Greg Massi (Baliset, motW, Kayo Dot) - March 2009 - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Greg Massi (Baliset, maudlin of the Well, Kayo Dot)

Greg Massi has been known in progressive/avant-garde circles for his work as a guitarist in maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot for many years, but in recent days his musical pursuits have focused on his solo project, Baliset. Baliset brings forth a diverse musical palette distinct from his previous projects, boasting such influences as Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Genesis, and video game music, while still retaining some of the atmospheric influence of Kayo Dot and maudlin of the Well. The result is a truly unique sonic experience in the realm of progressive metal.

Greg discussed with me his experiences with his previous bands as well as the new maudlin of the Well record, which is scheduled to be released for free online sometime in the next two weeks. He also discusses the music on his new album, A Time for Rust, and creates an interesting narrative detailing the ten-year on-and-off process that went into the songwriting and production for this album.

Interview:

In Prog circles, you are most known for your work as a guitarist in maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot. Were you in any bands prior to this? Tell us about your musical background, beyond the stuff we know about already!

I first picked up the guitar back in 1992 and started with a local teacher in Southington, CT. While in high school I became friends with Toby and Byron. Toby and I briefly had a band in high school with a couple of friends of ours called Celestial Providence, but we maybe had a handful of jam sessions but nothing really came of it. At the same time, Toby, Byron, and I were each recording solo projects in our spare time (Spoonion, Buttkey, and Baliset respectively) and making tapes to play for each other, and it just got to the point where Toby recorded a song and decided to have Byron write the words. Then he asked me to contribute a solo, and there you have the genesis of the maudlin of the Well.

Around that same time I went off to school to study music at a very conservatory-minded music program where I continued to study privately as well as unsuccessfully exploring classical and jazz guitar. However, during this period is when I really started to develop my love of harmony, not just limited to the harmony guitar parts of my favorite bands, but also the idea of chord theory and learning different jazz voicings. This really helped inspire me to use different colors within the music I was writing, which was pretty bland at that point.

Then after graduation I moved to to Boston with the rest of the motW guys and I believe you know the rest.

As I understand it, whereas Kayo Dot could almost be regarded as a Toby Driver solo project creatively, maudlin of the Well featured a more democratic creative process, with most of the lyrics being written by Jason Byron and the songwriting process being a bit more shared. Could you elaborate on your contributions to the band beyond your role as a guitarist?

Each project had the same creative process from my perspective. Toby would come in with a mostly completed song idea. He would have the basic skeleton and structure of the song ready and a good number of the parts written, and then we would listen to it as a group and decide what parts we felt needed to be added. Then we would map out the songs and assign parts to certain people. For example, in "Birth Pains of Astral Projection," there was this idea that we should do some sort of keyboard/guitar solo thing in the middle before Byron's first vocals, and so Terran wrote a pipe organ part. After he played it for me, I wrote the guitar solo around it, and that was the way we tended to work.

In Kayo Dot the core process was the same. Toby had the songs written, we sat around and mapped out our ideas, and Byron wrote the lyrics for the first two albums.

With the Dowsing lineup, it was a bit more collaborative as we had a full band who could rehearse the songs ahead of time all together, and when we got to the studio, we were able to record a lot of the basic tracks (guitar, bass, drums) live. Since I pretty much had exclusively contributed only solos or other such guitar textures on the previous albums, I felt very accomplished about that album. It was like Kirk Hammett finally getting play rhythm guitar on a Metallica CD when "Load" came out.

With Kayo Dot, you ultimately made the decision to leave after the release of 2006's Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue. Could you tell us a bit about your experience with the band and your decision to part ways?

Kayo Dot represented a huge shift in our lives and how we approached our music careers and also provided us with so many opportunities in terms of musicians and friends we met along the way, and it helped us connect to a larger network of people around the country and the world. With motW we were an "outsider" metal band, and as such there were roadblocks at every turn because we felt very pigeonholed being on a goth/metal label, and with such a narrow audience to market to, it felt difficult. However, with Kayo Dot we really were able to deconstruct ourselves and distance ourselves from our past, and this led to us having the freedom to play more shows with much more diverse bands. It gave us more avenues to pursue in terms of building an audience and marketing, and as a result we were able to move forward musically and professionally.

This helped us achieve the thing I had always dreamed about: touring. It gave me a whole new set of experiences to draw on, along with the chance to meet all kinds of people, and it allowed me to see the US in a way that many people don't normally get to see.

As for leaving the band, that was a hard decision to come to. To be honest, I had been thinking about leaving since before Dowsing was recorded. Ultimately, it was the 2006 tour that cemented my decision to leave. Although I felt good about the Dowsing album as a performer, I felt very creatively stifled because when it came time to write parts. I didn't feel super psyched on a lot of the parts I had come up with, and I think the band felt the same. I started to get the feeling that maybe my style and voice weren't adding to the group anymore. Then while we were on tour, I felt that disconnect again -- that loss of excitement about what I was playing. I just wasn't fitting in enough -- to the point where I decided if I am not adding anything to Kayo Dot, then I probably should leave and not hinder them.

