Finding Truth

On the inspiration for the album, Roger muses, “When I first started talking to Moog about having a relationship with them, they told me about a documentary that was being made about Bob (Moog, by Ryan Page and Hans Fjellstad), and they said they’d love to have a song in there by The Cure. And I was like, ‘I’ll ask Robert’, but we were right in the middle of making an album. But it’s a lot of pressure on him, it’s his band, and he carries the writing process. So he said he’d love to, but he’d have to pass.

“So I thought I would write a song for the soundtrack. And I thought back to my early days of writing music and very limited instrumentation — I had a Fender Rhodes, a Micromoog, and a Prophet 600. I would write a song just using the Voyager; it would be a really nice thing, a great tribute to Bob, and I thought I could make it work. I know the Voyager is incredibly versatile; I just have to make it musical and emotional. So I wrote the song, and it worked.”

That’s a characteristic O’Donnell understatement. To say that producer Ryan Page really liked the song hardly begins to describe what happened next. “We were having dinner and Ryan said, ‘That song, I think it’s really important to electronic music right now. I think it’s saying something that nobody else is saying in electronica.’ And I said, ‘Really?’ Because I never take anything I do too seriously.

“I think it was an interesting process, and also its hugely restricting to use just one instrument, especially one that plays one note at a time. At the time I was working on a solo album because I really wanted to do something outside of The Cure. I thought, ‘I’m in a band, and I work with a drummer and a bass player every day. Why don’t I try something that really is just me? Why not I do it on an instrument I really feel I can express myself on?’

“So I sat down and started to write songs. And I thought, ‘I’m just going to write totally outside of myself. Not holding back. Not trying to craft them as songs, I’m just going to let it happen.’ And that’s what I did. It just came really quickly. And I felt really comfortable with it.”

To serve the individuality, and the spontaneous moment, Roger refrained from using any preset sounds on the album. “I’m not a big fan of presets. In the ’80s, when I was using a lot of Sequential Circuits gear, I remember using presets, because whenever we would play San Francisco, we would always invite all the guys from the factory. I’d stand there playing presets, and then you could look out and see them smiling because they recognized their sounds.

“A lot of the sounds on my record are really subtle. The difference between one sound and another is so slight. In going back and try to recreate the sounds to play them live, I’ve realized that each song is kind of like a growth from the original sound that triggered the song. Because when I would write a song, it would come as much from the sound itself, which would trigger a melody or a bass line, or some kind of musical motif. And then I would progress from that base, so whatever wave shape that sound was, the rest of the song would kind of progress from there. Sound would suggest melody. Melody would suggest structure and progression. So most of the songs don’t have very big chord changes in them. They’re kind of like a movement from one place to another. So it’s about what you can do around that base; that’s how they work.

“I’d play a line, and I would think, ‘Okay, that needs another line on top of it, and the sound needs to change just a little this and that.’ And I would have to play that line or I would have lost it, ’cause it’s only in your head for that fleeting moment. I didn’t save anything.”

The one guiding rule throughout the whole process for Roger was that the moment itself was the most important thing. “I don’t think I had any choice. It’s just about capturing — it’s such a fleeting, inspirational moment. I’d go into the studio, switch the Moog on, and immediately start playing. I wouldn’t wait for it to stabilize the tuning. So each song is in tune with itself, but not in tune with the next song on the record. It was such an instantaneous, inspirational thing. And you can’t mess around with that, or you just lose it. Everything was improvised.

“I would play a phrase, four bars, eight bars, I think there’s one that’s 40 bars long. And I would just loop it, and I’d build up the foundation of the track. Then I’d play over that. And I would play the lead line, though I wouldn’t learn it, I’d just go and play it again. And so the subtle differences give it that intricacy. Because some of the loops would be so long, I would forget what would be at the beginning. So it would come around and I’d go, ‘Oh cool,’ and I’d be playing the same thing. And that’s how it kind of all built up.

“So I would get the foundation of the track going, like the rhythm track. Then I’d play a theme, and sometimes try to recreate that theme without learning it, so it would be slightly different every time. And then there would be other sections, like what you might call choruses but they weren’t really, and then I would play a free line over the top of it, just entirely inspired by what was there.”

