Slowrush – Interview

Here the multifaceted Rob Daiker tells the story of his role in the creation of the great music of SlowRush. In the studio is where Rob is most comfortable, and that is where we caught up to him.

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What have you been up to?

Well, I’m in the studio every day, like usual. (laughs)

Are you working on stuff for yourself?

Yeah, I’m writing new material. I’m always trying to get that done when I have the chance. Once we get on the road I won’t be able to.

Now your new album, Volume, has been a work in progress.

Yeah, it’s like three or four years of work. Not that it was recorded over that length of time, but that it was written like three or four years ago. Some of these songs are on their second or third version.

Are you gonna tour in support of the album?

Yeah, we are going out in March.

How are you going to reproduce the sounds on the road? Do you have a synth player?

Yeah, we got a keyboard player and we have samplers on stage, so it stays pretty true to what you hear on the record.

When you are in the studio, is it mostly you alone or do you bring the band in with you?

It’s mostly just me alone.

So you handled most of the music for the album. You did everything from playing guitar to laying drum loops?

Yeah.

Did you teach yourself?

It came from years of messing around with keyboards and machines. I just mess around a lot with that stuff.

I love messing around with keyboards. I think you always sorta just want to experiment with other things.

I know. A lot of the stuff on the record are experimental guitar samples, like backwards stuff.

Before SlowRush you did a solo project, right?

Well, yeah, I wouldn’t really deem it a solo project. It was me basically wanting to go into the studio and lay some songs on a cd because I had never done it before. I was like twenty-two and I really wanted to try it. I had friends come in and play on various songs. It was funk, rock, and even ballads. It was very varied. I sold some in Europe and Sweden, I guess I got a little niche over there.

With bringing together a band, did you still want to have control over the songs or did you allow them to come in and add their two cents?

The way I put it all together was that I would sit down with a drum machine, bass, and mic and do the songs from the ground up. Basically, when we got to track the song I will say to the drummer, ‘Hey, go learn this song.’ Then we go in and rehearse it and make it sound good.

Do you write a lot of tracks and find that you have to get rid of them?

No. I’m not a very prolific writer. I go through spurts. There are times when I’ll just write, write, write for like three months and then maybe I won’t write for like four months. That is getting fewer and farther in between lately though. It was weird because right after we finished this album I was back in the studio writing new songs. I never do that. Usually I’m too burned out.

Do you write stories or off of loops?

Depends. Sometimes I’ll jot down lyrics or phrases and it’ll give me an idea for a song, but sometimes I’ll throw down a drum loop and it’ll inspire me to write a song.

I was reading the bio, and once I got through all of the fluff

I know. Don’t you hate those things?

They are pretty annoying. I mean, who in the hell writes those things?

Man, I don’t know. (laughs)

Well, once I got to your quotes at the bottom, I was really interested in hearing the album because I hadn’t heard it yet, but I was expecting some heavy industrial grind. But I was like blown away with all the musical elements from pop to metal to industrial.

Yeah. I think the stigma was that you have Trent Reznor doing what he is doing, which is fucking amazing, and when you strip that down it’s a pop song.

Exactly.

I want to take it to the farther left of pop and also go heavier.

I was reading the lyrics and I was wondering if they are stories or experiences?

A lot of them are stories of an experience. Pick an example and I can tell you about it.

How about “Junkie”?

It’s about an ex-girlfriend who I was with for a long time and then when we broke up she started stripping. It was weird to have her start doing that. The other side of that song is that when you break up with them, you miss having sex with them. Although you don’t miss the fighting and arguing, you do miss the sex.

What about “Star”?

That is another kinda end of a relationship song. It’s like, ‘I know it won’t work between you and I but I hope that I can always have a special place in your heart.’

Is “Selfish” a real recording off of an answering machine?

