words and the chords are the same, the way we did it is brand spanking new, so I consider it a new song even though I originally wrote it a few years ago.
Would you both individually clear up some of the things that make the Slow Horse sound? I'm not necessarily asking for band names, but mainly influences that end up in the Slow Horse sound and music.
SS: Well, both Ernest and I come from a much different musical background than I think most rythym sections in this genre usually do- very fusion influenced. In fact, one time when Dan couldn't make it to rehearsal the two of us jammed on Mahavishnu Orchestra's "Birds of Fire". I'm glad you didn't ask for band names though, because I think the more important thing is just that each of us had influences that overlapped as well as many influences that didn't and both of those things are equally important to the sound we have. Plus, we were each able to bring in our own stuff without losing sight of what the band is at it's core- that's really important. It's very easy for a bunch of musicans to get carried away with themselves and dilute the whole thing by trying to prove how versatile they are. I could play much more complex parts and show off my chops or whatever, sure, but I think that would really take away from the song and that's the most important thing- what's best for the song. Plus, I kinda look at it as a challenge sometimes to see just how little I can get away with playing and still have it be powerful enough to drive things. So, that's what I think was integral to making the band sound the way it does- that we're each capable of a lot of things, but we also each understand what to incorporate and what to not try to force down the band's throat. I mean, there's a couple of songs that Ernest and I basically play the same thing for 6-8 minutes- very slow and deliberate. I think for guys who throw around odd meters for fun, that's kind of an accomplishment! hahaha...
DB: I think the Slow Horse sound has expanded to incorporate a lot of different things. We'll always have slow, depressing stuff, I can't see ever abandoning that. But there are other elements that I feel got introduced with this album that I hope will be just as integral to what we do. We took a lot of artistic chances and came up with things that I think people
weren't expecting from us, like the quieter things, or the eastern-tinged stuff, the vocal harmonies. I don't know ultimately if we've changed anyone's minds or anything, but certainly our mission is for Slow Horse to become more musical and more interesting, but without sacrificing any of the heaviness.
The last song is very beautiful, serene actually and you are not...umm...very well known for doing this sort of music. Slow Horse is more known for crushing riffs and deadly melancholy. How did that one come about?
SS: Thanks! When we jam in rehearsal, we often go into things that we're not known for doing. That's what I think was so strong about the lineup on the CD- that we were all pretty broad based and versatile musicians with varied tastes and influences. Every now and then we'll mess around with an idea that pops up during jamming- even if it doesn't seem like something that's necessarily screaming "Slow Horse" and that one just seemed to be something that would be cool to put on at the end as kind of almost an after thought- the way the CD is sequenced I think it's very effective.
DB: We were actually just going to do a little excerpt from it, like maybe a minute long at the end, but we liked it so much when we recorded it that we left the whole thing intact. Now I wish we had gone on with it for 20 minutes, because I really fell in love with it. It was just one of those things that we pulled out of thin air at rehearsal and that immediately took on a life of its own. I know that it's not what would normally be associated with Slow Horse, but hopefully we'll keep doing unexpected things in the future, since I don't want this band to just be about one thing and never branch out. I think we're capable of a lot, and I really look forward to what's going to come up between us in the future that we don't know about yet.
What is in the Slow Horses horizon of things to do and achieve (besides getting a new bass tamer)?
SS: Just to pick up where we left off. We got a lot going in few months that this band was a real band again (wrote a bunch of new songs, recorded, toured, etc.) and once we get back into position to follow up on opportunities we'll be back with a vengeance.
DB: You bet your ass. It's just going to be tour, record, tour, record, tour, record, tour, record, tour, record, tour, record, tour, record, tour, record, and then eventually die one day.
I noticed that you have recorded this whole album in Dubly(TM), was it hard to find a studio that has the equipment to do that?
SS: Well, you know, most people actually think that's a joke because of Spinal Tap and we've been just kinda going along with it, but, well... OK, the thing about that line in the movie is that it's set up to make Derrick's girlfriend look stupid, which most everyone who sees it buys into, but it's actually a jab at Tap's psuedo rock-hipness that they think she means "Dolby" when she's actually referring to the, even at that time, out dated Dubly system. So, that's a joke that works on two levels- if you're ignorant of the system, you laugh at how "stupid" she is for "screwing up", but if you know what Rob Reiner's really doing with that little ironic twist, you get to laugh at everyone else. Anyway, I'm sure you know this, but for those who don't... With the advances in audio recording in the late 60's/early '70's people quickly moved away from the deep rich sound of Dubly because in higher quality recordings it was found that the process would leave "artifacts" that people looked at as unacceptable in a professional product. Martin Bisi's a great audiophile and historian of the recording arts and sciences, so when he heard the stuff we were doing he got all excited and made us wait while he went and rummaged through a closet full of discarded, forgotten equipment and pulled out a friggin' Dubly box! He hooked it up to the board and we recorded the whole CD that way. I mean, we went half-speed to try to minimize the effects, but if you listen closely with headphones, you can still hear those artifacts (it sounds kinda like a little sizzle or crackle on the low tones- especially when the bass is by itself), but we agree with Martin's initial speculation that the end results were well worth it! Sadly, though, I doubt if many other studios- if any- have, remember or even know what Dubly is anymore.
Last words: Feel free to advertise, say hellos to readers (of SFP Magazine and MarkSound.Com visitors) and what ever else you want to add.
SS: Who? Never heard of them... This thing is for the San Francisco Police Magazine? You think they'll buy a lot of Slow Horse CDs? I hope so... Anyway, thanks so much to you and everyone who take any kind of an interest in our band and who do anything to help support the music they care about. We really appreciate it! Oh, and don't drink the milk...it's spoiled (pass it on).
DB: Not much to add to that, except for thank you for your support, and we'll see you on the road.