I recently had the chance to video chat with Rob Withem, of indie pop outfit Fine China. The band has been active since the late 90s, and recently released the beautiful, sophisticated, elaborate I Felt Called (available on Double LP and CD, as well as digital formats via www.velvetbluemusic.com.
IVM: Let’s start on a light note. Cloud has informed me that you’re an aficionado of dad jokes . . .
RW: You know, that’s funny. I think he’s making that up to be funny, because I don’t think I’ve ever told a dad joke in my like. I am a dad, so I should probably be up on the dad jokes, but I don’t think I even know one.
IVM: Okay, I was just gonna ask if you have a favorite.
RW: I wish I did. I don’t even know one.
IVM: My kids are a little bit older. My son is almost 21 and he actually sends me dad jokes by text, so we often go back and forth on stuff like that.
RW: Yeah, my oldest son is 22 and he’s also sending me funny stuff.
IVM: So, let’s talk music. I gotta say, the more recent material is absolutely fantastic! I’m a huge fan, and I’ve been listening casually since the early 2000s. I think “We Rock Harder” was probably my first exposure to the band. That’s been over 25 years ago. How does it feel to be able to still do music?
RW: Yeah, I don’t know . . . I’m just the kind of guy who keeps plodding along and never really stops doing what I’m doing. I don’t know if this is for good or ill, but I don’t ever see a reason to call it something different. I’ve had different periods where I haven’t done much music. But I just keep doing it and it’s just part of what I do, man. I’m just a plodder.
IVM: Let’s talk about that. There was a little bit of a gap, as far as the listeners know–I mean, you might have been active–but gosh, there was about 10 or 12 years where we didn’t really know what was happening with Fine China. Is that fair to say?
RW: Sure. I think it was our third full-length, which was called The Jaws of Life which was 2005, I think. We did that and that was the end of the first iteration of the band where we were really pursuing it, we were trying to tour and play a lot of shows. We were really trying to make it happen. I think at that point, for various reasons it became clear that it was time to move on a little bit. We couldn’t do the same level of playing. Everybody was getting older and having families. It was just a natural time to put it down. I did some other things after that. I had a project with this guy. You know Ronnie Martin from Joy Electric? There was a project I did with him in 2007/08 that was called The Foxglove Hunt. We did an album and some recordings, and some touring on that. I did a few other random things in there, but not much from Fine China at all until . . . I guess it was 2015. The label that we worked with on Jaws of Life put together a vinyl re-release of Jaws of Life and we did a show. So, we got the band back together just for that show pretty much. That was 10 years ago, in 2015. That was the start of the second iteration of the band. We got together for that, and then a couple of years later we did Not Thrilled, which was our first full-length in many years. And I’ve been pretty active on and off. Every couple of years there’s been something.
IVM: I’m excited to hear the new album. I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet. I must say . . . my wife is a big music fan as well, and sometimes our tastes overlap and sometimes they don’t. You know, marriage is like that. So, she can be really hesitant with my music recommendations. We just moved to a new house and thought we’d bite the bullet and get a decent turntable. So, I put Trees at Night and again, it’s my recommendation so she’s kind of hesitant. But almost instantly she fell in love with it. She was like, “Oh my gosh! This is so good, I love this!” And she’s got a goofy sense of humor too, so she kept saying, “It’s giving me haunted-seagulls-on-the-beach vibes.” I have no idea what that means, haha! So, we’ve kinda been making fun of her for that.
So, thinking of the newer stuff, you’re still kind of in that indie pop vein of things, but early on it seemed like you were kind of trying to make pop singles, versus now it feels more relaxed, almost kind of ambient sounds at times . . . was that an intentional shift? Or more the results of aging and fatherhood and that kind of stuff? How do you think that developed?
