Steve Gerrard
Steve Gerrard
Johnny Foreigner are a blistering Indie Rock four piece who have just released their fourth album, You Can Do Better. They’ve been whipping audiences up into a frenzy on tour with their fast and distinctive punk-influenced wall of sound, with Alexei and Kelly alternating on vocals. The band are: Alexei Berrow (vocals, guitar), Kelly Southern (vocals, bass) , Junior Elvis Washington Laidley (drums, keys), new member Lewes Herriot (guitar), and while on tour, Ben Rausch (visuals).
Johnny Foreigner have had a great response to their new album You Can Do Better, and within a week of release fans were singing the words at their gigs.
We saw them tearing it up at The Borderline with a blistering set of the new tracks and old classics too. For the current tour they’ve expanded to be a five-piece including amazing live visuals played on a keytar.
Having an additional guitarist - Lewes - has opened up new possibilities and depth they say. How would they describe the album’s sound? Alexei summed it up, and explained how the new album is such a progression.
I suppose one word, sonic-er. Faster, shorter, louder.
I think for this record we pretty much can play everything live because having Lewes in the band means it’s a lot easier to do big noisy guitar things instead of just having to resort to multitracking. So that was the foundation that was built on, knowing that we were a proper two-guitar rock band for the first time.
The record before that we definitely tried to do stuff knew we wouldn’t be able to play live. And our first two albums, I think we totally had that mindset that if we couldn’t reproduce it live then, almost like it wasn’t valid. I think we just accepted that we were allowed to cheat by the third album. But now there’s nothing really that we couldn’t do. Theoretically we could play this whole album back to back. And I don’t think we’ve been able to do that before.
Alexei, known as Lex says there are different ways they write songs.
I just start with a spark, with a few chords, a vague melody or a half-thought, and then take it to the band and flesh it out from there. And then put off writing the words until the last possible moment. But a lot of the time Junior will have some kind of loop and I’ll just take that, chop ten minutes out of it and then that’ll become something as well.
The last two records we’ve done with our friend Don who we’ve grown up with, buying the same records, so we have a lot of shared reference points, and he’s just become a super amazing producer. So for this one he’s started his own studio in Birmingham, called Carbon, and we went there and tracked everything apart from the vocals. Things like the vocals we did at our own studio. And the record before that, we just brought Don to the studio and just kind of left him there. Set up all his stuff in a corner.
The band have a rehearsal studio space to call home and be the Johnny Foreigner nerve centre.
It’s at a place called Candyland, run by lovely people called Nigel and Matt, who have been pretty much doing it, non profit, since we were born. It’s basically a slightly illegal warehouse in the city centre, and there’s about five or six different rooms in there. And we just pay to hire it monthly, it’s pretty much our home.
Here’s a rehearsal take of Le Sigh from their new album.
Kelly told us how they make the initial demos.
We’ve done it in so many different ways. Junior has an eight track that we’ve recorded on before, sometimes we just do it on cameras, it all depends really. When we’re just doing initial stages which is where we’re putting songs together it’ll be on a camera or over an iPhone but then it will be put on eight track. Sometimes we’ve got a soundman that we’ve had come to our studio to record stuff for us as well.
Some of the DIY effects make it on to the albums.
We went from our home recordings when we first started, we got some mates to just run outside in the rain, clapping their hands and shouting something, we recorded it from three storeys up, that was a bit weird.
Samples on the album include sounds from a 90s Amiga game, but it’s clear on You Can Do Better that their songwriting has developed and its not just about sound effects. It’s something that’s borne out by the positive reviews, and how they see themselves developing too.
When we first started off we were almost more experimental because we didn’t really have the songs. So instead of spending a long time making a song we were like, let’s see what stupid sounds… let’s see what happens if we plug that into that and then play it backwards. It gave you a good grounding but a lot of that stuff was just for the sake of it, just some kind of fun noise as opposed to an artistic statement made out of kids’ steam train sound effects or whatever.