It's not really my place to discuss what happened with the other guys and why they chose to leave, but I had made the commitment to finish out the tour and I wanted to honor that. So right before we did the Full Force festival in New York in December 2006, I told Toby that it was time for me to leave, and after the gig I was musically out on my own for the first time in ten years.

I guess you could say it was "creative differences," which I always thought was a joke excuse to cover up for bands getting in fist fights or something. But the music wasn't drawing me in anymore, and when you are in a project that is so focused on the direction of the main composer, you really need to respect that composer's need to push forward, and if it isn't your thing, it's best to get out of the way and let them do what they need to do and I didn't want to negatively affect what I believed was important music being made. It was then that I felt the time had come to opt out and let them flourish without the danger of me holding them back at all.

In Kayo Dot's case, I think it was for the best. I think for creativity's sake it really gave Toby the opportunity to take a lot more control over his own music. The end result is Blue Lambency Downward, which I really loved. After hearing it, I definitely felt that based on where I was creatively, I doubt I could have added anything to that record, and as such it reinforced my decision and gave me a bit of closure on the whole KD experience.

Did you ever indulge in astral projection/lucid dreaming as a songwriting aid, or was that just Toby?

Actually, no I haven't. I think that was definitely more of Toby's thing. I have had lucid dreams before and I feel like I used my experiences to inform some of my songwriting, but I didn't purposefully engage in that type of stuff as a means to an end for songs.

Let's talk about the new maudlin of the Well record. It's a miracle this thing was able to be completely fan-funded. Do you guys ever plan to release this material as a CD?

It was definitely a shock and pleasant surprise that people believed enough in what motW stood for to support this idea. As far as I know there are no plans to release it as a CD. It was fan-funded and as such we are letting them have it for free, and printing up CDs would just throw unnecessary financial issues into the mix.

However, I am not sure what plans are being made for artwork, so I think it would be cool if fans made their own album covers for it for when they burn the tracks onto a CD. I think it would really be cool to involve the fans in that aspect even more. Plus, when I am listening to it on my iPod, I would really like it to have some artwork as well so they should make covers and send the artwork to me. =)

I haven't heard anything from the new album yet, but as I understand it, it's primarily comprised of re-arrangements of released material and older, unreleased material. Did the band produce any new material for this record?

Its a little bit of everything I guess. There are some old ideas and there are some new ideas too. I think in re-visiting some of his old ideas, Toby just got in the mindset of writing that way and as a result was able to create some new music that had the old motW vibe. I am really excited for you all to hear it. I think it is some of Toby's best songwriting yet.

How was reuniting with your old band mates? Did it require much rehearsal, or did you guys remember most of the old material?

Well it required no rehearsal for me since all I did was come in for two days to lay down some solos. But true to the Bath/Leaving Your Body Map sessions, I came in with probably 50% of my solos written out and 50% more loose so I could improv and see what came out. The days I was there it was with Toby, Josh and Sam, and those guys are always fun for me to hang around with. It felt like a relaxed atmosphere for the most part since we weren't as "on the clock" as we had been during the Bath/LYBM sessions. Much joking and laughing ensued. Unfortunately Terran was away on another gig, so I didn't get to hang out with him. Despite everything we went through in the ten years I was involved with the two bands or even the 17 years I have known Toby, those guys are still like family to me and the years just melted away hanging out and making music with them.

I was a little bummed that Nick Kyte and Byron weren't able to be involved in recording the album because I miss those guys terribly and would have loved to hang out with them too.

Mia Matsumiya (Kayo Dot's violinist) contributed to the recording of this album. Can we expect to hear more interlude-type songs, or is violin being incorporated into heavier material as well?

Well again its a mixture of both. I felt that some of the violin parts will remind people of the interludes, but the strings are also brought into the main context of some of the songs. I think they sound awesome! People shouldn't expect heaviness on the scale of "They Aren't All Beautiful" or "A Conception Pathetic," but it will be a cool mix of all the different aspects with kind of a modern twist...if that makes any sense whatsoever!

Are we ever going to find out about the crazy connection that apparently exists between the two final maudlin of the Well albums?

If I can ever get Byron's permission I'll publish his e-mail address and you can ask him yourself. That was really his baby.

You released your debut album, A Time for Rust, on March 17, 2009. Admittedly, I was expecting my face to immediately be melted by the heaviness, but the songwriting present here is varied and diverse. What influences did you have going into the record?

Most people thought it was going to be a power metal record or some variation thereof, and I don't think that expectation was undeserved. I admittedly was in a metal bubble in terms of my listening material for many years, and I really love all the power and majesty stuff as much as the technical or more compositionally interesting stuff going on. It is a deep emotional connection I have to the music that hasn't really faded over the years, and when I started planting the seeds of this album back in 2000-2001, I think there was definitely an expectation of myself to make a more metal record since that was what was on my brain creatively. After hearing albums like "The Chemical Wedding" by Bruce Dickinson or "Dreaming Neon Black" by Nevermore, I really had it in my head that I wanted to make something heavy and powerful but with an air of sophistication to it. As the years went along, the metal ideas kept getting phased out in favor of what I felt were the stronger song ideas, which were getting less and less heavy.

