As we reported earlier this week, in January, Matt Butler started work on the first Everyone Orchestra studio album in Brooklyn, NY. Butler recruited some of EO’s most famous alumni for the session, including Jon Fishman (Phish), Jeff Coffin (Dave Matthews Band), Al Schnier (moe.), Reed Mathis (Tea Leaf Green) Steve Kimock, Marco Benevento, Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band), Jamie Masefield (Jazz Mandolin Project) and Jans Ingber (The Motet). The Brooklyn Sessions album is almost ready for release but Butler is looking for some additional help via Kickstarter
. In the following conversation he discusses his plans for EO and the upcoming album.
The recent session you had in Brooklyn feat. Jon Fishman, Marco Beneventon, Al Schnier, Steve Kimock etc. is already being called a jam “supergroup.” Can you talk a bit about the session and how you translated your stage presence into the studio?
I’ve been doing [Everyone Orchestra] for 10 years and I basically decided that I wanted to try something different. My thought was to take the conducting improv concept into the studio, take the audience out of the equation and just kind of create a space where I can facilitate and conduct musicians—just having lots of space to create a bunch of material.
The original idea was to do this in a few different regions with a few different lineups. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be an album or a series of individual releases as the whole idea of an album is kind of blurred. It kind of ebbed and flowed as to how to release it. So my intention was to do one or two on the West coast, one up [in Oregon]—I have a pretty strong team of musicians out here on the northwest—and then one down in the Bay Area. I kind of have regional teams on some level. Some people have done it all over the place with me like [Steve] Kimock or Jennifer Hartswick, but there are very much regional teams that have done EO with me. This is a first in that kind of conceptual installment.
Obviously, having Fishman involved…he’s been so busy with Phish that since Phish “reupped” we haven’t had a chance to bring him into any EO’s as he’s got family and fun and stuff, so he’s just really busy. He responded saying “Yeah, I’d love to be a part. I hope I don’t miss it. But can you do it on the East coast so it’s easy for me to get to?” You know, I just kind of put out some feelers in the timeframe that Fishman said he could be available for it and this particular team just fell together. These are all people that have done multiple EO’s, some more than others, but everybody’s wholly privy to the concept and they’ve been with me through its development.
What was the setup like in studio? Did you record live as a group or were there individual takes?
EO has been many different things. It’s definitely evolved in the 10 years that it’s been around…it’s not just a regular musical concept of sorts. For one, I used to be the drummer and I’d hire conductors. Eventually, I tried conducting about five years into it and have been conducting ever since. So we set up a lot like we set up on stage—all in the same room and everyone could see each other. We were in headphones and we had some separation with gobos and various things, and we had an incredible array of microphones.
Did you have a producer working with you in the studio or did you take on that task yourself?
Steve Berlin [from Los Lobos] is a local guy here in Portland. He’s become a really good friend and a really staunch supporter of EO. Pretty much whenever he’s home and available and I’m doing a show, he’s been a part of it. He’s seen so many different musical projects and played in so many different things and produced so many different things and he just [said] “This is totally original; totally unique. Playing with EO is just such a release and so fun and you always meet cool people. It’s great. ” So he’s a really strong supporter. He’s not producing it, but he’s definitely helping [to] coach me along in the process and has offered his ears to listen to stuff as I get into the listening part of it. But he connected me with the studio out in Brooklyn. It was just an incredible studio with a massive amount of mics and amps and all kinds of stuff. It was a great place to do this particular concept because we needed a big room. The engineer was so good that I barely noticed he was there, in a sense. It was just flowing.
So we did two days of tracking and my whole intent was to try to hit a lot of different tempos; to give everybody space to lead some jams; to hit as many timbres…My intent of an EO show is to create a really dynamic, interactive experience for both the musicians on stage and the audience, and that the musicians all get a chance to stretch out and be heard in a unique way—that they get challenged in a unique way. I often push people’s comfort zones and it’s a little bit like a coach or something on that level. And then I just stretched out that overall concept over the two days in the studio and then included the possibility [that] we can stop in the middle of the jam and go “OK. Check it out. So, this is cool. Why don’t we use this as the ‘A’ section? Does anyone have a ‘B’ section? And then Al would come up with something all of a sudden we have these two sections and we kind of work it out…one’s in 4/4 one’s in 5/4 and then 6/8, so alternating. Then we put these two things together and say “So, let’s do this,” and we’ll go back and forth and we’ll all take turns taking solos and we’ll do that for 30 minutes and all kinds of stuff would happen within that jam. That’s something that doesn’t happen on stage ‘cause there’s this other pressure of performance—which is a beautiful thing—but part of the intent was to give the musicians a ton of space to just collaborate.
So was everything purely improvised or were there pre-arranged parts? Do you plan to edit the jams at all?
It was all conducted improvisation. Now where I’m at in the process is I have 10 or 11 hours of material to go back and listen to and to kind of cull the best of. I’m open to editing or whatever. To be honest, I’ve only listened to a little bit of it since I’ve left the studio and at the end it was kind of a blur. moe. just played out here and Al was like “I was so inspired. 48 hours after the session I just kept on hearing new music in my head. Ideas just kept on coming out.” We covered a massive amount of ground [in the studio]. You know, from really fast funky things to really ambient kind of spatial, environmental music and a little bit of everything in between. So I have yet to go back and remember what’s going on, but the intent was to cull the best and make a great record.
The way that we approached the session was that editing is a valid part on the back end. So we’d be playing, and in performance I might have done something to bring the song to a close or something, I’d go around three more times and let two more people take a solo on it or try breaking it down to a small ensemble. So we explore things almost a little deeper than we do on stage with the intent of, “OK. I think this 35 minute jam…well maybe we’ll just release that and that’s the record.” [Laughs]. You know? I’m still open to that idea.
Kind of like a Miles Davis Tribute to Jack Johnson type of thing.
Yeah, or Bitches Brew. It’s a little bit like that. There was this one particular hour long jam and it in itself I think might be a record. It moved along pretty quick between different sections, had a lot of different tempos and key changes and various things. And at the end of it I just kind of said “Well, maybe that’s it.” I’m not exactly sure yet… there’s a lot…[Laughs]…I’ve created a pretty big mixing job, but that was my intent.
No Comments comments associated with this post