Episode #3 of the Instrumentals of Rock podcast has uploaded and is ready to listen to or you can view it on YouTube. Episode #3 features, my interview with Thomas Brenneman from the Post Rock band still motions based out of Phoenix, Arizona. We covered everything from the first instrument he played to his custom guitar company Sonder Guitars. Hope you enjoy it and let me know who you’d like to hear on the podcast.
Episode #3 of the Instrumentals of Rock podcast has uploaded and is ready to listen to or you can view it on YouTube. Episode #3 features, my interview with Thomas Brenneman from the Post Rock band still motions based out of Phoenix, Arizona. We covered everything from the first instrument he played to his custom guitar company Sonder Guitars. Hope you enjoy it and let me know who you’d like to hear on the podcast.
Mitch Barnett (00:10.626)
Welcome to the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. I'm your host, Mitch Barnett. I'm new to the post-rock instrumental scene. Every day I'm finding post-rock music from around the world that I haven't heard before, from bands or solo musicians that have just emerged or have been established over the past 30 years or more. One of these newer bands is Still Motions, based in Phoenix, Arizona. I spoke with Still Motions guitarist and songwriter, Thomas Brenneman.
for the latest episode of the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. Hey Thomas, welcome to the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. Bish, thanks for having me. Yeah, you got it. So let's go kind of back to the beginning for you. When did you, what was your first instrument that you picked up and when was it and why that one? I guess the first instrument that I picked up and like stuck with was bass actually, bass guitar.
Dabbled with piano when I was younger. My mom's a piano player. She taught us all how to play piano growing up and I just never really stuck with it until later. Now I play a little bit. I played like trumpet in middle school for about six months and gave up real quick on that. But bass was the first instrument that I picked up, stuck with. I was probably like 10 years old when I picked up bass. So your mom just played it socially or?
Yeah, yeah. She took lessons, uh, growing up and just stuck with it for a really long time. She doesn't play much anymore. Um, but yeah, just played socially. She never played like outside of like, she played some recitals when she was in school and for, you know, right. Like for her teacher and stuff like that. But yeah, never played like professionally or anything. From what I've read, you moved out from the East coast out to Arizona when you were around 10. Correct. That must've been quite a culture shock.
Yeah, I mean actually moving from anywhere to Phoenix is a culture shock, but for sure Especially all that way. Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely a culture shock Also moving out in the middle of August to Phoenix wasn't yeah, you know, I was pleasant surprise. I Remember getting off the plane and you know
Mitch Barnett (02:30.562)
getting out of the airport and I think it was like 118 the day we moved here. Wow. And, uh, I just looked at my parents and I was like, what are we doing here? Why are we here? But yeah, definitely a big culture shock, especially at like such a young age, just being kind of like uprooted from all my friends, all my other family back east, uh, right. And just being kind of like thrown into a, a new place, you know, in unknown place was definitely a change for sure. So.
That's actually when you started playing bass then, right? And how did, I mean, you've always felt like you wanted to play a musical instrument or how'd you pick that one out? Yeah. Honestly, it was kind of like, I met some friends here in Phoenix and they both played guitar at the time and they were looking for somebody to play bass. And that's just kind of like how I picked it up.
I asked my parents, you know, for a bass and they were like, well, you haven't stuck with any other instruments. So why would we ever buy you another one? And, uh, you know, luckily for my, for my birthday that year, uh, they ended up getting me a, like a cheap, you know, starter kit bass with an amp. Yeah. Played with my friends for a little bit. And then I made the transition to guitar when I was probably like 14. It's funny. And anything I've ever read about bass players, you know, even the best, um,
legendary bass players. It seems like it always starts out that way. It's like you meet some friends and they play guitar and somebody's gotta play bass and they go, hey, you play bass. And they go, oh, okay. Yeah. And you pick it up, you know, and either continue on with it or move on like you did. So when did you first, when was your first band? I would say like my first like serious band, I was probably 14 or 15 when we started. And then by the time I was like 17, we were playing
pretty big shows here in Phoenix. We were kind of the go-to local band to open up for like a lot of the big touring acts that were coming through at the time, like within our genre at the time. So we were playing anywhere from, yeah, go ahead. What band was that? The band was called East of Eden, kind of like a post hardcore kind of screamo like type band. So yeah, we were playing anywhere from like, like sold out shows at 800 cap venues to.
Mitch Barnett (04:57.406)
Even the marquee theater here in town, which is like a 15 or 1600 cap room. We would open for a lot of the big bigger bands that were coming through town. And you're at what age around doing that? That was about like 16, 17. Wow. And were you traveling with that band? Uh, it was mainly just local. Yeah. With that band, it was just local. I started traveling a bit when I was 18, uh, with another band that
that I had joined at the time and did some traveling after, like, into high school, like right after high school, is kind of like when I started traveling a little bit for music. What band was that? That one was called For The Taken. For The Taken. Yeah, and that was, it wasn't something that I started, it was something that I was asked to join.