Part of it was that the basic songs were worked on in my bedroom with an acoustic guitar or an unamplified electric guitar, and I think that really makes a difference because it takes away all the effects and the "clever bits" as Freddie Mercury called them, and it confronts you with the basic idea of "is this a good song or just a pile of riffs thrown together?"

In terms of influence, this album shows my roots a lot. Iron Maiden is my favorite band ever so there is their influence all over the record. The 3 guitar solos in "These Moments Are..." are actually constructed to be me conjuring Adrian Smith in the first solo, Dave Murray in the second solo, and a combination of the two (which amounts to my personal style anyway) in the third. I always loved the harmony part in "Flash of the Blade" where they have like 4 parts going at once in different directions, and since I always wanted to try that out, that came out in the form of the harmonies at the beginning and end of "A Time For Rust." Also, I wrote "Dreamflesh" around the idea of combining two ideas I always loved: having a song that has heavy verses and quiet choruses a la Metallica's "The Unforgiven" and having each verse be a different musical idea a la Dream Theater's "Pull Me Under."

Aside from musical influences, I am a nerd and a HUGE Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman fan boy, and so the influence of different stories and episodes made their way into the lyrics of the album. Specifically, "Sandman: The Dream Hunters," the episode "Objects In Space" from Firefly and the episode "Lonely Hearts" from the first season of Angel.

My friend Amanda is a painter in NYC and the influence of her painting "Machinery Listens To Love" mixed with the short story "Ernest And The Machine God" by Harlan Ellison gave me the ideas for the song of the same name.

I couldn't have been in a band with Toby and Byron for so long and not had some of their musical and lyrical stuff have an influence on me. I don't think I could write like them even if I tried, but watching their creative processes really helped me in figuring out my own path.

I don't want to give away all the individual influences on the songs because I am betting that anyone listening with a discerning ear will be able to pick them out.

The bottom line is that I went into the album without trying to have an ego of "I want to create some important piece of music that will challenge songwriting conventions and change the world!" Instead, I just went in and had fun with it. I got goofy and maybe overdid some stuff, but at 30 years old I finally feel like I have developed a songwriting voice and this album represents and documents the process of that discovery because at each step of the way in discovering myself I had these songs unfinished and staring at me begging to be completed, so they became my guinea pigs. Haha.

A Time for Rust is a record that was long in the making. Could you describe the hurdles you went through to complete the album? How long did it take you to write and produce the songs, etc.?

The two biggest hurdles were money and myself. Besides the fact that I couldn't afford to go in and record as often as I would like, I found myself getting complacent and going months at a time without working on it. The basic songs were written in full but all the textures, overdubs, lyrics, etc. were developed over time, and when personal stuff and motW/KD came up, the album got put on the back burner. Once I was able to focus my finances and my creative energy during this past year, I made a promise to myself to finish the album and here we are. I can finally put the experience behind me.

I think a big factor in pushing me to finish was that I lost my mother to cancer last year, and she always supported my music so much and was so excited to know I was recording my own songs for once. She was so proud when I gave her a copy of the "Black Light Moon" demo back in 2006. I felt sad that she would never get to see the finished product of my labors, and that really lit the fire under my behind to get cracking.

Everyone has their own songwriting process. Could you describe yours? What do you start with, and where do you go from there?

It has changed a lot, but basically I come up with a song idea, usually on an acoustic guitar, and I tend to play the ideas obsessively for a few days and then demo them. Sometimes I am able to write a full basic song structure, and sometimes I just have a small bit of it but I keep the ideas handy on my computer. When I feel that certain pieces go together I experiment and see if it is cohesive and "meant to be." Once the basic structure is in place, then the fun begins with solos, harmonies, keyboards, etc.

I haven't seen a credits list for this record yet. Who else plays on this record, and who's the female vocalist?

The drums were done by Adam Letourneau, who has been devoted to this project since we started rehearsing stuff in 1999. Even though it has been intermittent, he has always been there when I needed him, and his loyalty and enthusiasm to almost every weird and varied idea I have musically is what kind of kept me pushing the album forward and really making this work.

My friend T.L. Conrad is a bassist from the Philly area who I taught with at a guitar workshop, and I felt he would fit in perfectly. He played on most of the tracks.

I wanted to work more with John Battema, who was the keyboardist in the D.C./Virginia bands Ephemeral Sun and Rain Fell Within, but both of our schedules were busy. I at least got him to record the keys for "Black Light Moon," which are so good!

Jim Fogarty was the engineer on the record -- he played some keyboard and piano parts.

Forbes Graham, who was in KD with me, contributed some eerie trumpet effects which I used in "The Echo Box."

Last but not least, the female vocals were done by my friend Lauren Flaherty, who is a solo artist here in Boston.

