You’ve worked with some intense producers in your long career—Steve Albini, Dave Fridmann, Kramer, Jeff Tweedy. All of them have their own production philosophy and sound that they’re bringing to the studio. But your style is so distinctive and resilient—it sounds like you’ve been able to find out who you are through the process of making each album. How was working with BJ Burton different? Alan, you first worked with him on a Trampled by Turtles project?
Alan Sparhawk: Well, he had reached out to us maybe half a year before that, and kind of was like, “Hey.” He introduced himself, and said, “Yeah, I’m down in Eau Claire. Justin [Vernon]’s studio is really cool, you guys should come check it out next time you’re coming through.” So we stopped by and said hello, met him and stuff like that. And of course, then I’m like, “Okay, who is this guy?” Checking shit out, and listening to stuff, more specifically of what Justin had done with him so far at that point. Then the Turtles thing came up around the same time. So, while we’re doing the Turtles thing down in Cannon Falls, during downtime, we’d sit and talk about stuff, and listen to other people’s records and go, “Yeah, this is really cool what’s going on here.” He’d tell me what he was picturing, like, “Oh, it’d be great if Low did something,” I don’t remember the specific language he was using, but describing essentially what we did, which was something more extreme, blown out, just really going extreme with finding sounds that hadn’t been done before. Well, actually, the finding sounds that hadn’t been done before, I think that evolved more as we started working together more.
Re-listening to your first collaboration with BJ, Ones and Sixes, its palette sounds more traditionally Low than how I was remembering it.
AS: A cross between old and new. We came in with the same approach as before. Like, okay, we’re coming there for five days, and we set up in the room, track the songs, do the overdubbing fairly quickly, get the vocals on there, leave, let the engineer/producer work with it a little bit, come back, do some tweaking, and then mix. That was our old way of working, and that’s kind of how that went.
Mimi Parker: A little bit more traditional.
AS: But meanwhile as that was happening BJ was taking different approaches with different songs, and you realize, “Oh, actually, when we take this approach, it’s more interesting than the way we worked before.” So, that started evolving. But yeah, I’m not sure if I’m answering the question.
No, you are answering the question.
AS: With Ones and Sixes, we were really just feeling it out and finding the possibilities. And once we finished that, we were able to look back and go, “Wow, that was great, especially this part and this part and this part.” And we were like, “Well, it’s pretty clear that next time, if we’re going to work with this guy, let’s definitely pursue working the way that we did for that part.” It was always the stuff where we really went a little bit out there, and we’re like, “Well, you know what? Maybe we don’t have to have a normal drum, or maybe there doesn’t need to be guitar on here. Maybe I need to replace this thing with sample voices instead.”
Which songs on Ones and Sixes were most emblematic of this new approach?
AS: “No Comprende” was definitely like, “Well, we have this song…” We had demoed it at home and had this idea of that big drop. We had realized it as much as we could as a band, duplicating the way you’d play it live. But then, we went in there and did it with him and realized, “Oh, no. He took this further. He made this drop really happen.”
He added drama.
AS: It added this drama and really opens it up and lets certain elements really hit the ceiling.
So with a big personality like BJ’s in the studio, are you surrendering to each other?
AS: Yeah, finding common ground, finding a place where we were all finding satisfaction. And it’s not about compromise, it’s about realizing, “What is it really, that I want here? Is it really important to me that the guitar be this or for the guitar to be awesome? No. I want the song to be awesome.”
MP: Yeah, letting yourself go and not being precious about hearing yourself.
I remember at that time talking to BJ about him wanting to earn your trust so you would allow him to put your sound on a grid so he would be free to move parts around.
AS: Exactly. We had been used to doing it a certain way. We’d had a little experience with that stuff and knew, okay, sometimes you’d play to a click, and that makes it possible to be like, “Okay, well, let’s move this over here,” and we’d done that.
MP: And it was kind of scary. At times, we would scratch our head and be like, “Oh my gosh, what are we doing? Is this working?”
Were you worried that it would sound kind of silly, or too weird? Or maybe like your radio was broken?
AS: Well, it’s rarely, “Is this too weird?” It’s more like, “Is this just us trying to force something that isn’t there?” I don’t know…
MP: It’s hard to explain.
You don’t want to distract from the words and the melodies and the things that are in the song?
AS: Right, you don’t want to just make it weird to just be like, “Oh, that’s a weird sound.” I remember running into that.
MP: Yeah, not weird for weird’s sake.
AS: You want it to be interesting. You want it to be awesome.
MP: To complement and enhance, and not detract from, or take away from what it originally is.
Ah, so wanting to feel those emotions more deeply, or be moved into directions you’re trying to go? Rather than having some kind of distortion just to make it difficult to hear what you’re trying to do.
AS: Well, sometimes you do want that.
MP: Sure, and if that’s what you want, that’s what you do.
AS: You’re trying to come to an honest place. There’s a very fine line between, “Let’s put some weird sounds on there,” and, “No, let’s actually make this awesome and interesting and original.” There’s a lot of wrong ways to do it, and it can be really obvious. It’s a cliched thing. In history, people are like, “We’re doing it this way.” “Oh no, wait. No, actually, I’m doing this kind of thing,” and then an artist will just put on the trappings of some other thing that’s not theirs, and say, “Well, now this is me.” It’s really hard to measure when that is honest. Is this really what you’re trying to say, or are you just doing this? I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. There are just as many pitfalls in trying to be original as there are in trying to use stuff that’s already there or to be nostalgic. There are ways to screw that up and there are ways to do it right.
The first time BJ played me HEY WHAT in his studio, I was like, “Oh my God, this sounds like the newest future music.” But now I’ve listened to it so much, and I know it so well, and I love so many of the melodies, and I love when your voices break through this gigantic wall of sound, and meld together. Your harmony together sounds so simple it’s elemental. But I listened to the previous record, Double Negative, on the drive up here, and the distortion on that record is much more challenging. For as futuristic sounding as HEY WHAT is, it’s a more accessible listening experience. I thought that HEY WHAT was this leap forward, when it’s actually like, I don’t know, maybe it’s such a leap forward that it’s back to just hearing your voices together.
AS: Yeah, maybe more focused.
It is future music and it does sound new, and that shock of hearing it for the first time still stays with me. But listening to it after listening to Double Negative, I don’t know, you’re not fighting anything when you’re listening to it. There’s more pure pleasure there, maybe, for me.
MP: I would agree with that. On Double Negative, we really went down, I’m not going to say a dark hole, but it’s very intense.
AS: Sort of more of the breakthrough moment. I always picture Double Negative as breaking through a wall or breaking through a door, and it’s both exhilarating and new, but also kind of distracting.
Yeah, I mean you were out in the woods on Double Negative burning microphones and playing tape backwards and stuff.
AS: Crushing tapes and burning mics. We were testing the extremes.
From: https://thegreatnorthernfestival.com/low-interview/