Johnny Foreigner are hot on visuals and as well as their own artwork and customising all their gear, use visuals as a key part of their live show, with Ben ‘performing’ them.
We really like the idea of generating stuff as a gang, so whatever adventures we find along our way become part of the visuals and we carry them along with us. When we were in the States Alexei bought this little helicopter with a little camera built into it and a little hard disc and so we flew that all over the show and took footage of that and then put that into the visuals.
We ask for a small toy robot on our rider for the show and when people actually do that we work the robots into the shows and then they kind of carry on with us as we go forward into all the new places and new situations we’ll end up in. So it’s very much a group family type effort. We’ve got lots of other friends that have also collaborated and added to stuff with drawings and it’s this constantly growing, communal, bundle of stuff.
They have been touring the UK and Europe and have some more great shows lined up.
There’s South Africa, and then festivals in the summer and hopefully a few more UK shows towards the end of the year.
So which artists inspire Johnny Foreigner?
Two brothers in Chicago started a band called Cap’n Jazz and then from that they turned into a band called Owls, and then that turned into a load of different things. It’s a very incestuous scene and everyone plays on each other’s records and they’re just so talented, crazy talented.
But it’s also an inspiration in that they’re doing this stuff which I think is artistically way better than anything we could ever do, they’re like god-level to us but also no one’s heard of them and they still have to work shitty jobs. So it’s kind of nice to know that even the people that you really look up to and admire, and want to have that kind of level of talent, it still doesn’t necessarily mean that you can quit the real world.
Alexei is a demon guitar player and his kit comes in for a real hammering on tour. So how would he describe his sound?
Brassy, I think. I like it so it’s beefy but it has to cut through. I have a TS9 (Tube Screamer) and that’s pretty much the crux of all the sound, I just rely on that so much. Just a big Humbucker sound but sharp enough to cut through everything.
The Humbucker sound comes from his Fender Telecaster Deluxe which he has also customised, and the band has a few Teles.
All the Teles we have are customized. We’ve got a Fender Custom and a Squier Custom and they have Les Paul layout but they have a Telecaster bridge pickup, and we’ve got a Deluxe that is just pure Les Paul layout, two Humbuckers and a toggle switch up there. Our Telecasters are great because they look nice and you can chuck them down a flight of stairs and they’re easy to rebuild. But in terms of sound I really like that kind of croaky thing so that’s a good compromise.
Fender Telecaster Our Telecasters are great Read More
Alexei got his guitar on tour, and it was a few years old already.
I bought it in Japan when I had more money than sense and I had a proper Wayne’s World moment with it. It just looked beautiful, and I played it and it was horrible and the strings were all set up nasty, and so I was trying to communicate to this guy that I’d like to buy it but if I was going to buy it I needed it to be set up and he said yeah, just give me an hour and come back.
So I went and stood outside this shop in Tokyo for an hour, in this crazy-ass heatwave, and I came back into the shop just drenched and covered in sweat. It’s in a basement so we walked up the stairs and we get to a little courtyard bit at the top and he motions me to stand at the other side of the courtyard but he’s still got my guitar. That’s a bit weird!
So I stand outside on the street, and then he puts the guitar down and slides it through the courtyard gates and then bows at me and walks off. Which is just beautiful. A £500 guitar and I just receive such over the top service. But yeah, that guitar’s been everywhere, it’s been rebuilt so many times. Pretty much all my guitars have now.
There are some pedals that are essential to his sound.
I have an Ibanez Tube Screamer, which I’ve had since the guy The Machine, who produced our first album, bought me one and it’s just perfect, it’s just the nicest, purest distortion tone. I have a real problem with distortion pedals that as soon as you put them on, it just sounds like a different guitar completely, it’s not just that it’s distorted, it seems to change the character of the whole sound.
Ibanez Tube Screamer TS9 The nicest, purest distortion tone Read More
Tube Screamer doesn’t do that, it just puts this beautiful whatever it does over the top. So I use that for most of the distortions and then I have an old Marshall Guv’nor that I put on after. So I guess my main distortion is both of them on at the same time. But it’s all about the TS9.