A Time in Rust album art

Machinery Listens to Love is a bizarre ambient/synth-based track which stands out from the rest of the album as the only song without guitars. It reminds me a bit of late-era Swans. Do you plan to do more stuff like this?

I do plan to do more stuff like that once I learn my synths better! Machinery really was one of those happy accidents where I found the right settings and the ideas just came naturally, and since the melodic elements are based on some of the melodic themes from the song "A Time For Rust," it made sense to have it as a segue directly following that song and going into "Black Light Moon."

I actually recorded two demos of electronic ideas, using the G-Force M-Tron and Imposcar soft synths, and used samples from a public domain radio show called "The Price of Fear," which was a series of horror and suspense mini-plays hosted by Vincent Price on the BBC in the 70's. They contained some amazing dialogue. If I can finish them in time, I hope to have them available on the website or as bonus tracks for people who pre-order the CDs when they are ready.

Any idea when we can expect a release of A Time for Rust in CD form?

All I can say is soon. Its purely financial. The artwork is done, I got the quote from the manufacturer and all that jazz, but now I just need the funds to get it started.

And I want to stress to anyone reading this that if you are interested in the album but want a physical CD, please purchase the digital download. Since everyone buying the digital album is doing me a tremendous favor by contributing to the funds to press the CD, I want to reward that by promising that I will work out a way to get you the CD at a drastically reduced rate.

I am not yet sure how it will happen but seeing as how I have a record of everyone who buys the album digitally, I will most likely be setting it up so that I will e-mail them personally and sell them the CD minus the cost of the download. So if the CD goes for $12, then anyone who buys the download will get it for $4 plus shipping, etc.

This is a learning experience for me at every step of the way and I want to do right by the people who have offered suggestions, support, and enthusiasm as the project has progressed.

Self-funded music projects on this scale are typically not significant money-making enterprises. What do you do as a day job?

I work in an office doing very mundane and boring things so I can have health insurance and afford to record and print CDs. =)

I know you just released your debut album, but have you decided what's next? Touring? More Baliset material? Other collaborations?

Right now, we are working on getting a live line-up together. We have Dana Chisholm from the band Dreaded Silence on bass, and we are looking for another guitarist and a keyboardist, so if anyone is in the MA area and interested they should give us a shout.

We have a co-release party scheduled for May 7 at the night club Felt in Boston. Lauren, who sang on my record, also has a record of her own she just released called "You Don't Know Me," so we are going to celebrate together and get her up on stage to sing her parts for my songs live.

I can't imagine us touring for right now because we need to get some momentum going, and I would rather stay local and wait for the right opportunity to do more traveling.

I don't think you can spend seven years writing and recording an album without writing other stuff, and I am anxious to not repeat the 5 year long recording process. The next Baliset album is already 70% written and some of it has already been demoed by Adam and I, so I will hopefully have that out next year. Also, I have a much sparser acoustic EP in the works once I can find time to record it at home, and I hope to have that out in the next year.

I can't forget vinyl. I really believe that vinyl is the way to go with future releases, so I am hoping to have a vinyl version of "A Time For Rust" in the near future and for all my future releases. The Digipak artwork we have for the CD is AMAZING and worth printing, but I am seeing a trend where CDs, as a physical manifestation of music, are becoming more and more obsolete. I am thinking a nice half digital/half vinyl package will be the way to go so that people who want the artwork will get it in big huge packaging, and those who want just the music will be able to get that as well. I would hope it is a win-win situation for all involved.

Finally, what music have you been listening to recently? Any recommendations for our readers?

Well my taste in music usually gets made fun of, so I tend to not make recommendations for people to avoid humiliation, but lately I have found myself listening to: The Black Keys, Ehnahre, Jethro Tull "Thick As A Brick", W.A.S.P. "The Crimson Idol", 70's Genesis, the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night soundtrack, ABBA, Aphex Twin, Nation of Ulysses, Slayer, Exodus, Afroman, Wilson Pickett, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Ozzy, Metallica, Chroma Key, and my usual suspects who go by the name of Iron Maiden.

Do you have any final words?

Yes -- if you like what you have heard of Baliset please consider purchasing the digital download for $8 because it will go towards supporting independent music and help us out in spreading the word.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you, and thank you to everyone who supported my other projects over the years.