So in East of Eden, I was the lead guitar player. And then I did all of like the screams, like the screaming vocals, the dirty vocals, if you will. And these guys approached me after a show one night. They said, hey, we're looking for a vocalist, like lead vocalist. We have guitar players. We just need like somebody as like our lead vocalist, screamer, clean vocals too. Frontman.
Yeah, front man. So I jumped into that. Yeah, it was crazy. We played like one show here locally in Phoenix, and then we got booked on a tour like right away. And it was like a three and a half week tour with a band out of California. And I did that. And then I literally got home and I quit that band. Mainly because it's it wasn't what you the direction you personally wanted to go in as far as musically or. Yeah. So, I mean,
It was funny because on that tour, I actually, I got really sick. I got mono. I completely blew out my voice. And like, as the lead vocalist, like, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't perform, you know, uh, probably like a week into the tour. I just like totally lost my voice. I was having some pretty bad issues.
Mitch Barnett (07:12.39)
me and our me and one of our guitar players just swap spaces. Like we just like I picked up guitar for the rest of the tour. He took over vocals for the rest of the tour. Wow. We went about it, but it just made me realize, like, I really just love playing guitar and I didn't really care to be like a front man, if you will. So. Yeah. So what was that after that? What was next? That's a good question. After that, I was still in East of Eden at that time. East of Eden broke up pretty soon after that, though.
probably like my freshman year at college. And then I started a band with a couple of friends and then actually my now wife. That lasted maybe about like a year and a half. Had some success with it though. We had a couple of like really, really good shows. We had a lot of good press and everything, but it was something that nobody was just really very serious about. It was just kind of like, we were just kind of messing around at the time. Kind of went our separate ways.
And then after that, honestly, like I did some solo stuff for a little bit. And then I want to say when I was like 22, I kind of gave up music, uh, for a while, for about five years. I didn't, I really didn't even pick up a guitar or pick up any instrument for about five years after that. Wow. And you're, you're still out there in Phoenix at that time. Yeah. Straight out of college. Well, while I was in college, I started managing restaurants.
Restaurant management is just a lot of hours. It's a lot of late nights. You know, it doesn't leave a lot of time for, for much else. So it was, it was kind of tough to, you know, to really like commit to anything at that point, but I just kind of had dove into my career at that point and wasn't even really thinking about music much. Right. And so obviously you came out of that and went back into music. Yeah. And what was, what was first up after your long gap? Yeah.
I met a guy at a coffee shop. He was a barista at a coffee shop and he was like, hey, you should check out my band. And I was like, awesome. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Right. And he just like handed me a CD and I was like, all right, shameless self plug, just like handing CDs out at his work. But I listened to it and I didn't know what he did in the band. I didn't know what.
Mitch Barnett (09:34.27)
if he played an instrument or if he was the singer. But I was really, really blown away by the singer's voice. Just one of the most unique voices I've ever, ever heard. I went back to the coffee shop a few days later and he was there and he was like, so what'd you think? And I was like, dude, your guy's a singer is unreal. One of the best vocalists I've ever heard. And he was like, oh, thanks, man, that's me. And we just started talking and he said that he was looking for...
you know, for new musicians for the band, because everybody had pretty much like moved away. So I started writing with him and pulled in a drummer that I knew really well that I had worked with. We just kind of like took over that band, I guess, if you will, it was called Elle West. We were active for probably like just under six years, I wanna say. And that was up through.
Actually, like I started Still Motions while I was still in L. West. Um, yeah, L. West kind of disbanded. I want to say it was like the end of 2021. And was that just a local band or did you guys go out and tour with that too? Uh, so we, I wouldn't say we toured. We were kind of like weekend warriors. We'd go hit like, you know, weekend runs through, yeah, like California and like go hit different locations and stuff like that.
A lot of us had jobs that we couldn't at the time, we couldn't really like get away for super extended periods of time. Yeah. So we would just go hit weekend runs. And it was one of those things LOS kind of became a very similar thing to where like we got asked to play, you know, we would get booked with all the big touring bands that would come through town. That band was like very just like radio indie rock, if you will, just like, yeah, super indie rock. You know, we got to play like a lot of really big festivals here in town.
Oh, what a great experience. Yeah. Probably the coolest one to date was, uh, we played some March Madness was here in Phoenix, probably like, I don't know, six years ago at this point, five years ago at this point, maybe, and every city that they had March Madness in every year, they throw a huge free music festival. We got asked to play the second day of the three day festival and it was like 20,000 people we played. Uh, it was like group love, Leon Bridges.
Mitch Barnett (11:57.818)
Uh, capital cities, the chain smokers played the day we played. Wow. Um, so it was just like, it was an awesome lineup, but it was just a crazy crowd, super high energy. Just pretty nuts. Wow. That's cool. And so when that, uh, kind of fell apart, is that when you, um, kind of started still motions or, I mean, obviously still motions and, um, the band you were in. We're quite different music wise.
Very different, yeah. Is the music of Still Motion something that you just sort of came into? Have you been into that, into the post rock style music for a long time? Because obviously that's a big change. Big change for sure. Yeah, I've been into post rock for a long time. Had always really wanted to do a project kind of centered around that. I...
