THE MAKING OF DAATH, PART 3: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH KEYBOARDIST ERIC GUENTHER

Eric Guenther may end up being the unsung hero of Dååth’s forthcoming, self-titled album, which Century Media will release on October 25 (pre-order it here). He’s not even technically a member of the band; his main gig is being the guitarist/vocalist for From Exile (read my love letter to that band here). But as he did for Levi/Werstler’s Avalanche of Worms earlier this year, he has made some truly invaluable contributions to Dååth. His synths aren’t of the “Dead on the Dance Floor” variety; they’re far more subtle, adding layers of sound and atmosphere that up the record’s epicness quotient, increase its replay value (I guarantee you, you’re not gonna pick up on everything Guenther is doing the first time you hear the album), and increase the music’s insistence that it be listened to with a good pair of earphones. Praise for Guenther’s augmentations may get lost amidst all the insanity that the rest of the band brings to the table, but without his presence, Dååth would be a completely different record.

I sat down with Guenther this past June, when I was in Atlanta visiting Dååth in the studio. He’s an incredibly smart guy (read the guest blog he wrote for us this past April here), and I think his approach to his particular job on the album was just right. Check out the full transcript of our chat after the jump.

Having worked with these guys before before, do you see anything from Avalanche of Worms carrying over into Dååth?

Yeah, a few ideas, but I think really the kinds of ideas that would carry over would be more textures and stuff like that than notes and everything. I think Dååth kind of has its own goal.

I meant more in terms of how they’re approaching the material and the recording.

Let’s see…  Yes and no, because Eyal [Levi] and Kevin [Talley] spent a lot of time working together, and with Avalanche of Worms, thing it was kind of more just firing files back and forth. We didn’t really work with Sean [Reinert] one on one the way Kevin and Eyal worked for a couple of weeks. They were able to tune into each other in a way that doing a studio project doesn’t always afford.

And what’s your approach, in terms of doing your parts? Do you have any ideas yet?

Yeah, I’ve been playing along with the files and just writing parts, playing along with stuff and seeing what works. The thing with doing keyboards is that it’s really gear-oriented. My goal is really to find different sounds, to find sounds that kind of give [the music] more character, so there is a lot of experimenting and finding strange pieces of gear to play with, and do different things with them. That’s what I’ve been doing to prepare, basically, is just playing along with parts even though a lot of the parts that I was working on were on really rough demos and stuff. It’s just so that I can kind of get a feel for it.

Eric in the studio with Dååth, courtesy Skulls N’ Bones

Right. I know you were just talking about some cool gear you found…

Yeah, I’m borrowing about five different keyboards right now. It’s kind of a mess, but I found this old vintage thing which is really fun to use with guitar amps, actually. I’ve been running this old electric piano through a guitar amp and some of my guitar effects, and layering it up like eight times. I’m using what I can with software, like the Workstation software, to pan things and just kind of do some production work to the keyboards as well. So it’s not just one track in there. Most of the time it’s like ten tracks layered, to pan out and kind of give it some more space.

Using the guitar effects is kind of a weird thing, because it’s all mono. Usually you think of synthesizers, and they come in stereo. Some synthesizers these days will do sixteen channels and stuff, but for me ,I get better sounds out of just layering it up and using a guitar amp or something to saturate it a little bit more.

Have you used guitar effects for keyboard work before?

Yeah, that’s what I started doing for Avalanche of Worms.

Is that common and I just don’t know about it?

It’s been done, but I don’t know. I haven’t done research on it. I just started fooling around with it, and it happened. I was happy with it, and that’s basically all the work I did for Avalanche of Worms, was basically using that trick. This time I’m trying to use some different things in combination with it and try and bring it a step further. I don’t know how often it’s done. I know it is, but it’s kind of a weird thing that worked.

How well worked-out are your parts by the time you get into the studio? Clearly the way that the rest of the band is approaching their parts is a little off-the-cuff.

I think with this crew, these dudes have been playing together for awhile. They know when they sit down and crank something out that they can do it. They have a good working relationship where they know if they’re sitting down to blast something off, to write a part or to play a part,it’s going to be pretty good. I like that they keep a good pace that way.