Related stuff:

Baliset home page (including album purchase link): http://www.baliset.net/
Baliset MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/baliset
Baliset - A Time For Rust promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j37ppCpE8cI&e
T. L. Conrad's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/theunionrocks
John Battema's home page: http://www.battema.net/
Forbes Graham's home page: http://www.polyrhythmatics.net/
Jim Forgarty's home page: www.zingstudio.com
Lauren Flaherty's home page: http://www.laurenflaherty.com/
Dreaded Silence home page: http://www.dreadedsilence.com/

Interview by Jimmy Matthews for ProgArchives.com

Edited by auralsun - March 22 2009 at 21:30

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auralsun Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 31 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 56	Posted: March 22 2009 at 22:07
	thanks! other people, discuss! this forum is depressingly discussionless right now :(

avestin Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 18 2005 Status: Offline Points: 12625	Posted: March 22 2009 at 21:45
	Awesome interview, great to read about his thoughts and activities. Well done
	Hanging Sounds PA Index of prog music vendors

auralsun Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 31 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 56	Posted: March 22 2009 at 18:16
	Greg Massi (Baliset, maudlin of the Well, Kayo Dot) Greg Massi has been known in progressive/avant-garde circles for his work as a guitarist in maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot for many years, but in recent days his musical pursuits have focused on his solo project, Baliset. Baliset brings forth a diverse musical palette distinct from his previous projects, boasting such influences as Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Genesis, and video game music, while still retaining some of the atmospheric influence of Kayo Dot and maudlin of the Well. The result is a truly unique sonic experience in the realm of progressive metal. Greg discussed with me his experiences with his previous bands as well as the new maudlin of the Well record, which is scheduled to be released for free online sometime in the next two weeks. He also discusses the music on his new album, A Time for Rust, and creates an interesting narrative detailing the ten-year on-and-off process that went into the songwriting and production for this album. Interview: In Prog circles, you are most known for your work as a guitarist in maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot. Were you in any bands prior to this? Tell us about your musical background, beyond the stuff we know about already! I first picked up the guitar back in 1992 and started with a local teacher in Southington, CT. While in high school I became friends with Toby and Byron. Toby and I briefly had a band in high school with a couple of friends of ours called Celestial Providence, but we maybe had a handful of jam sessions but nothing really came of it. At the same time, Toby, Byron, and I were each recording solo projects in our spare time (Spoonion, Buttkey, and Baliset respectively) and making tapes to play for each other, and it just got to the point where Toby recorded a song and decided to have Byron write the words. Then he asked me to contribute a solo, and there you have the genesis of the maudlin of the Well. Around that same time I went off to school to study music at a very conservatory-minded music program where I continued to study privately as well as unsuccessfully exploring classical and jazz guitar. However, during this period is when I really started to develop my love of harmony, not just limited to the harmony guitar parts of my favorite bands, but also the idea of chord theory and learning different jazz voicings. This really helped inspire me to use different colors within the music I was writing, which was pretty bland at that point. Then after graduation I moved to to Boston with the rest of the motW guys and I believe you know the rest. As I understand it, whereas Kayo Dot could almost be regarded as a Toby Driver solo project creatively, maudlin of the Well featured a more democratic creative process, with most of the lyrics being written by Jason Byron and the songwriting process being a bit more shared. Could you elaborate on your contributions to the band beyond your role as a guitarist? Each project had the same creative process from my perspective. Toby would come in with a mostly completed song idea. He would have the basic skeleton and structure of the song ready and a good number of the parts written, and then we would listen to it as a group and decide what parts we felt needed to be added. Then we would map out the songs and assign parts to certain people. For example, in "Birth Pains of Astral Projection," there was this idea that we should do some sort of keyboard/guitar solo thing in the middle before Byron's first vocals, and so Terran wrote a pipe organ part. After he played it for me, I wrote the guitar solo around it, and that was the way we tended to work. In Kayo Dot the core process was the same. Toby had the songs written, we sat around and mapped out our ideas, and Byron wrote the lyrics for the first two albums. With the Dowsing lineup, it was a bit more collaborative as we had a full band who could rehearse the songs ahead of time all together, and when we got to the studio, we were able to record a lot of the basic tracks (guitar, bass, drums) live. Since I pretty much had exclusively contributed only solos or other such guitar textures on the previous albums, I felt very accomplished about that album. It was like Kirk Hammett finally getting play rhythm guitar on a Metallica CD when "Load" came out. With Kayo Dot, you ultimately made the decision to leave after the release of 2006's Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue. Could you tell us a bit about your experience with the band and your decision to part ways? Kayo Dot represented a huge shift in our lives and how we approached our music careers and also provided us with so many opportunities in terms of musicians and friends we met along the way, and it helped us connect to a larger network of people around the country and the world. With motW we were an "outsider" metal band, and as such there were roadblocks at every turn because we felt very pigeonholed being on a goth/metal label, and with such a narrow audience to market to, it felt difficult. However, with Kayo Dot we really were able to deconstruct ourselves and distance ourselves from our past, and this led to us having the