It’s a Guv’ 2 but it’s old as in battered. I really miss the old Guv’nors. The old Guv’nor had just a bass control and the new one has a bass and a sub bass control and I can never get it to match what I think the sound in my head of a Guv’nor, that I heard a few years ago, would be. It’s always a weird balance between the bass and the sub bass. So I’d love to get an old Guv’nor, but they just seem, like, silly expensive.
Johnny Foreigner customise everything, including the artwork on their amps like Alexei’s Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.
Underneath that is just a stock Hot Rod. But they’re great, they’re super-practical. They’re super easy to fix and every band’s got one, so we’ve been on tour where that amp’s blown so I’ve used the guitarist’s from the band we were playing with. And then I’ve blown that guy’s amp and he’s been, oh I’ll just use the other guitarist’s, and I’ve blown that, so we just end up acing through them.
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Amp Weird kind of cleanness, great, super-practical Read More
That doesn’t sound like a way of making, or staying, friends!
Yeah. They’re all still friends but…I think maybe that’s also the problem if you’re taking five of the same amps to venues. You set five of the same amps up and you take them from venue to venue so then by the time one’s about to die all of them are pretty much on their last legs. But the valves are super common and it’s easy to drag them in and out, so it’s definitely a reliable choice. I really like Fender amps as well, I should say. They have a weird kind of cleanness about them that I don’t really hear in other amps.
Alexei also has a Boss GT-8 amp and effects processor.
It stands there and looks like it’s in Battlestar Galactica! I’m still trying to work out everything that it does. I just wanted it because, the rest of the effects that I use it’s not really worth buying separate effects like dedicated pedals for them. So that’s got a tuner on it and it’s got delays that run at two or three different speeds for different sounds. And a couple of stupid effects. And that takes up ten patches.
Not all the effects work for him, and some are so crazy that they become good.
Boss GT-8 It’s got delays that run at two or three different speeds Read More
There’s about 200 patches on the whole pedal board and there are cringe-inducingly bad Steve Vai impersonations. I can’t be dealing with any of the rest of the pre-sets.
There’s one that adds a fifth in, you can make make the solo sound a bit like Thin Lizzy, and there’s just a couple of weird ones, I don’t even know what they are. They just make it sound horrible. One begins with a U. Univibe? I don’t know. I just went through them and I was like, which is the nastiest? Ah, this one, use that.
So who are his personal guitar heroes?
Well definitely the guitarist for Cap’n Jazz and Owls and that, it’s a guy called Victor Villareal. He plays with his fingers but it’s absolutely effortless. I’ve never seen anyone be that accurate and make it look so easy. And I think when he started playing guitar it kind of revolutionised things, there’s an awful lot of guitarists who ripped off that style of playing and just can’t quite get it as good. I would count myself in that category!
Then all the people in Owls started to play guitar a little bit like Victor so they all have their weird little offshoots of that style. But when I was growing up I just wanted to be Bernard Butler. Such beautiful smooth flowing lines. Again, effortless. You don’t need to have a million notes to say something.
Kelly plays a wide range of bass sounds, as the Johnny Foreigner songs range from gentle to explosive.
I would say, for my clean sounds I like a lot of body, a lot of deep bass, I don’t like twangy bass. And I use a lot of distortion as well. It’s a lot of really buzzy sounds, quite brash-sounding, almost. And I’ve got an Overdrive for between sounds, so quite distorted.
It depends on the song. If we’re playing quieter stuff, I have something that’s a bit more melodic, more gentle but generally there’s obviously two guitars and so I do need it to be quite bulky, brash, just to cut through everything.
Kelly also sings and says she takes on about half the vocal duties, so how does she make it work, with such angular rhythms?
