Mat Mitchell - Puscifer (31/01/2013)
As A Perfect Circle descend onto Australia for Soundwave 2013, so too will Puscifer. In their debut appearances in Australia, Puscifer will be performing three headline shows separate from the festival. We chat to band member, programmer, engineer and recorder Mat Mitchell about what fans can expect from these shows.
Hey Matt how are you?
Hey Ryan, I’m good thanks! How are you?
Yeah I’m good. Where are you calling from at the moment?
I’m at my home at Los Angeles. We’ve just done a bunch of rehearsals here before we put all the equipment away on a boat so we can send it to you guys.
I understand you are the programmer, engineer and recorder for Puscifer. With so many jobs, how much influence does Maynard James Keenan allow you have on the song writing?
He is hands on with pretty much the whole process. Depending on the song sometimes the spark comes from somewhere else. But he is definitely involved in the feel of the song in all the different aspects. In terms of the producing role it’s more the detailed work I guess, I don’t know how to explain it (laughs).
How did you yourself get into music and more specifically the behind the scenes things and the stuff you just spoke about?
Kinda early on I was pretty lucky. I was playing in my own band and interested in the recording aspects of things and we always recorded our own stuff. Early on I kinda got the opportunity to sit in on some bigger sessions. That sparked my passion and I have been doing remixes and production work almost as long as I’ve been playing music. I had the opportunity of sitting in and seeing how the technical side was done.
Over your musical career how has changes in technology changed your job?
It’s certainly made… I’ll start by saying this – when I first started out it was almost all tape recorders, there was early digital stuff but all the digital stuff is tape machine driven. Anything that we wanted to do traditionally we were doing with samplers on little tiny displays. Basically technology has made it so things that would take us a whole day we can do in a matter of minutes, it kinda frees up that more time to be creative that would be the biggest thing.
How much time do you spend actually together when writing music or preparing for live shows? For the bigger bands or projects like Puscifer, it’s not uncommon for the band to record the album on different parts of the country or even the world.
We usually get together for a couple of weeks, or a month to a month and half depending on what we are working on. We try to think and bring about each idea that people bring to the table and create what we think is gonna be the group of songs- or collections. At that point we split off and um try to build things out a bit more. But the initial song writing, the core process is anything a few weeks to a few months depending on what we are working on. For rehearsals and stuff, an example being the shows coming up we rehearse for probably 2 weeks. We get in a room together and figure how the new songs are gonna be performed live, if there are any reworks on existing songs, or If the songs tie together. We figure all this out so we have a cohesive show over about two weeks.
How did you meet Maynard James Keenan?
I was hired as a guitar tech with A Perfect Circle in 2003-2004 as a guitar tech for tour cycle of their second record and then as we finished that we went into the studio to record the third record. I had a background in recording and programming and engineering and they asked me to help on the next record. That’s really where we started working hand in hand in a creative environment and it’s sort of stuck since then. That’s how we met and started working together. When it was time to start working on puscifer, it was just a natural transition.
I haven't seen Puscifer live myself, but I know that you guys base your show around humour and making people laugh. Is there anything you do with editing to create more humour in the shows?
Well like I said before we talk about these things in rehearsals. There are stories we try to tell so we may add a video element, or use the song, or in the breaks to tell this story. We do this with musical and visuals.
What are you looking forward to about Soundwave and have you played any Australian festivals before?
I haven’t performed any Australian shows before, actually this is Puscifers first time down there so we are excited. I know we have a lot of fans down there, and we are excited to show them the shows we do. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as we enjoy doing it.
What is the future for you guys after Soundwave?
We have an EP that’s coming out in February and we have already started working on new material. When a release is meant to come out, I don’t know yet. But we are working and there is certainly going to be something.
Is it going along the same lines as you are taking so far, or is it going to be more experimental? What differences can you expect in the new album?
Well, kinda getting back to the story side of things, we may chose to tell a different story. How that unfolds musically we aren’t really putting more thought into it. We might just see what happens organically, once we figure out what we are trying to tell we will see where that takes it. We will keep it organic, keep it fresh and keep it fun for everybody.
How does each story from different albums come across when you are playing live? Do you change these stories when you are playing live?
Well, it becomes more of a collage I guess. It involves putting pieces next to other pieces in a way like doing a collage. In some ways it… I dunno, we are looking for cohesion. We are looking for similarities in stories or moods. Sometimes it’s that stories fit together not because the story is the same but because the mood is the same. Sonically they sometimes just fit together. They may not fit together song by song but we try and fit them together the best we can.