freedom to play more shows with much more diverse bands. It gave us more avenues to pursue in terms of building an audience and marketing, and as a result we were able to move forward musically and professionally. This helped us achieve the thing I had always dreamed about: touring. It gave me a whole new set of experiences to draw on, along with the chance to meet all kinds of people, and it allowed me to see the US in a way that many people don't normally get to see. As for leaving the band, that was a hard decision to come to. To be honest, I had been thinking about leaving since before Dowsing was recorded. Ultimately, it was the 2006 tour that cemented my decision to leave. Although I felt good about the Dowsing album as a performer, I felt very creatively stifled because when it came time to write parts. I didn't feel super psyched on a lot of the parts I had come up with, and I think the band felt the same. I started to get the feeling that maybe my style and voice weren't adding to the group anymore. Then while we were on tour, I felt that disconnect again -- that loss of excitement about what I was playing. I just wasn't fitting in enough -- to the point where I decided if I am not adding anything to Kayo Dot, then I probably should leave and not hinder them. It's not really my place to discuss what happened with the other guys and why they chose to leave, but I had made the commitment to finish out the tour and I wanted to honor that. So right before we did the Full Force festival in New York in December 2006, I told Toby that it was time for me to leave, and after the gig I was musically out on my own for the first time in ten years. I guess you could say it was "creative differences," which I always thought was a joke excuse to cover up for bands getting in fist fights or something. But the music wasn't drawing me in anymore, and when you are in a project that is so focused on the direction of the main composer, you really need to respect that composer's need to push forward, and if it isn't your thing, it's best to get out of the way and let them do what they need to do and I didn't want to negatively affect what I believed was important music being made. It was then that I felt the time had come to opt out and let them flourish without the danger of me holding them back at all. In Kayo Dot's case, I think it was for the best. I think for creativity's sake it really gave Toby the opportunity to take a lot more control over his own music. The end result is Blue Lambency Downward, which I really loved. After hearing it, I definitely felt that based on where I was creatively, I doubt I could have added anything to that record, and as such it reinforced my decision and gave me a bit of closure on the whole KD experience. Did you ever indulge in astral projection/lucid dreaming as a songwriting aid, or was that just Toby? Actually, no I haven't. I think that was definitely more of Toby's thing. I have had lucid dreams before and I feel like I used my experiences to inform some of my songwriting, but I didn't purposefully engage in that type of stuff as a means to an end for songs. Let's talk about the new maudlin of the Well record. It's a miracle this thing was able to be completely fan-funded. Do you guys ever plan to release this material as a CD? It was definitely a shock and pleasant surprise that people believed enough in what motW stood for to support this idea. As far as I know there are no plans to release it as a CD. It was fan-funded and as such we are letting them have it for free, and printing up CDs would just throw unnecessary financial issues into the mix. However, I am not sure what plans are being made for artwork, so I think it would be cool if fans made their own album covers for it for when they burn the tracks onto a CD. I think it would really be cool to involve the fans in that aspect even more. Plus, when I am listening to it on my iPod, I would really like it to have some artwork as well so they should make covers and send the artwork to me. =) I haven't heard anything from the new album yet, but as I understand it, it's primarily comprised of re-arrangements of released material and older, unreleased material. Did the band produce any new material for this record? Its a little bit of everything I guess. There are some old ideas and there are some new ideas too. I think in re-visiting some of his old ideas, Toby just got in the mindset of writing that way and as a result was able to create some new music that had the old motW vibe. I am really excited for you all to hear it. I think it is some of Toby's best songwriting yet. How was reuniting with your old band mates? Did it require much rehearsal, or did you guys remember most of the old material? Well it required no rehearsal for me since all I did was come in for two days to lay down some solos. But true to the Bath/Leaving Your Body Map sessions, I came in with probably 50% of my solos written out and 50% more loose so I could improv and see what came out. The days I was there it was with Toby, Josh and Sam, and those guys are always fun for me to hang around with. It felt like a relaxed atmosphere for the most part since we weren't as "on the clock" as we had been during the Bath/LYBM sessions. Much joking and laughing ensued. Unfortunately Terran was away on another gig, so I didn't get to hang out with him. Despite everything we went through in the ten years I was involved with the two bands or even the 17 years I have known Toby, those guys are still like family to me and the years just melted away hanging out and making music with them. I was a little bummed that Nick Kyte and Byron weren't able to be involved in recording the album because I miss those guys terribly and would have loved to hang out with them too. Mia Matsumiya (Kayo Dot's violinist) contributed to the recording of this album. Can we expect to hear more interlude-type songs, or is violin being incorporated into heavier material as well? Well again its a mixture of both. I felt that some of the violin parts will remind people of the interludes, but the strings are also brought into the main context of some of the songs. I think they sound awesome! People shouldn't expect heaviness on the scale of "They Aren't All Beautiful" or "A Conception Pathetic," but it will be a cool mix of all the different aspects with kind of a modern twist...if that makes any sense whatsoever! Are we ever going to find out about the crazy connection that apparently exists between the two final maudlin of the Well albums? If I can ever get Byron's permission I'll publish his e-mail address and you can ask him yourself. That was really