I think it did take a bit of practice, because a lot of things don’t necessarily match the rhythm, so they’ll have different rhythms. Having to do two things that are kind of conflicting does take practice, when it’s just like stray root notes, that’s pretty easy really.
She talked us through her kit.
I’ve got a Mexican Fender Jazz. I like the sound of it, the body is beautiful, it’s just one of the nicest basses that I’ve played on. Before I had that I had a Squier, like a Squier P Bass kind of thing. And it served a purpose, but the Fender Jazz sounds so much better. And I’ve got a Squier Jaguar as well which is quite nice. But it’s very boomy, bless it. My Fender Jazz is my favourite by far. We’ve been together for about six years now so she’s been battered around a bit and needs a bit of love and attention.
The Jaguar I bought originally just when we were on tour in the States and I was going to sell it once the tour finished but I actually quite liked it and got quite attached to it so ended up bringing it back and having it as my spare bass.
Fender Jazz Bass My favourite by far Read More
Kelly has tried out different basses, especially when the band has been in the studio working on albums.
I quite like Rickenbackers. Very heavy, though. Playing that every night, that would be quite hardcore.
Kelly has a few key pedals for distortion and overdrive, one of which, the Marshall Guv’nor is the same as Alexei’s.
I’ve got an ODB-3, that’s for my main big distortion sound. I’m using a Marshall Guv’nor for my overdrive. I’ve also got a a Zvex Wooly Mammoth which just sounds like a key bass it just sounds not of this world. I love it! It’s very full. I used to have an ME-8B pedalboard (Boss) which is probably my favourite thing I’ve ever had, it had ring modulators and all sorts on it, it was just, woah! It broke and I never managed to get another one.
ZVEX Woolly Mammoth It sounds not of this world, I love it Read More
Kelly has an Ampeg SVT Classic amp, made in the US, that she pairs with a giant 8 X 10 Ampeg cab. We wondered if it was vintage or had just seen a lot of action.
It’s very beaten up. As is all our gear. It’s all gone. It’s all lived quite a busy life. It’s an 8x10 Ampeg cab but again it needs a bit of love and attention. And the head is an Ampeg SVT and again it’s been through the wars. As you can see, I’ve had to fit an external fan to the outside because the head actually blew up about a couple of years ago. It overheated and inside just went, pow! And I thought it was completely dead and then I took it to a specialist in Cambridge who fixed it for a lot of money. But it was worth it because I love the sound of it. It’s such a pain having to move it around venues and stuff, but it’s worth it for the sound. I can’t imagine using anything else but that.
It’s so loud, it’s a monster, it’s a beast, just amazing! There’s no going back from that really. Where do you go after using it?
I’ve still got a Marshall combo, and it’s fine, it can serve a purpose and I can carry it around pretty easily.
Kelly played a lot of different instruments before settling on bass.
I’ve gone through a bit of everything really. My first instrument was just a keyboard when I was five years old, and then I started having piano lessons when I was seven, then I went for classical guitar when I was eight, then when I was 16 I joined a band as a drummer, so I’ve drummed in a few bands as well, and eventually, when I was 19, I picked up the bass.
We asked about bass players who inspire her.
I hate to say it but a lot of the people that really inspire me are actually female bass players and I don’t know why that is. It’s not like I looked at female bass players and thought, I want to do that, that’s not it at all, but playing bass, the kind of bass players that I like and appreciate are Kim Deal, Kim Gordon, Satomi from Deerhoof as well - she’s got a very individual style. There’s some bands that we’ve played with as well where the bass has been phenomenal, like Hot Club De Paris, Paul from Hot Club, wicked bass player.
Ampeg SVT Classic It’s so loud, it’s a monster Read More
Boss Bass OverDrive ODB-3 My main big distortion sound Read More
Junior is a demon drummer and also plays keyboard too, even at the same time! So what drum sound is he aiming for?
Generally a real dead, deep, flat sound, that is easy to make punchable by the sound man. If there’s no resonance there’s no boom. Just gaffer tape the bottom, have him pitch it quite low. And then hopefully the sound man can bring the life with the punchiness afterwards.
