Melynda Jackson
Eight Bells
As well as can be expected in times like these I suppose
The year Trump was elected changed me, and I will never be the same as I was before that. 2016 is where it started, before the pandemic. Covid-19 was just a new shit sandwich. You ask about overcoming it. I don't feel that I have overcome it. I have no choice but to live with it.
There had been many obstacles for Eight Bells even leading up to recording the album. Again 2016 was not a good year. I don't know that the way I / we feel could be called energized. I suppose we were motivated by repeated obstacles to get it done. I am pretty relentless and never stopped trying, though the slow pace has been maddening.
I feel like we are in demise now. It has been slowly approaching for years. So slow that people just get used to a new animal becoming extinct, the loss of air quality, the changing of weather patterns….it has been slow enough that we can pretend it isn't happening but it feels like it is pickup up pace now as chain reactivity in our natural world is part of the process. I assume we will begin fighting over scarce resources (even more) with the rich victimizing the poor (even more) all the while distracted by lies and propaganda and pitted against one another.
Maybe the population will shrink to a sustainable level then slowly make its way back in a cycle like a herd of deer or basically any animal that outgrows the ability of its environment to sustain it. I assume we will die malnourished and sunburned and thirsty while the Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks of the world find a new place to destroy. Every time I eat a strawberry I savor it and imagine that when I am in my 70s I will still remember what they taste like and describe it to a child who has never had one because they won't grow anymore.
My perception is that in reality we don't care what we leave for future generations. If we did, we would find a better way to live.
The art shows the world as beautiful and populated, with a great oak tree, and comfortable houses, crops growing people out for a stroll, but if you look into the well, you see another reality of fire and destruction. An unacknowledged process
I had to leave expectation of understanding behind. I would say the overarching theme is that human nature is ultimately destructive. We can't help ourselves. We wear blinders and keep focused on our own little personal bubbles to stay sane as we burn down and use up everything given to us. We can't save for another day. We are utterly myopic. I don't want to say that NO ONE has any idea what is going on, its just that there are too many of us with different agendas to make much progress toward stopping the manufacture of our own collective doom.
Well – I feel like I am still progressing as a guitar player and have so much I don't know. I have my own way and it has been a slow process – the cool thing about that is that I can keep learning until the day I die and still not consider myself a master. Once a person claims to be a master, there isn't much further to travel. Matt who plays bass and our drummer Brian are certainly great additions to the band and push me to want to do better. We make our songs mostly for us, and then hope that someone out there gets it. We use music as a means of emotional communication.
I think the songs are more aggressive, and the songwriting a little more to the point. Also, I believe the male / female harmonies are fun and different since we only had female voices previously. I don't actually hear a lot of bands in this genre and or subgenre using male female vocal harmonies, so it's been fun for us to explore this new vocal territory.
We are not trying to write or mimic top 40 hits obviously. When you go into the studio you can observe your ideas recorded and make changes. You may find that there is something that isn't aptly expressed, or a note combination that isn't what you thought it was. We used similar production elements across the board on all of the songs which does help form a cohesive quality to an album, we considered heavily the order of the songs on the album and how that might compliment or take away from the overall 'feel' we wanted it to have.
The album was made during a horrible election, a pandemic, and a wild fire and drought. Air quality on vocal days was horrible. These were all challenges in its making- not even including all that it took to get to a point to even make a record. You can lose continuity and momentum trying to create something with creators coming and going. Personally, I have issues sometimes with using headphones as I suffer from Menier's disease, and it has caused some hearing loss on one side. This makes it difficult to understand a 'thick' layered mix in headphones and presents challenges for vocal recording and live tracking basics- both of which require the use of headphones. For anything else I can record in the control room while listening to the mix monitors.
I think every time I have been in the studio; I have learned something new. This time we went in to do the basic tracking live, and I had continuous issues with my guitar holding tune even though I had had a set up prior to the session. It had gone unnoticed that the neck was cracked. I had to muddle through it treating the guitar like scratch guitar tracks. I had to redo all of the rest of the recording in the control room using studio monitors and an amp in an isolation booth. I have never recorded that way before with no live take in the mix. I had done harmonies that way but never the basics. It can be a difficult thing to do when you have songs that don't adhere to a click map. We were able to use a click on some sections, but others would have become robotic.
Now looking back, I like the results of being able to record guitars this way and will likely continue doing that especially considering my difficulties with headphones. I'm not sure about lessons from the past really – everything you experience affects the future that you experience I suppose. I had to shut out critical voices in my head as much as possible- but this is something I am constantly learning to do. My eclectic tastes have not changed. I would say that my bandmates also share a love of many types of music.
I can't say enough good things about Billy. Without really having to get granular with him, he instinctively knows what feeling and over all vibe we are going for. This is the third album we have done with him, and it only gets better as we build on what Eight Bells started as. You can listen to much of his output and hear the epic quality he brings to the music he produces. He is also very diverse in his musical tastes which makes him kind of perfect for any project I may be involved in. He is also very creative and fun to work with.
We have toyed with a couple of new ideas, but mostly just trying to get a regular schedule of rehearsals together and thinking about the possibility of tour and shows for 2022-23
I think it might be impossible to listen to an album you make strictly as a listener if you created it. I have taken time off from it and listened to a song here and there and felt like it is the best EB album to date. Its also nice that the band itself feels really supportive and cohesive. I always feel like an outsider in the world, and especially in the music world. Its never enough of this or too much of that – at least from the point of view of music listeners. For me- the album represents a turbulent time both personally and for the world and I feel like we said exactly what we wanted to say to the folks who matter most. I feel like its like floating a message in a bottle into the sea- you hope that the right person finds it.
We notified our agent that we are ready to start considering live shows and tours. My biggest wish is to get the band to Europe somehow.
No problem, we are glad you enjoyed it.
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