He continues: “I’m not a trained person, so I still struggle with rhythm and playing in time, but this time I found that I locked in. I don’t know if it’s because there isn’t a piece of material between your fingers and the string.”įingerstyle playing has been a revelation to Mendel, it appears. One thing I realized, after all these years, is that the note is so much fatter with fingerstyle. ![]() You go through phases, you play around with stuff and you become fascinated with an idea in a certain phase. “Haha! Right? Almost like a traditional bass player. This sounds almost like maturity, I tell him. I also used a lot of flatwound strings, oddly, and I was playing with my fingers, which is not my style.” “He’s really fond of working in Logic, so not everything was coming out of a stompbox or an amp – he’s willing to use a plugin to get a bass tone that’s really broken up and crazy-sounding. I kept waiting to spend an hour and a half on getting a snare drum sound or a bass tone – but no, he was like ‘Let’s throw it on and go!’ “He’s willing to experiment and he works really fast, which was really shocking to me because I expected him to be very methodical. ![]() If I don’t hear enough of that, I’m like ‘Dammit!‘ I like to throw as many things in there that are musically incorrect as possible, so they stand out. You’d think he’d be really conservative when it comes to getting bass sounds, but he’s not at all. “That’s the producer Greg Kurstin,” he explains, “and that really surprised me about working with him. Mendel may regard the lines on the new record as conservative, but the same can’t be said about the tones, many of which are gritty and overdriven. You asked me to play on it, this is what you’re gonna get!’ It sounded good to my ears, but I totally get how you’d find it jarring and repulsive.” I sent it to him and said ‘All right, man. I loved it, because it was really jazzy and out there. ![]() “A friend of mine just sent me a track and said ‘Put the bass on this’ and it was wide open, with no structure to it whatsoever, so I basically did a couple of improvised passes on it. If I don’t hear enough of that, I’m like ‘Dammit!’ He adds: “I like to throw as many things in there that are musically incorrect as possible, so they stand out and hopefully have a bit of a signature to them. I think it would have been maybe a little more interesting if I’d stepped out a bit more on this record.” “Listening back to it after taking a break, I was really conservative, and I could hear that, and I’d rather have been asked to pull back by Dave or our producer, rather than self-editing. “I’m usually pretty mellow about that, but with this record, I would redo a lot of it,” he says, although he’s not being entirely serious, it seems. Given the extended delay between recording and release, has Mendel listened to the album and wished he’d recorded anything differently? “Thank goodness the album lyrics aren’t pulled right out of the headlines, so we have the ability to push it back six or eight months,” he notes. The coronavirus had other plans, though, hence the delayed release and the absence of any tour dates until late this year, or even 2022. The new album was recorded before the current pandemic and originally timed to tie in with the Foos’ 25th anniversary in 2020. The super-low notes would be out of place in this music. “Look, I’m not judgmental about it – those things can be great – but in my style of music, it wouldn’t go over too well. Plus, he detailed why his goal is to get to a place where “gear doesn’t matter.” And then longtime bassist Nate Newton joined the fun by showing off his “Riffblaster” setup and how a special P bass helps him honor a dear friend.“In the environment I grew up in, five-string bass guitar is a bit illegal!” he says. ![]() Ballou has even developed a gear brand (God City Instruments) that includes guitars, pedals, and pickups all in the pursuit of turning ideas into art.ĭuring our conversation before Converge’s sold-out performance at Nashville’s Basement East on May 22nd, Ballou dove into his Line 6 Helix spice rack and shared how 30 plus years as a guitarist and in-demand producer have informed his guitar-design philosophy. His sonic temple God City Studio is the destination for artists looking to make their rawest, heaviest, brutalist work. He’s been on the leading edge of aggressive guitar sounds since 1990 and Converge’s fourth album, 2001’s Jane Doe, is still seen as a game-changing release with its ferocious performance and masterful production.
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