Powerful snare drums and punchy bass and floor toms, that’s pretty much it. I like my floor tom to pretty much sound like another kick drum, as close as. I don’t use any rack toms, I never used to use an extra cymbal but I don’t think it makes my job less complicated. I think it makes you actually think about how else you can do your fills and your rolls and intricacies. Work them in, basically.
Junior plays a Ludwig classic maple kit, that he got at a bargain price.
When it comes to knowing about my gear I know little. I know how to use it but the history of that kit is I was just lucky. This gentleman who was in the rehearsal space just gave up on music all of a sudden and he had this lovely kit. Nigel said to me, he’s only asking £180 for it, and I think it’s worth ten times that and I was like, I’ll take that. And I’ve had it ever since, for about 11 years.
Because I haven’t played many other kits, I couldn’t compare it to others. The wood effect just keeps the sound really neutral. I wouldn’t use steel anyway but luckily, the wood, gives the deepness and the ability to keep it good. It’s really easily tuneable.
Junior has a Zildjian endorsement for cymbals, and unusually, tapes them to get the precise sound he is after.
I tape them down to sound as sharp or as dead as I want them. I never used to use a ride cymbal. I’d rather change the sustain of it by putting some moon gel (damper pads) on there than buy a smaller cymbal. I’ve now got an A Custom Ping Ride, which is beautiful.
He uses Zildjian A Custom Projection 14” Hi Hats, and also an A Sweet Ride 21”.
Zildjian A Custom Ping Ride 20” Beautiful Read More
The snare he uses is a DW 14 X 7 “ Maple Collectors Series.
I was doing the first album in New York, with a producer called The Machine, and he sent his engineer out to test all these snare drums. The only brief I gave him was I like a deep, powerful sound. So then he came back with this 14x7 inch and I was like that’s pretty big, and ever since I’ve played it, it’s just so nice. You are able to tune it, no matter what, it could be high or low, it just fits, it’ll just stay in that tuning.
Apparently it’s worth loads of money and I should look after it. I think I’ve had it for about 8 years.
DW Collector’s Series Maple Snare Deep, powerful Read More
Junior plays drums but also a Casio keyboard and samples, and it’s amazing to watch. Another band - Make Believe - inspired him to start multi-skilling. Nate Kinsella, their drummer/keyboardist, plays a Hammond organ.
I just saw it done, and I didn’t use any rack toms, and I thought, why not? I used to put it to the right of the kit, away from the rest of it, and it used to work. But piano was my first instrument, so I picked it up that way. I find it easier because you’re just playing another rhythm with the separate hand, rather than hitting the ride cymbal in whatever form that you want it, you’re just hitting white keys, black keys.
I’ve got a little Kaossillator on there as well, which is really easy because you can set up the scales and the arpeggios and whatnot so you’ve just got to press the pad in whatever way you want and it’ll be in tune. Most of the time!
Boss Digital Delay DD-6 I can do loops or play freehand Read More
And then lastly I have a DD-6 pedal, which I route the old Casio SA-21 through which I can either do loops or play along with it or I can just play it freehand while I play the drums. I’ve never stopped doing it. I do it less and less I think in different albums but it still creeps in eventually.
The vintage Casio SA-21 that Junior plays was a gift from a friend and has a very distinctive sound.
It’s got a certain sound a 07, I think it’s the only keyboard that has that sound on that soundcard, and you can’t really find it on any other keyboard apart from the Casio SA-21. And because of that we couldn’t use another keyboard, so, just stuck with it.
With the complex set up how much is all preset and how much does he improvise?
I’d say most of it is preset. At the end of the set, the old crescendo kind of thing when you just do whatever, most of it’s improvised apart from whatever I’ve done on an album. I may mix it up occasionally but I tend to stick to what I’ve recorded most of the time. Maybe add a few bits in, and if I’m a bit drunker, go a bit crazier.