his baby. You released your debut album, A Time for Rust, on March 17, 2009. Admittedly, I was expecting my face to immediately be melted by the heaviness, but the songwriting present here is varied and diverse. What influences did you have going into the record? Most people thought it was going to be a power metal record or some variation thereof, and I don't think that expectation was undeserved. I admittedly was in a metal bubble in terms of my listening material for many years, and I really love all the power and majesty stuff as much as the technical or more compositionally interesting stuff going on. It is a deep emotional connection I have to the music that hasn't really faded over the years, and when I started planting the seeds of this album back in 2000-2001, I think there was definitely an expectation of myself to make a more metal record since that was what was on my brain creatively. After hearing albums like "The Chemical Wedding" by Bruce Dickinson or "Dreaming Neon Black" by Nevermore, I really had it in my head that I wanted to make something heavy and powerful but with an air of sophistication to it. As the years went along, the metal ideas kept getting phased out in favor of what I felt were the stronger song ideas, which were getting less and less heavy. Part of it was that the basic songs were worked on in my bedroom with an acoustic guitar or an unamplified electric guitar, and I think that really makes a difference because it takes away all the effects and the "clever bits" as Freddie Mercury called them, and it confronts you with the basic idea of "is this a good song or just a pile of riffs thrown together?" In terms of influence, this album shows my roots a lot. Iron Maiden is my favorite band ever so there is their influence all over the record. The 3 guitar solos in "These Moments Are..." are actually constructed to be me conjuring Adrian Smith in the first solo, Dave Murray in the second solo, and a combination of the two (which amounts to my personal style anyway) in the third. I always loved the harmony part in "Flash of the Blade" where they have like 4 parts going at once in different directions, and since I always wanted to try that out, that came out in the form of the harmonies at the beginning and end of "A Time For Rust." Also, I wrote "Dreamflesh" around the idea of combining two ideas I always loved: having a song that has heavy verses and quiet choruses a la Metallica's "The Unforgiven" and having each verse be a different musical idea a la Dream Theater's "Pull Me Under." Aside from musical influences, I am a nerd and a HUGE Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman fan boy, and so the influence of different stories and episodes made their way into the lyrics of the album. Specifically, "Sandman: The Dream Hunters," the episode "Objects In Space" from Firefly and the episode "Lonely Hearts" from the first season of Angel. My friend Amanda is a painter in NYC and the influence of her painting "Machinery Listens To Love" mixed with the short story "Ernest And The Machine God" by Harlan Ellison gave me the ideas for the song of the same name. I couldn't have been in a band with Toby and Byron for so long and not had some of their musical and lyrical stuff have an influence on me. I don't think I could write like them even if I tried, but watching their creative processes really helped me in figuring out my own path. I don't want to give away all the individual influences on the songs because I am betting that anyone listening with a discerning ear will be able to pick them out. The bottom line is that I went into the album without trying to have an ego of "I want to create some important piece of music that will challenge songwriting conventions and change the world!" Instead, I just went in and had fun with it. I got goofy and maybe overdid some stuff, but at 30 years old I finally feel like I have developed a songwriting voice and this album represents and documents the process of that discovery because at each step of the way in discovering myself I had these songs unfinished and staring at me begging to be completed, so they became my guinea pigs. Haha. A Time for Rust is a record that was long in the making. Could you describe the hurdles you went through to complete the album? How long did it take you to write and produce the songs, etc.? The two biggest hurdles were money and myself. Besides the fact that I couldn't afford to go in and record as often as I would like, I found myself getting complacent and going months at a time without working on it. The basic songs were written in full but all the textures, overdubs, lyrics, etc. were developed over time, and when personal stuff and motW/KD came up, the album got put on the back burner. Once I was able to focus my finances and my creative energy during this past year, I made a promise to myself to finish the album and here we are. I can finally put the experience behind me. I think a big factor in pushing me to finish was that I lost my mother to cancer last year, and she always supported my music so much and was so excited to know I was recording my own songs for once. She was so proud when I gave her a copy of the "Black Light Moon" demo back in 2006. I felt sad that she would never get to see the finished product of my labors, and that really lit the fire under my behind to get cracking. Everyone has their own songwriting process. Could you describe yours? What do you start with, and where do you go from there? It has changed a lot, but basically I come up with a song idea, usually on an acoustic guitar, and I tend to play the ideas obsessively for a few days and then demo them. Sometimes I am able to write a full basic song structure, and sometimes I just have a small bit of it but I keep the ideas handy on my computer. When I feel that certain pieces go together I experiment and see if it is cohesive and "meant to be." Once the basic structure is in place, then the fun begins with solos, harmonies, keyboards, etc. I haven't seen a credits list for this record yet. Who else plays on this record, and who's the female vocalist? The drums were done by Adam Letourneau, who has been devoted to this project since we started rehearsing stuff in 1999. Even though it has been intermittent, he has always been there when I needed him, and his loyalty and enthusiasm to almost every weird and varied idea I have musically is what kind of kept me pushing the album forward and really making this work. My friend T.L. Conrad is a bassist from the Philly area who I taught with at a guitar workshop, and I felt he would fit in perfectly. He played on most of the tracks. I