Interview: Maryland Artist Will Schaeffer Talks About His New Song "Hanging Low and High"
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“Most of the music I made before I did rock was really weird, almost like dubstep tyep stuff with vocals over it. That doesn’t work as well as a rock beat with vocals over it. It was a wonderful change too because now I’m in love with the rock and roll style of creating music, it’s very fun for me”
Congratulations on the release of your new song "Hanging Low and High"; we're blown away by it. Tell us about your creative process using Ableton and how long the song took to finish.
Thank you I appreciate your words.
The creative process I get with my music is very simple at first but then after some time gets more and more complicated. What I usually do is start off with a drum beat and riff or progression and then work out something that I can get into. Once I have a really good thing going, (which usually takes only about like half an hour or so), I have finished the very first part.
Sometimes a lot of what I make during this phase doesn't even make it into the final song, although the initial chord progression in “Hanging Low and High” was made during this first phase. Everything else was made during the the second phase. Once I get a good drum loop or riff or something I move on to the backing groove of the track. This part is necessary because a drum loop doesn't sound as good as a drum recording. So what I do is take some backing drum groove and then write my beat to that to give the song a live sound. That's important because a drum loop is a poor way to imitate a real drum beat, you lose lots of time having the same beat loop over and over again.
The next part is just arranging which is normal like any other producer would do. After that I sing vocals over the track which was taking a while for me when I wrote this track. I remember vocals taking like a week or so to get. I changed the lyrics a couple of times, sung it over and over again to finally get the vocals in the song.
Overall I'd say the whole song took about a month and two weeks to finish. I've had songs take me longer but that was I think the longest for this new album. It's a really cool thing but the shame is that even now I'm just figuring out how to tune the things right! It took me forever to figure out how to do it all with virtual guitars and instruments, but hey I did it, that’s all that matters right?
Listening to the song we would never know that you used virtual instrumentation and not live guitars and drums. How did you get started using Ableton and creating rock music through its software?
It all started back in my college years, from 2010 to 2013, when I started making electro music. I remember hearing Chromeo play and he says something like, "I made music in my basement for one year and now I'm up here now." I had thought that was pretty cool and decided to look into producing music. After a short time after that I downloaded a copy of Reason. I produced a lot of off the wall electro beats for a while. I was really into producing and would stay up late making songs and synths and other stuff all the time it was my passion.
I had a real interest in making music with software and just did it non stop for a while. I soon switched over to Ableton and started making more band oriented stuff. It took a while but I eventually discovered Kontakt and fell in love with it. I found out that Kontakt had an immense amount of power to it and you could virtually do whatever you wanted to. It took quite some time but I eventually figured out a way to get the super dinky Kontakt guitars to sound real and natural.
Even now I'm still perfecting the craft of VST's but I feel I've finally cracked the code and can create real life guitars with software. It makes me so happy to start up an Ableton set and using my tunings to create real life guitars and basses.
Will "Hanging Low and High" be featured on an upcoming EP or album this year? If not, what's next for you musically?
Yes, “Hanging Low and High” will be on my next upcoming album which will come out within the next year. Right now I am actually still perfecting the tuning with the virtual instruments and will hopefully have a full analog/digital hybrid soon. It sounds weird but this has never been done before, and its really difficult, but I believe right now I have really cracked the code on making real instruments with software.
By right now I mean after this songs was created so if you can imagine difficult, imagine something even more than that. You get to the very end and it turns out you have to do even more than what you expected. Right now next for me is SUPER HEAVY stoner metal type stuff. I was holding s guitar one day and thought, "Maybe I can use a real guitar to make a virtual one on Ableton” and BOOM that was it, instant metal stuff which I have never gotten before. It wasn't present on this song, but OMG now I'm making real heavy almost stoner metal type stuff it's really cool. It’s really sick honestly some of the stuff I've been making nowadays reminds me of Black Sabbath.
You've mentioned that the song was written about the Louv're in France; what about the Louv're specifically inspired your creativity?
Well for some reason I had vivid memories of the Louv're from watching some documentary about it some time ago. It stood out to me because of the design of the museum is so interesting and that makes it easy to remember.
I like to write lyrics from memories and when something is more memorable it's easier to write about. You know I could just write about my life working as a fruit juicer at grocery store but I feel like a song written about the Louv're is cooler. It's a really cool place and I wish I could go there one day.
What led you to change your music from electronic to more rock oriented material?
The change was very gradual, but over the course of a couple years I really wanted to do something different than dance music. Electronic music is easier when all you do is produce, but if you want to sing too then it doesn't work as well. I think as soon as I started singing I changed my mind as to what style of music I wanted to do. It's much easier to be a singer-songwriter than a singer-DJ.
Most of the music I made before I did rock was really weird, almost like dubstep tyep stuff with vocals over it. That doesn't work as well as a rock beat with vocals over it. It was a wonderful change too because now I'm in love with the rock and roll style of creating music, it's very fun for me. I think most of the times you start out at places you really don't want to be, but in the end you make it where you want to go. So for me, I've reached where I wanted to go in terms of styles completely by now. I've gone from a DJ to a songwriter and it feels good.
I write much more often than I would when I was making electronic stuff, and I'm learning much more about music, playing, instruments, everything, since I started making rock music. So overall it's been a long ride but I'm happy to have gotten where I've gone to.
Connect with Will Schaeffer: Bandcamp