(laughs) That was real. It’s a funny story actually. It’s the same girl “Junkie” is about. When we had our final end to the relationship and it was the knock down, drag out end and I just left without telling her where I was going, all she had was my pager number. So she would call my voice mail and call five to ten times a day going ‘Where the fuck are you?’ So one day the message she left was the one you heard, the ‘Mr. fucking evasive one.’ I was like, ‘That is just too fucking classic. I’ve got to put that on the record.’ The irony of that is that she got paid for us to use the sample.

Really?

Yeah.

That sucks.

Quite a good chunk of cash too.

So she knows the song is about her?

Yeah. (laughs) You’ve got to admit it is pretty fucking funny.

It is. I was dying when I first heard it and then I’d go back and listen to it again and again. It is classic and I was like, ‘If that is real, then it is too funny.’

Actually, there is a lot of stuff like that on the record. There are some things on “Mono Baby”. If you listen closely on headphones, there are some things going on in there. I don’t know how x-rated you want me to get.

I don’t care, don’t bother me.

It’s like porno samples, but it’s basically live porn.

Oh really? (laughs) I wouldn’t have figured that out on my own.

I don’t want to go too into detail since I might get one of the band members into trouble. (laughs) Everything you hear on there is authentic.

“Mono Baby” caught me quicker than any other track. The vocals are really cool. I also dig “Wait”. I dig slower tracks.

“Wait” actually started off as a rock song.

Really?

Yeah. Did you hear the hidden track? If you play it and let it go, it’s the rock version of it.

Oh, really.

Yeah. There is static like a needle on a record and then the track comes. I thought it would be cool to do two versions of the same song.

Does “Pain” have a story?

That was a co-write with my friend. I just wrote around the chorus since he already had that done, so honestly there isn’t really a lot of lyrical meaning behind it.

Since you spend a lot of time in the studio writing, are you experimenting a lot with different styles?

Oh, yeah. I’ve been writing a lot. I’ve been writing songs that I know SlowRush wouldn’t do. I wrote a few really heavy pop songs, like Backstreet Boys pop just to see if I could do it, and I’ve written some really heavy and aggressive stuff.

Do you use keyboards or computer software to make a lot of the sounds?

The stuff on the records I did predominantly on Logic audio. A lot of samples I made I did at my house in the basement. We just tracked over the top with guitars and drums, then the vocals, and that’s what you hear.

Since you produced the album, is it tough to be objective?

Yeah, it really is. My main goal is to make music I would buy, the kind that when you hear it on the radio you can’t turn it off. It’s actually a selfish venture. I’m open to constructive criticism when we are in the studio and I’ll walk away from something that I might be working too hard on to open it up for others. I enjoy producing.

I hear it a lot from artists saying they’d really like to self-produce, but they don’t think they could be objective enough with their own material.

It’s different in my situation. Bands who write as a band approach the studio with the need for someone to guide them. With me, I create it from the ground up and I know how I want it to sound in the end. That is all I have to go on.

A lot of artists don’t like people putting their hands on what they see as their baby.

I think deep down every artist knows what they want their album to sound like. I hear a lot of nightmare stories of bands going into the studio with a producer they weren’t happy with and the end result is an album the group isn’t happy with. I blame the producers, because the band always knows what they want it to sound like. You have to know when you are getting the best out of a band.

How involved are you with the engineering?

I’m pretty involved. Shawn Norton, the engineer of our last album, is definitely the fucking pro, but we would go in the studio and try to get a drum sound and I would get in there and tweak the mics and twist some knobs.

Do you enjoy that as much as writing?

Yes. Not exactly engineering, but producing. I’m producing two other bands right now before I leave. That is my main love. I think after all this is done I’d like to be in the studio.

I was wondering if being signed to a record label is all it’s cracked up to be?

Ummmno. (laughs) It depends. I think people’s illusions of it are pretty funny.

I know what you’re saying. Fans really do perceive things in a way, like that you live the grand rock ‘n’ roll life.

I wish it was what they thought it was. None of us are rich. We’ve gotta go on the road and work. Everyone thinks you’re instantly rich.

+ charlie craine