RW: Yeah, it’s probably a little bit of all that. With the second iteration of the band, post-2015, I have a studio now, at my house. So that is probably the biggest difference–being able to constantly be working on stuff and be writing at home and recording. It lends itself to the sound kind of morphing, and having more time to make music, layers, whatever. So yeah, that’s part of it. I’ve always loved short pop songs that have catchy melodies and beautiful chords. So that’s what I’ve always been part of [my music] all the way back to the beginning. But I’ve also always loved certain types of new age/ambient music, and I never really figured out a way to kind of merge those two things together. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last few years. And that hasn’t been done a whole lot, but it’s fun for me. I like trying to figure out how to do it.
IVM: I definitely think you’ve succeeded. That’s an interesting question about has that been done very well, merging those. The closest comparisons I can think of would be some of Air’s material, or maybe Boards of Canada type stuff. But even then, Fine China doesn’t sound like any of those bands. Let’s go back to Ronnie Martin, because I think there’s an interesting connection there. I started listening to Dance House Children as a teenager. It was this weird, techno-pop stuff that didn’t sound like anything else, and then Jason goes indie rock/shoegaze route and Ronnie goes further into deep synth-pop. And I’ve always kind of felt like in a weird sort of way, Fine China sits in the middle of both of those things, because there are times when you dig deep into the synth stuff, and other times when it’s more guitar-based. Have those relationships had any influence on how you write or your creative process or anything like that?
RW: Yeah, Ronnie and Jason were both there at the beginning of our band, and just through providentially meeting them and getting pulled into Velvet Blue. It was really through those two guys . . . they were both really huge. When I was 14, I was a mega-fan of Joy Electric, and Starflyer 59. I kinda learned in the early days how to write songs in large part by listening to bands like them. I’ve always tried to have Fine China not just be one thing. So like . . . I always wanted it to be kinda flexible. So even back to our earliest records we had some kinda danceable, electronic [songs], and some more band kind of music. A good example would be a band like New Order who did that. They were a big influence on us. They kind of tread that ground between dance music and indie rock.
IVM: Absolutely! One of my faves.
RW: So yeah, we’ve always tried to not just do one thing but have a little bit of variety.
IVM: That’s awesome. You talked about songwriting, and being able to have your studio at home. How has that affected your songwriting from a lyrical perspective? What have been the influences on your lyric writing?
RW: You know, I’m not really a lyric writer. I’m not the kind of songwriter that has a notebook with a bunch of poems and stuff. Maybe I tried to do that when I first started, and then I realized, oh gosh, this is not happening. This is an awful way for me to work. I have a really weird system, and it kind of just randomly works for me. This is pretty ‘brass tacks’ but if I’m writing for an album, I’m typically singing to get the melody and I’m doing demos . . . the melody is a huge part of what I start with. Sometimes I’ll have a song title or some phrases or something, but I never have lyrics. I’ll just have enough to get the melody and the phrasing, to get the composition done. And then I literally procrastinate until the night before I have to record vocals. And I’ll just ‘woodshed’ every song and I’ll sort of connect the dots and fill in the blanks and I always think it’s just awful, but it somehow makes some kind of random sense. I’m not mystical at all about songwriting. We just make songs and put them together. I’m not that kind of guy that’s like, “God gave me this song.” But yeah, the lyrics tend to be pretty sub-conscious. They are what they are, and I don’t really think about them too much. Randomly, they do sort of make some sense and have . . . they are real in the sense that things are coming out and connecting dots. I’m always sort of surprised about it myself, you know?
IVM: I think there’s a beauty in the variety of ways that people write, create . . . I mean, you’re definitely not the first person who I’ve read or heard say that the music takes priority and then I write the lyrics around it. When I was younger and trying to do bands, and even trying to be lyric-heavy, I found I could never make the song fit the lyrics, but you can always make the lyric fit the song. Just even in how you phrase stuff. Maybe if you’re Bob Dylan, you can do anything you want, because it’s different every time.
RW: If you wanted to liken it to something, it’d be sort of like impressionistic painting. Like approximating something, but I’m not trying to be Mr. Poetry Guy.
IVM: Yeah, I dig that. You mentioned how some people may have a perspective of, “God gave me this song.” Is there a faith element to how Fine China comes together?