wanted to work more with John Battema, who was the keyboardist in the D.C./Virginia bands Ephemeral Sun and Rain Fell Within, but both of our schedules were busy. I at least got him to record the keys for "Black Light Moon," which are so good! Jim Fogarty was the engineer on the record -- he played some keyboard and piano parts. Forbes Graham, who was in KD with me, contributed some eerie trumpet effects which I used in "The Echo Box." Last but not least, the female vocals were done by my friend Lauren Flaherty, who is a solo artist here in Boston. Machinery Listens to Love is a bizarre ambient/synth-based track which stands out from the rest of the album as the only song without guitars. It reminds me a bit of late-era Swans. Do you plan to do more stuff like this? I do plan to do more stuff like that once I learn my synths better! Machinery really was one of those happy accidents where I found the right settings and the ideas just came naturally, and since the melodic elements are based on some of the melodic themes from the song "A Time For Rust," it made sense to have it as a segue directly following that song and going into "Black Light Moon." I actually recorded two demos of electronic ideas, using the G-Force M-Tron and Imposcar soft synths, and used samples from a public domain radio show called "The Price of Fear," which was a series of horror and suspense mini-plays hosted by Vincent Price on the BBC in the 70's. They contained some amazing dialogue. If I can finish them in time, I hope to have them available on the website or as bonus tracks for people who pre-order the CDs when they are ready. Any idea when we can expect a release of A Time for Rust in CD form? All I can say is soon. Its purely financial. The artwork is done, I got the quote from the manufacturer and all that jazz, but now I just need the funds to get it started. And I want to stress to anyone reading this that if you are interested in the album but want a physical CD, please purchase the digital download. Since everyone buying the digital album is doing me a tremendous favor by contributing to the funds to press the CD, I want to reward that by promising that I will work out a way to get you the CD at a drastically reduced rate. I am not yet sure how it will happen but seeing as how I have a record of everyone who buys the album digitally, I will most likely be setting it up so that I will e-mail them personally and sell them the CD minus the cost of the download. So if the CD goes for $12, then anyone who buys the download will get it for $4 plus shipping, etc. This is a learning experience for me at every step of the way and I want to do right by the people who have offered suggestions, support, and enthusiasm as the project has progressed. Self-funded music projects on this scale are typically not significant money-making enterprises. What do you do as a day job? I work in an office doing very mundane and boring things so I can have health insurance and afford to record and print CDs. =) I know you just released your debut album, but have you decided what's next? Touring? More Baliset material? Other collaborations? Right now, we are working on getting a live line-up together. We have Dana Chisholm from the band Dreaded Silence on bass, and we are looking for another guitarist and a keyboardist, so if anyone is in the MA area and interested they should give us a shout. We have a co-release party scheduled for May 7 at the night club Felt in Boston. Lauren, who sang on my record, also has a record of her own she just released called "You Don't Know Me," so we are going to celebrate together and get her up on stage to sing her parts for my songs live. I can't imagine us touring for right now because we need to get some momentum going, and I would rather stay local and wait for the right opportunity to do more traveling. I don't think you can spend seven years writing and recording an album without writing other stuff, and I am anxious to not repeat the 5 year long recording process. The next Baliset album is already 70% written and some of it has already been demoed by Adam and I, so I will hopefully have that out next year. Also, I have a much sparser acoustic EP in the works once I can find time to record it at home, and I hope to have that out in the next year. I can't forget vinyl. I really believe that vinyl is the way to go with future releases, so I am hoping to have a vinyl version of "A Time For Rust" in the near future and for all my future releases. The Digipak artwork we have for the CD is AMAZING and worth printing, but I am seeing a trend where CDs, as a physical manifestation of music, are becoming more and more obsolete. I am thinking a nice half digital/half vinyl package will be the way to go so that people who want the artwork will get it in big huge packaging, and those who want just the music will be able to get that as well. I would hope it is a win-win situation for all involved. Finally, what music have you been listening to recently? Any recommendations for our readers? Well my taste in music usually gets made fun of, so I tend to not make recommendations for people to avoid humiliation, but lately I have found myself listening to: The Black Keys, Ehnahre, Jethro Tull "Thick As A Brick", W.A.S.P. "The Crimson Idol", 70's Genesis, the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night soundtrack, ABBA, Aphex Twin, Nation of Ulysses, Slayer, Exodus, Afroman, Wilson Pickett, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Ozzy, Metallica, Chroma Key, and my usual suspects who go by the name of Iron Maiden. Do you have any final words? Yes -- if you like what you have heard of Baliset please consider purchasing the digital download for $8 because it will go towards supporting independent music and help us out in spreading the word. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you, and thank you to everyone who supported my other projects over the years. Related stuff: Baliset home page (including album purchase link): http://www.baliset.net/ Baliset MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/baliset Baliset - A Time For Rust promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j37ppCpE8cI&e T. L. Conrad's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/theunionrocks John Battema's home page: http://www.battema.net/ Forbes Graham's home page: http://www.polyrhythmatics.net/ Jim Forgarty's home page: www.zingstudio.com Lauren Flaherty's home page: http://www.laurenflaherty.com/ Dreaded Silence home page: http://www.dreadedsilence.com/ Interview by Jimmy Matthews for ProgArchives.com Edited by auralsun - March 22 2009 at 21:30