As far as my parts are concerned, I’ll probably do some work in my workspace at home because I have all the gear there. There are six keyboards that I’m trying to use. So I’m going to do a lot here, but a lot there, too, because a lot of the stuff needs to be situated in the mix a certain way for it to even work, because it’s not really a central element, but it needs to add that flavor or whatever.

Is it easy to maintain flexibility still?

What do you mean?

Like, if you get into the studio and you had a certain piece of gear in mind that you’ve been working with and certain sounds that you’ve been working with, and they say “We’d like to try something different,” is it easy to make that switch?

Yeah, it is. That’s one of the reasons I like to layer things so many times instead of just focusing on one sound, because then I can adjust things as needed. If something is a little wacky, I’ll throw it down to tape anyway. I’ll record it, and we’ll figure it out later like how it sounds,  what’s working and what isn’t working. Like I said, it’s mostly atmospheric stuff. It’s mostly making weird parts weirder. I think that’s fun, so to me, almost anything that works I’m just trying to fit into what they’re doing. Anything that brings the idea or the part of stuff further is fine with me. It’s pretty fun work, actually.

I know it’s weird to ask you to compare yourself to somebody else, but are there other dudes in other metal bands that are doing something kind of similar to what you’re shooting for? Are there other guys that you draw inspiration from, or is this just a totally far-out adventure?

Well, I wasn’t full yprepared for this when they asked me to do Avalanche of Worms. I’d done keyboards for a different recording project that I worked on with Eyal. After that, he asked me to do a couple of odds and ends that were really simple parts. Avalanche of Worms came up, and I wasn’t prepared for it. I hadn’t been practicing parts. I hadn’t been buying keyboards or anything. I kind of scrambled and found some things and was able to record some stuff. I took piano lessons. I play piano and play keyboard a little, but I wasn’t trying to be a keyboard player. It was kind of weird.

Anyway, I got turned around and started getting into the stuff. I don’t really know. As far as keyboard players out there doing stuff, especially heavy music, it’s hard to tell. I think of keyboard players in metal, and I mostly think of power metal bands and stuff like that.

That’s why I was asking, because there are not a lot of people who are trying to add atmosphere.

Yeah. I’m not as into the shredding thing, with keyboards particularly.

You’re not going to break out the keytar?

[laughs] No, I’m just not as into that for some reason. I think my biggest influence as far as keyboards go is Trent Reznor, because he was always making massive sounds, massive, dirty sounds, and that’s what I like the most.

Cool, man. I would be remiss if I had you and didn’t ask you about From Exile, who we need to write about more. That’s totally my fault, so I apologize.

[laughs] It’s all good, man.

That album is awesome.

Thanks, dude. Thanks a lot.

Is there anything going on with From Exile right now?

We’ve been rehearsing for shows and hopefully we’ll be playing in the fall. We’re really close now. The stuff is sounding really good. We’ve been playing a couple times a week.

Do you have any new material?

Basically what’s on the record was an idea. The music on that record was written two years before we finished it. So now that we have a live band and we’re playing together; everything has evolved a step further, and we’re changing a lot of stuff and having fun with it. Because we want to be a live band and improvise and stuff like that. We really want to take advantage of playing live and being able to give a different show every night.

The way that the music on that record is constructed allows for that. It’s been part of the goal for awhile. I think that the cool thing is that instead of just all of sudden having to blast the new material, we’re going to be able to work things in as time goes on, over the next two years if we’re lucky. We’ll start working in all the new stuff slowly with the other stuff.

I’m looking forward to playing. We haven’t played in awhile.

Is it hard to switch gears from that to this and back again?

No. It’s actually really good. It’s really helpful to me, because I can get more focused with what my goals are, as far as, here I’m doing a keyboard project, and I’m thinking about what a keyboard player needs to bring to this, which I obviously don’t do in From Exile. It’s good to work under different situations like that, because it keeps me fresher. Because when I go back to From Exile, and I’m playing guitar and singing and everything else, it’s a totally different thing. But it’s refreshing to go back and forth. It just keeps a pace going. With the keyboard stuff, I can be in a certain mood and just totally whatever. With the guitar stuff, I have to be awake, not hungover. [laughs] And really active.

Awesome. I’m excited to hear anything you guys do.

-AR

THE MAKING OF DAATH

Part 1: Studio Report
Part 2: Interview with Co-Producer/Co-Engineer/Mixer Mark Lewis