RW: Well, yeah. I’m a Christian. I’ve been a Christian my whole life. I haven’t deconstructed. I still go to church. I still read the Bible. It’s a massive part of my life, and for my family. So yeah, in that sense, I believe our vocations should be done–whatever it is–as unto the Lord, and honor Christ with it. So, there’s always that element to it. I’m not a writer that tries to write lyrics that are praise-oriented. I think there’s a place for that. I’m not that at all. I’m just most of the time, partially talking about myself, and things that are going on, and thoughts I have that are half-baked. Many times, there are allusions and references to things, but I’m not trying to . . . I don’t really have a message as a band, it’s kind of more stream-of-consciousness.
IVM: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of variety in how that can happen. For me, the creative process itself, and the fact that we as human beings have the ability to create anything is just such a gift. If you want to have a profound message with it, great. If you don’t, and you want to make pretty melodies, then that’s great too. Even in the Bible itself, there’s a lot of variety in how those texts came together and what they say. You’ve got at least 2 books of the Bible that don’t mention God at all, and yet somehow, He allowed them to be in His book.
We talked about the Martins and the friendship there, have there been any other consistent creative heroes–musical, literary, or otherwise?
RW: Yeah, there’s bands. Bands that become part of your life. Some of the bigger ones for me would be guys like Mark Kozelek, who was with Red House Painters originally, and with Sun Kil Moon. He’s always been a huge influence on the overall songwriting, and just the vibe of everything. I’ve always been kind of obsessed with that guy’s writing. I love that guy’s stuff. With the new album, I’m trying to think about what some of the bigger . . . Some of influences on the new album have been more production-oriented . . . like what kind of soundscape are we creating? There’s a band called Blue Nile, that’s kind of an obscure late 80s pop band that does ballads. They have a record called Hats that was super cool and that has been a big influence for me the last few years, how they orchestrated and put together tracks, and kind of the soundscapes. I obviously love The Smiths, you know? Morrissey and The Smiths. I sort of learned how to play guitar from listening to some of those records. I loved how Johnny Marr played and I kinda wanted to do that picking thing instead of just playing power chords or whatever. New Order, a lot of the early 80s electronic pop groups, like Pet Shop Boys. A lot of my songs could be a Pet Shop Boys song if you produced them differently. I listen to a lot of music. I’m all day, every day, driving around in my truck, running my construction company, just listening to everything. I love music and I like always learning and trying to absorb different stuff.
IVM: You’ve kind of answered another question that I wasn’t sure if I was gonna ask or not. Obviously, you don’t do music full-time because you’ve just hinted at construction. Talk about the contrast or overlap of doing construction during the day, you’re writing in the evenings . . . you’re a husband, a dad . . . how does that all work?
RW: Well, I don’t know. It all has to kinda hang together somehow. So yeah, I own a construction business. And I’ve done that gosh . . . I’ve been doing construction since ’03, so for many years. I’ve run my own company since 2009. So yeah, I’m a dad, I’ve got some employees. My two older sons . . . I have six kids. My two older sons are grown, and they both work for me so it’s kind of a family business thing. I love it! It’s great. It’s the kind of thing that requires a lot, so it’s not the kind of thing where I’m writing songs in my head during the day anymore. My days are pretty taxing, so typically music for me is something . . . I don’t know where the time comes from. Someone was asking me, “When did you make this album?” I don’t really know. It’s a lot of early morning. I’ll out here–my studio’s in my backyard, so I bring my coffee back. I’m just constantly chipping away. It is what it is, I don’t have large amounts of time to just be out here. It’s just along the way, I’m chipping away at it.
IVM: Is it the kind of thing when you’re working you’ve got a melody in your head, or . . . musing on it in a way, or . . . ?
RW: So, what I do is . . . like a lot of musicians use voice notes. Or voice memos, whatever they call them. My voice memos have hundreds and hundreds of little random ideas. I have guitars laying everywhere, so at night, if I’m hanging out with the kids or whatever, I’ll grab my guitar and play a little thing. If I like it, I’ll put it in voice notes, and it becomes part of everything I’m working through. My wife’s gotta go get a job so I can pursue music!