The recording process was an individual affair, with Roger recording all of the tracks in his own studio. “I recorded it using [MOTU] Digital Performer, which I’ve been using since 1987. I never was a staunch [Apple] Logic user. I went to Cupertino and August ’04, told them that I used DP, and nearly got shown out of the building. Phil Jackson, who is one of the main Logic guys, took me through three locked doors, made me sign my life away, and gave me a three-hour demo of Logic. I was blown away. I thought ‘I want to start using it tomorrow.’

“Everything went through my mixer, and so I’ve always got delay and reverb, like two effects, outboard. I put time delay on, but that was just to monitor in the recording process. I recorded everything dry. I used a wah-wah pedal on one track, and I used Moogerfooger on another (“This Grey Morning”), and that was it.”

When bringing the tracks to mix engineer Mario Thaler, they discovered that some of Roger’s spontaneity during the tracking process meant not always recording at optimal levels. “We actually mixed it twice. The first time we ran it out to a vintage Neve, put it through effects in the studio, re-miked stuff, re-amped stuff, and all we managed to do was add three levels of hiss. Because I engineered it myself, and I was working in this kind of stream of consciousness way where everything just had to get played. So if I came up with a sound, and it needed to be quieter than before, I just turned it down; I didn’t record it at the same level. So Mario said he would bring up the tracks, and he’d zoom in with Logic, and it would still just be a thick line, because there was no level on the tape. So we ended up with a bunch of hiss, and we tried a de-hisser, and it just ate through the frequencies. I mastered it, got it home to my studio, and I was just like, ‘Oh, my god.’ I wanted this to sound pure, and analog, and it ended up with all these digitalized artifacts on it from this de-hissing process. So we went back and remixed it again entirely in Logic.”

With the whole musical statement complete, Roger felt it would be important to reach out to other artists and remixers to hear what they would do with the tracks. There are now remixes from Console, Acid Pauli, Fourtet, Vincenzo, and Dntel (Jimmy Tamborello of The Postal Service). “I think we owe a big debt to Jimmy and Postal Service for making keyboard-based music mainstream again. He’s such a nice guy, as well. I call him an ‘e-quaintance’ because I’ve never actually met him. When I finished the record I thought, ‘Okay, let’s get some remixes done.’ Because my record is very basic, there are no drums on it, and no other instrumentation. It’s perfect for people to remix. The first person I actually thought of was Jimmy. I sent him a CD with the files on it in January, and then one Saturday morning, I logged in to get my email and there was the remix. It’s just really nice to work with people you respect and it’s just about the music.”

In addition to the remixes, Roger enjoys discovering new music on the web and in the independent music scene, which led to the formation of 99 Times Out of 10. Now handling a dozen artists, the label recently released the compilation CD Nothing Concrete. “My plan was to release a sampler featuring unsigned talent,” says Roger, “and the bands we found are incredible. Each is very unique in sound, yet when we put their songs together on this album, they work perfectly together. The label is really an extension of my wanting to help bring interesting and new music to people, and to help bands be heard that never otherwise would be.”

Whether with his own music or through his discoveries, Roger’s desire to explore speaks to the artists who first inspired him to take up music. “Luckily, for the diversity of my style, my first major influence was Frank Zappa,” he says. “And because he had such complex musical tastes and such a large number of influences in his music, it just opened my ears to a whole new world. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is pretty cool, this is kind of like blues, but it’s got this kind of different edge to it.’ So I kind of followed that, and that’s when I discovered Herbie Hancock. And Herbie Hancock is like my mentor. He’s just been there all the way through my career. It probably sounds funny to people who know my playing from The Cure, because obviously his influence doesn’t figure very largely in my Cure work. But he was always there as I an influenced by his sensibility and orchestrations. I remember reading an early Keyboard interview with him about the way he used instrumentation, and I still think about that today. Little tricks.

“I saw him play early last year, which was just before I left The Cure. And he’s on stage, exploring entirely knew areas of music, working with musicians who are young enough to be his children. And I thought, this guy’s still exploring new areas and he’s relentless in his musical explorations. And here I’m in this group — and I don’t intend to put down The Cure because I’m very proud of it — we’re playing the same music, and we’re not really going anywhere. We’re not challenging ourselves, or our music. And I thought, ‘This guy is a good hero to have.’”