Johnny Foreigner also have a few samples on an SP-404
It’s because when we did the vs Everything album, there was a lot of stuff that we couldn’t do live, so anything now we definitely need, I just make sure I have the sample ready. I don’t use it very often, just for the occasional sound that’s not on the keyboard or a loop of strings that’s in a nicer song.
Junior puts sounds together for recordings or samples using software such as Fruity Loops which he says is amazing for drum beats and easy to use. Other software in his arsenal includes Cool Edit, (the latest version is now Adobe Audition), and Logic.
Image-Line FL Studio 10 For drum beats it’s amazing Read More
He has an interesting mix of early musical inspirations.
I first started off liking, believe it or not, Status Quo, the first alternative kind of thing that I got into, before that it was Motown stuff. I guess for the drumming and the keyboards it would be someone like Nate Kinsella (Make Believe) I know we’ve all mentioned that but they really are huge, my heroes. Dave Grohl, when I was a kid, as a drummer. Fast rolls and all that.
Korg Kaossilator You can set up the scales and the arpeggios Read More
Casio SA-21 It’s got a certain sound Read More
Roland SP-404 A versatile portable sampler with effects. Read More
Lewes has been working with Johnny Foreigner for a while, including on visuals, but only recently started playing guitar in the band.
I think since I’ve joined the band my role has been to form a gap, a bridge between Kelly and Alexei’s sound. And so I’ve got a really really bassy guitar sound, really chunky. Me and Lex are always playing completely different things, that’s one of the rules, and we split the chords between us. I still feel like I’m getting used to it, still finding my sound and what works.
There’s a whole lot of sonic discovery going on.
We swap, we really swap. Lex doesn’t use a pick, his style is very orientated around his fingers and tapping, that was something that I’d never experienced before. I’d always played with regular tuning and a pick, and so I’ve had to utilise that.
I’m starting to really enjoy experimenting with twinkly sounds and messing around with mathy tapping, because it’s a novelty to me at the moment. And then there’s a lot of beefy Weezer-style bar chords that are in there as well. And it’s the two extremes really, that I’ll swap between, lots of chunky riffs and then really delicate playing, but Lex does the same, I think. We balance each other out.
The swapping includes instruments too, and inheriting some new ones.
One guitar I inherited from Lex when he bought it from a second hand guitar shop in Wilmington in North Carolina. One of his guitars had broken and we were in a bit of a situation and he needed an emergency guitar. I think if he’d have bought the same one over here, which is the Squier Tele, it would have cost him over £200 and I think he got if for about £160. It was a really good bargain. But then he got his favourite guitar fixed and so I inherited that as well. But I swap between that and the Fender Deluxe too.
To be honest I’d never played Telecasters before, I was always a Stratocaster person so that’s what I was used to. Lex is passionate about Telecasters, but the only real thing that I’ve noticed about them is how easy it is to slide up the neck and utilize the neck, it just feels a lot smoother. I don’t know if that sounds strange. But it’s a lot easier to move around on the neck. I used to use Gibson Les Pauls and things like that, but they really don’t fit the sound, that bridge that I was on about. I think because we’ve all got Fender stuff it works together.
Lewes has several distortion pedals that he uses.
I inherited Lexi’s old distortion pedals, I got a DS-1 and a DS-2. That’s my full distortion, I have a mid distortion and a kind of clean, and so for the really heavy bits I’ll have everything on, for the middle bits I’ll just have the DS-1 on and that’s it.
Lewes also has a Belcat Effector Delay pedal.
I found it in a Cash Generator. It was £18 I think, really really cheap. I used to be in a progressive rock band and so a lot of my pedals were delay and reverb based so that I could mess around with the oscillation, all of that, but that’s the only piece of my property that I’ve bought from my whole music life to this band. And I’m allowed to use it sparingly!
It’s the prog in me I think! We use feedback a lot it’s like a sound, a fill, space in the sound. And it just adds that extra level on to it, if I mess around with the oscillator I’ve got an extra feedback. It just sounds like three guitars instead of two.