(laughter)
Yeah, but music has actually become a lot more fun for me in this phase of life, and in this phase of the band, where I’m not trying to make a living at it, or whatever. It’s just purely fun, and art, and I enjoy that part a lot more than trying to make a living on it.
IVM: Would you say . . . are you the primary force behind Fine China these days?
RW: Yeah, for sure. This record, if you see the credits, is a little bit different. The last number of albums are mostly me, because again I’m in the studio so I’m recording almost everything. I usually will bring in . . . we had a drummer for many years named Tom, who played on a lot of our early records, and up to Not Thrilled. He did not play on this latest one, and it’s just a function of . . . I’m just doing everything in here. I played bass for many years. We’ve played live, you know, we have the band, the guys would get together. We don’t play live much anymore. So, it’s largely me, and on this recent record I had a drummer that came in and did some drums. And I had my daughter Lydia play some keyboards. I had my cousin, who used to play percussion for me for many years, he came in and did some sessions. But for the most part, the band is . . . it’s me for right now.
IVM: That sparked another question . . . you mentioned about live shows. Is that kind of a thing of the past? Is it something you might be able to pull out once in a while?
RW: Yeah, we’ve done . . . I don’t know . . . in the last 5 years, we’ve done maybe 6 or 8 shows. We got connected with this band called The Ocean Blue. Are you familiar with The Ocean Blue?
IVM: Dude! Man, oh my gosh . . . in the 90s, for a few years, they were my top, top . . . !
RW: Yeah! I love them too. They were one of my favorite groups. I got connected with David Schelzel through a mutual friend. He introduced me to David. The Ocean Blue has gotten super active in the last 5-6 years. They play all the time. We kind of connected with him, and we just hit it off. We’re kind of likeminded bands. Most of the shows we’ve done in the last 5 years have been with them. We’ve done a couple little tours. Those shows are great, because they almost always sell out. It’s fun playing with those guys. The people at the show . . . they don’t really care about Fine China, but they like it because it sounds similar, you know? Those are worth it. Honestly though, the amount of work it takes when you’re not playing a lot, to get ready for shows . . . it’s just a crazy amount of work.
IVM: Yeah, and the expense of travel, and all that kind of stuff.
RW: Yeah, it’s fun. But at this stage of life, I really don’t wanna show up and not sound good. So, it’s like you gotta . . . the amount of work it takes is almost not worth it. I don’t know, we may . . . we’ve talked about with The Ocean Blue doing some shows later this year potentially, but I don’t really know if that’s gonna happen or not.
IVM: That would be awesome. I was gonna try and catch them on this most recent tour, but they weren’t playing anywhere near me unfortunately.
RW: Yeah, they’re great. Cool guys, and the shows are always fun.
IVM: I saw them in . . . gosh, it must have been in about . . . well, it was when “Beneath the Rhythm and Sound” came out. So, was that 95? 96? Somewhere in there.
RW: No, I don’t think it was that late. I think that was probably like 92 or 93. Early 90s.
IVM: That’s the only time I’ve seen them.
RW: Yeah, they sound awesome. They’re cool dudes. And yeah, most of the shows we’ve done more recently have been with them. Nothing on the horizon, but you never know.
IVM: Was there anything else you wanted to get off your chest, or anything you’re dying to tell our readers? Buy the new record obviously.
RW: Yeah, you haven’t listened to it yet, so you might have more questions after you listen to it.
IVM: I know, I know! I should’ve done my homework!
RW: Yeah, it’s long. Give yourself a little time. It’s probably too long.
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(As this point, we take a break. I [Loyd] have obviously made a rookie error. I didn’t listen to the new album before setting up the interview. Granted, I had only downloaded a week or two before getting the interview scheduled. Nonetheless, this was just about the silliest thing an interviewer could do. Fast forward a couple of weeks. I’ve now had a chance to listen to the record (double-LP, actually!) several times before sitting down to chat with Rob again, who graciously avoiding ridiculing me, even though that would have been deserved!)