Thanks very much for chatting and have a great time touring!
Thanks and I’d hope to see you out there!
Thanks, bye
Ryan Hyde
Hey Matt how are you?
Hey Ryan, I’m good thanks! How are you?
Yeah I’m good. Where are you calling from at the moment?
I’m at my home at Los Angeles. We’ve just done a bunch of rehearsals here before we put all the equipment away on a boat so we can send it to you guys.
I understand you are the programmer, engineer and recorder for Puscifer. With so many jobs, how much influence does Maynard James Keenan allow you have on the song writing?
He is hands on with pretty much the whole process. Depending on the song sometimes the spark comes from somewhere else. But he is definitely involved in the feel of the song in all the different aspects. In terms of the producing role it’s more the detailed work I guess, I don’t know how to explain it (laughs).
How did you yourself get into music and more specifically the behind the scenes things and the stuff you just spoke about?
Kinda early on I was pretty lucky. I was playing in my own band and interested in the recording aspects of things and we always recorded our own stuff. Early on I kinda got the opportunity to sit in on some bigger sessions. That sparked my passion and I have been doing remixes and production work almost as long as I’ve been playing music. I had the opportunity of sitting in and seeing how the technical side was done.
Over your musical career how has changes in technology changed your job?
It’s certainly made… I’ll start by saying this – when I first started out it was almost all tape recorders, there was early digital stuff but all the digital stuff is tape machine driven. Anything that we wanted to do traditionally we were doing with samplers on little tiny displays. Basically technology has made it so things that would take us a whole day we can do in a matter of minutes, it kinda frees up that more time to be creative that would be the biggest thing.
How much time do you spend actually together when writing music or preparing for live shows? For the bigger bands or projects like Puscifer, it’s not uncommon for the band to record the album on different parts of the country or even the world.
We usually get together for a couple of weeks, or a month to a month and half depending on what we are working on. We try to think and bring about each idea that people bring to the table and create what we think is gonna be the group of songs- or collections. At that point we split off and um try to build things out a bit more. But the initial song writing, the core process is anything a few weeks to a few months depending on what we are working on. For rehearsals and stuff, an example being the shows coming up we rehearse for probably 2 weeks. We get in a room together and figure how the new songs are gonna be performed live, if there are any reworks on existing songs, or If the songs tie together. We figure all this out so we have a cohesive show over about two weeks.
How did you meet Maynard James Keenan?
I was hired as a guitar tech with A Perfect Circle in 2003-2004 as a guitar tech for tour cycle of their second record and then as we finished that we went into the studio to record the third record. I had a background in recording and programming and engineering and they asked me to help on the next record. That’s really where we started working hand in hand in a creative environment and it’s sort of stuck since then. That’s how we met and started working together. When it was time to start working on puscifer, it was just a natural transition.
I haven't seen Puscifer live myself, but I know that you guys base your show around humour and making people laugh. Is there anything you do with editing to create more humour in the shows?
Well like I said before we talk about these things in rehearsals. There are stories we try to tell so we may add a video element, or use the song, or in the breaks to tell this story. We do this with musical and visuals.
What are you looking forward to about Soundwave and have you played any Australian festivals before?
I haven’t performed any Australian shows before, actually this is Puscifers first time down there so we are excited. I know we have a lot of fans down there, and we are excited to show them the shows we do. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as we enjoy doing it.
What is the future for you guys after Soundwave?
We have an EP that’s coming out in February and we have already started working on new material. When a release is meant to come out, I don’t know yet. But we are working and there is certainly going to be something.
Is it going along the same lines as you are taking so far, or is it going to be more experimental? What differences can you expect in the new album?
Well, kinda getting back to the story side of things, we may chose to tell a different story. How that unfolds musically we aren’t really putting more thought into it. We might just see what happens organically, once we figure out what we are trying to tell we will see where that takes it. We will keep it organic, keep it fresh and keep it fun for everybody.
How does each story from different albums come across when you are playing live? Do you change these stories when you are playing live?
Well, it becomes more of a collage I guess. It involves putting pieces next to other pieces in a way like doing a collage. In some ways it… I dunno, we are looking for cohesion. We are looking for similarities in stories or moods. Sometimes it’s that stories fit together not because the story is the same but because the mood is the same. Sonically they sometimes just fit together. They may not fit together song by song but we try and fit them together the best we can.
Thanks very much for chatting and have a great time touring!
Thanks and I’d hope to see you out there!
Thanks, bye
Ryan Hyde