Lewes uses a few different amps including a Laney VC 30 and a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.
The Laney has a really warm sound, it’s easy to be able to distinguish, you can really distinguish the high parts.
On this tour he is using the Fender, and he says the sound is “enormous”.
Steve Gerrard
His guitar inspirations are an interesting mix.
Omar Rodríguez-López from At The Drive In was one of my biggest inspirations because he played so much stuff that I couldn’t imitate. And so much time was spent with me trying to figure out how to play things like him. This is going to sound corny - Lex is probably one of my favourite guitarists. So when I saw Jo Fo play as a three piece I had never seen anyone play guitar like he was playing. I’ve never seen anyone play guitar like him, he’s got his own style. And his tuning as well. I’d always just stuck to a standard tuning and Lex opened my eyes to how you can change the tuning on your guitar and stick with it and just a whole other gamut of chords and riffs have opened up to me.
If you see Johnny Foreigner live you can’t miss Ben Rausch from Cool Your Jets rocking out on his keytar. Yet he is not playing music, but pictures, in a pretty groundbreaking setup. The South African-based artist and DJ joins the band on tour whenever he can.
I do live visuals, using a Roland AX-7 Keytar as my current controller and I bring that through a wireless MIDI transmitter back into a MacBook and use some software called Resolume.
I’ve not heard of anyone else doing it. I’m sure there must be some kindred spirits out there but I’ve yet to find them, people who are really trying to push the human elements of it. I think VJing in general is ultra-techy, and I’d like to try to eliminate that as much as possible, make it a human thing as much as I can.
I’ve not really heard of anyone else using a Keytar. We’ve got a friend in Chicago who carries a torch and is now using a guitar as a controller as well, which is really cool. But we’ll see over time if more people get into the idea of doing visual performance as a real performance thing rather than being at the back of the room watching everyone else.
I’ve been at this now for seven years or so but I had the idea even before that, it was 2005 that I first pieced together the idea of using key mapping software and the Keytar together but really struggled to get the Keytar. But it’s really mostly with this band that I find my truest path with it. I’ve played with a couple of bands back home and I’ve tried with each one to have a different set of rules, a framework to work with them so each band will have a distinct kind of style.
Guitarist Lewes makes a lot of the artwork for the band, and he and Ben work together on images.
With Jo Fo It just came together very naturally to pick up with what Lewes was doing with the art already and integrate that with the art stuff that I do, which is also really scribbly, really hand-drawn type stuff.
We’ve got a broad spread of stuff that goes into visuals but let’s just say, if it’s a picture that Lewis has sent me, he’ll draw the picture, so he’ll scan it in, send it over to me, then I’ll sit and animate that into different little clips that I think either work together well or contrast with each other. Depending on where they’ll be going, or a style or whatever.
The pace of the visuals is frenetic and Ben is playing just as quickly as any of the guitarists.
I want the performance itself to be as stripped down as possible so no multi-layering stuff, no loops or anything. Everything is live, in that moment and it’s only like an image but I try to throw as many as I can at people in a second.
Roland AX-7 I do live visuals using a Roland AX-7 keytar Read More
There’s a lot of collaboration, but Ben also has huge creative freedom.
Sometimes we’ll have an idea for some piece of a set, like on the last tour we had this sort of a capella intro thing that was really quiet and gentle so Lex said can we animate telling people to basically shut up?
We’re always bouncing ideas around but when it comes down to it no one’s ever like, Oh Ben don’t put that kitten chewing a laser beam in there because that doesn’t work or anything, so it’s quite liberating.
The wireless transmitter that Ben uses to make the setup work is an M-Audio MidAir Wireless MIDI system.
M-Audio MidAir Wireless MIDI Bringing keytar back into a MacBook Read More
My day job is in doing stuff for TV ads, and commercial motion graphic stuff. It’s really really cool to be able to do something where there are no rules, no restrictions. That’s really fun.