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IVM: So obviously now I’ve listened to the record. I don’t know if I told you, I’ve got a little DIY record store. I have copies of your album, but I hadn’t opened one yet, because you eat into your sales. But this was worth it. All that to say . . . after we talked about all the ambient soundscapes on the recent EPs, I felt like I Felt Called was a return to the pop format. First of all, would you say that’s accurate, and second, would you say that was intentional?
RW: Yeah. I mean, it has no instrumentals, and they’re all kind of ‘real songs.’ I guess I felt like it was time to do something with a little more standard songwriting structures, but then . . . I think we talked a little last time about trying to bring in some of the ambience from the instrumental into it a little bit here and there. It’s a little bit of a progression but still following the pop song format that I’m kind of accustomed to.
IVM: In some ways, it kind of made sense, the stuff you were saying last time about how you tried to make Fine China to be this entity that could be more than one thing. It seemed like the early days, or at least my recollection of it, was that it was more indie pop songs, and then you kind of went down this experimental route with the really synth-heavy instrumental tracks (which I really loved, by the way) . . . Now it’s like they’re both there, but the ambient stuff is like a layer beneath the pop song, if that makes sense?
RW: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s a good way to put it. It’s just kinda how, I don’t know . . . it’s like this for a lot of recording artists. Like, every time you do an album, you take pieces from that, and you drag them forward to the next thing, and it kinda just . . . things kind of morph along, but you’re just dragging pieces of what you did previously along with you.
IVM: I’m always impressed by bands who can evolve their sound but still hold my attention. I think there’s two extremes you can go in. You know, there’s the band that never changes. You get bored with them after 3 or 4 albums. AC/DC is a case in point. Completely different realm here, of course. And there’s artists that change too much. There’s your classic Radiohead, where there’s always been an evolution, but from one album to the next, you could kind of see where they were going with it.
RW: Yeah, that’s always sort of what I’ve tried to do, for good or ill. I like bands, like . . . The Jesus and Mary Chain, something from the late 80s and early 90s, everything was kind of the same . . . the center of it was the same, but the overall context changed. You always knew immediately who they were. So, I’ve always loved bands who did that.
IVM: I don’t know if I told you, but I took my 15-year-old daughter to see them for the first time. It was my first time seeing them as well, back in October. They were touring with Psychedelic Furs, which was a great show all the way around.
RW: I’ve seen Psych Furs a bunch of times. Richard Butler is just incredible. I’ve never seen Jesus and Mary Chain live though.
IVM: You used to do Psychedelic Furs covers, right? You did “Pretty in Pink” and . . .
RW: I think we did two . . . uh, no . . . Fine China did one years ago. I don’t even know if it ever came out. Velvet Blue put out a bunch of random Psych Furs covers, but yeah, that was a long time ago. And I did one with Ronnie for the Foxglove Hunt. We did “Love My Way.”
IVM: Okay, nice!
RW: I love the Psych Furs. They’re a big one for me.
IVM: I was really impressed with . . . I was a bigger fan of Jesus and Mary Chain going in. You know, I connected with their music more. The Psychedelic Furs I’ve always liked, but they were around when I was a little kid, you know what I mean? But actually, their live show was incredible! For what it’s worth, they had a better stage presence than Jesus and Mary Chain did.
RW: Well, Butler’s, he’s world class. He’s just cool, man.
IVM: Let’s get back to Fine China and the new record. One of the things I’m really impressed with, and if I can just over the top with this, and be stupid about it . . . I’m actually quite amazed by the production on the record.
RW: Oh, cool!
IVM: Particularly considering . . . you did all that yourself, right?
RW: Yeah, I did it right in this room.
IVM: I’m not a technical guy at all. I wanna know why people write songs, and what it means to them, but like . . . the production on this album is so, so good, and clean and . . . I could see hearing those songs on satellite radio. Like, they should be played on Sirius XM. You know what I mean? Talk me through your process. As somebody who doesn’t really get the technical side of production, how are you able to make those sounds so clean and crisp in that room that I’m staring at right now?
RW: Yeah, you can just do a ton in home studios right now, with not that much gear. I don’t even have a lot of stuff, but it’s kind of amazing what you can do recording onto a computer. So, I just try to get . . . I do it in two parts. I record everything, except for the vocals here. I’ve done that on the last number of albums, I think all the way back to like “Not Thrilled.” Everything gets recorded here, except for the drums. The drums weren’t recorded here. We did those out in California, with Jason Martin’s son. He played the drums out there.
IVM: Did Charlie [Martin] do all the drums on the album?
RW: Uh-huh. He did.
IMV: Okay, wow.
RW: So, I record everything here, and I just keep it pretty simple, keep it super clean. I have a few key pieces of gear that help with that. And then, the drums are a huge part of it. So, I wanted to do those over there, because Jason [Martin] has a really nice room, and it’s a really nice set up, like these nice mics for doing set up. I’ve done drums here in this studio before on a number of recordings, but it just made sense to do it there. The second part of it is just where we mix is an extremely nice studio. I work with Bob Hoag. I’ve been working with him for over 20 years. He’s done most of my mixes. That’s makes the difference. If I wasn’t . . . if I was mixing here at home, it would still sound pretty good, but nowhere near as pro as it does when you mix there. So, we take all the digital files, you know, every song has 30, 40, 50, or 60 tracks, and you just dump into his system has a big . . . kind of an old school studio that integrates with modern computer, digital recordings. He has an old 70s desk that’s been used for a ton of cool records over many, many years. Like tape machines, and lots of great gear, and then obviously he has a ProTools set up, which is what you use on a computer to record. Bob is just really, really good at what he does. He could take anything and make it sound great. So, I just try to get into him with as good of tracks as I can. You know, the sounds are all there, it’s just making it sound all polished. That’s really hard to do at home, so I’ve always tried to go the extra mile and get everything done. It takes a lot of extra time, and it costs extra money to do it that way, but the end result is so much better. I always record vocals with Bob too. I’ve just found over the years recording, doing vocals by yourself is not the best move. It just helps having somebody guiding you through that. Having really nice mics and a good room to record vocals is really important, so I often do those over there too.
IVM: So, were you involved in the mixing process, hands-on?
RW: Oh yeah! I’m super involved. I’m there with him every day for . . . I mean, this thing took a long time. This thing took almost a month to mix. Which is stupid, because it’s all for a record that only like 200 people are gonna hear.
(laughter)
But he’s a good friend of mine and he’s super perfectionistic, and it doesn’t matter who it is. He’ll spend the time. I mean, we spent a lot of hours in there mixing this thing.
IVM: Where is he based?
RW: He’s in Mesa, which is a town near Phoenix. So, he’s like maybe a 25-minute drive from my house.
IVM: No, I was just thinking if you were having to go to California, where Jason is, and spend a month, that’s a long time!
RW: No, it works out, you know? I can drive over there and get started in the morning. If I have to bounce, and check on one of my projects, I can do that and then head back over. It’s pretty flexible in that sense.
IVM: Cool!
RW: Yeah, that’s the system I’ve got, and it works pretty well. Every time you do a record, on your own, in your own studio, and you’re learning stuff, figuring out what not to do . . . I’m trying to make stuff sound as good as I can.
IVM: So I’m just listening to what you’re saying about recording drums off site, and you’re doing vocals . . . so when you come into that stage, I assume you’ve already got the structure of the song written out . . . have you used some kind of drum tracks to keep tempo, or . . . ?
RW: So yeah, I already have like a drum sampler that I use when I’m songwriting. So, the drums are actually already kind of recorded, but they’re ‘fake.’ I probably could have used them–because they sound really real and nice. A lot of the drum parts are actually already written out and established. Charlie changed some things and added some cool little things here and there. The main beats and the important kind of structural parts of the drums are done, because that’s part of the songwriting process for me. Then Charlie came in and we replaced all of the stuff I had with the real drums. You just can’t really fake real drums. There’s just a big difference that you can hear with real to fake.
IVM: One more question about production. You’re in an interesting category in that you’re the artist and the producer. Are you a perfectionist, and you’re doing 99 or 100 takes of a song?
RW: Actually, not at all! I don’t really have the patience for that. I’m kind of impatient. I like to get stuff down. I’m very concerned about how it all sounds. I’m kind of intense about that, but I don’t really nitpick a lot of the stuff. Even on this particular album, I tried to not . . . there’s a lot of guitars on every track, but a lot of those are the first take. I tried to keep as much of the early takes as I could, because I’ve learned it’s just kind of pointless to try to . . . there’s just cool stuff that you get earlier in the process that is a lot cooler than if you’ve played it 20 times.
IVM: Yeah, absolutely!
RW: So, I’m not a perfectionist in the sense that I don’t drill down into the minutest note every time, but I definitely put a lot of time into it.
IVM: I mean, there’s a reason why we have terms like “over-produced” and whatever else. You can produce the life out of something.
RW: Yeah, it’s easy to do.
IVM: It’s interesting because you have that juxtaposition of having an outside producer–for some artists it’s good because it might push them to ‘do better’ but at the same time, for some artists it could push them too far, and they become something they weren’t.
RW: Yeah, that was kind of Fine China in the early days. We always had producers that were guys that were kind of our heroes . . . that wanted to work with us. And we loved that, but the downside of that is sometimes it can . . . it has a good side, but the downside is sometimes you end up not just being on your own and being able to figure out what you wanna sound like. You know?
IVM: Yeah.
RW: So, once I started having my own studio, and being able to work on stuff, I feel like some of that got better. Even though sometimes, it is worse for not having people speak into it, but there’s part of it that can be better and more cohesive too because it’s very focused.
IVM: Is it fair to say you enjoy this process you’re using now?
RW: I like it, yeah . . . this album took a ton of time, and over a couple of years. I probably won’t do one this way again. If I do something else, I’d probably like to have somebody else involved. I mean, this thing was pretty much just me for the most part. Definitely . . . I like working with other people. I think if I do another one of these, I won’t do it the same way, just to do something different.
IVM: You talk about doing most of it yourself. We get a sense of that just from the liner notes . . . I mean, there’s not a lot of names on the album jacket.
RW: Yeah. I wrote all the parts. For good or ill, it is what it is.
IVM: You said something a moment ago about having 40 or 50 tracks on a song. That’s quite a lot. This is not the lo-fi end of indie rock, haha.
RW: No, it’s too much, in a way. The last few albums got me to this point of like, just doing very elaborate . . . pop music . . . with guitars. Which I love. Like, that’s the music I love. You know, Tears for Fears would be a good example.
IVM: Yeah, great band!
RW: Very majestic, epic kind of pop music, that has a lot of orchestration and things. So, this one is probably as close as I can get to doing that. And it requires a lot of tracks. So, the songs have a tremendous . . . you know, too many things going on! If I do another one, I’ll probably try to go in the opposite direction and do something really minimal.
IVM: Well, I’m not blowing smoke. That’s not really my style at all . . . it is a really good record, and I think you should be really proud of it.
RW: Thank you.
IVM: I think I’m always amazed, particularly by the British bands like Tears for Fears, even The Cure at times . . . bands that are clearly functioning in an alternative realm–in that they’re doing their own thing–and yet, they’re not afraid to be and write big pop hooks and not even be afraid to be influenced by more mainstream pop music. I remember reading an interview with Robert Smith one time, and somebody was asking him like, ‘What five records are you listening to?’ and he starts going on about how great En Vogue was. An American alternative band couldn’t get away with saying that. But you know, because they’re British, they can do that.
RW: That’s interesting. Yeah, I think with this kind of music, listening to a lot of different music is important. Because you’re bringing in a lot of different strands of things into what you’re doing.
IVM: Well, thanks for your time. I appreciate you making time to talk with us.
Check out Fine China’s new release I Felt Called at http://www.velvetbluemusic.com, or streaming and downloading at https://finechina.bandcamp.com/album/i-felt-called