It's funny cause like at the time with Elle West, I never really listened to indie rock. Like I never really listened to that style of music, but I was at a point where like, when I was jumping back into music, I was like, if I'm going to do this and I'm going to take it seriously, I want to do something that has like massive potential for success. And like, I saw like very radio friendly indie rock was super popular at the time. Figured like we had a pretty strong shot at, you know, getting fairly commercial. So, you know, we kind of gave it our all.
until we just realized we kind of hit our cap and we just kind of backed away. But I would say that honestly, Still Motions was kind of, maybe potentially caused a little bit of the downfall of L. West. In what way? I think there were some unhappy parties that I was kind of splitting my time, if you will. All right.
Ellis was like very much just like a business to us. Like it was like, I don't know. And to me, that's all it was. It wasn't really like a very strong creative outlet for me. Cause again, it wasn't really like my interest musically. And when I kind of stopped treating it as a business, I was running everything. I was managing everything. I was booking all of our shows. I managed all of our marketing, everything. And I just kind of like backed off and was like, somebody else take this over. Cause I'm,
Mitch Barnett (14:18.902)
So yeah, there were some unhappy parties in the band that weren't super happy about it. It definitely kind of led to a little bit of the, you know, potential animosity towards the end that kind of ultimately split the band, if you will. But yeah, always been into post-rock for a very long time and had really wanted to start a project. And when I finally did it, just kind of took on a life of its own and really kind of.
took my focus away, if you will, because that was my creative outlet. You know, that's like, that was my therapy. Yeah. So it sounds like you would come up with the name Still Motions sort of early on. Any story behind that or just a cool name? Honestly, yeah, it wasn't, there's not much of a story to it. It just kind of like came to my mind one day and it just kind of stuck.
I'm terrible at picking band names. I've just like never been very good at it. And one day it just kind of stuck. There was a lot of like imagery around it too. Like early on, like the press photos and stuff. We did a lot of like long exposure shots to where, you know, the lights would be kind of like stretched out and like face would be kind of distorted. And it just kind of fit the theme of like still motions. And
It just kind of stuck. It was kind of like easily marketable as well. And I just, I liked it. I did this show back in the mid nineties called the instrumentals of rock. I was, um, you know, really into everything instrumental rock at the time. And I think post-rock instrumentals anyway, it was just sort of happening. And that wasn't really the focus of my show. It was kind of a shred rock kind of thing. So once that ended, I just.
Disassociated myself with instrumental rock and went on with my life for basically up until about six months ago when I decided to do this. And when I started getting into what was happening in the world of instrumental rock, I find this post rock that I just didn't know anything about and one of the things that I was attracted to it was the names of the bands, you know,
Mitch Barnett (16:35.978)
I mean, it just immediately, I mean, they're all such different names, yet it all seems to kind of have the same, um, attitude, I think, you know, for sure. Pray for sound Russian circles, bear the mammoth. I hear sirens. I mean, those are all so cool, you know? And, um, and they're all of that, of this genre, but God, they're also different as well. Um, when you decided to go this direction,
Was it as much for a business stand? I mean, it seems like there's a pretty good opportunity for this kind of music, or is it just, you know, screw it, I'm gonna do what I wanna do? For me, it's interesting, because still motions kinda like turned into something that I never really expected it to be, or really like anticipated, I guess. You know, when I started it, it was really just as like a creative outlet for myself.
Playing music is very therapeutic for me. It's like, you know, I struggle with like a lot of anxiety and just stuff like that. And it just calms me down. And with L. West, it wasn't ever really a very like, it didn't feel very creative to me. It didn't feel very therapeutic. And it was just kind of like, cool, I'm like writing because I need to write this song. You know, it just, I don't know, it didn't really flow with me. So with Still Motions, it kind of just started as like,
I'm just going to write music and like kind of do it for fun. And it started as like a home studio project. It was really just me when I first started. And then like our drummer reached out to me on Instagram. I had known him through the, you know, through the music scene here locally for a long time. He's been in a lot of like big touring acts too. And he was like, I've been hearing some of like the teasers you've been posting. And I love it. And I, you know, if you ever need somebody to play drums, I'd love to be a part of it. And that's.
So it was me and him originally. And like the first few songs that we recorded were just me and him. I played, he played drums. I played everything else on it. And we just kind of like went from there, but yeah, it was, it was never really like anticipated to be a business. You know, I saw an opportunity in it, but, and like I have a strong marketing background and like, so when it kind of started flowing and I started marketing it on, you know, Facebook, social media, all of that stuff, it just kind of took on a life of its own. And then...
Mitch Barnett (19:00.682)
You know, when we released our first record, the vinyl sold out before it was even released. And then it happened again on the second, you know, on the second pressing. And yeah, it just kind of took on a life of its own. Oh, that's cool. So with the first album, there's associated with Mirrors, there's four people in the band. Who's the other guitarist and how did you connect up with him? Chris, our other guitar player.
As a friend of mine, we had never worked together prior to Still Motions, we had like gotten together and like, you know, riffed around a little bit, but nothing really ever came from it. But he was in another band when I was in El West and we would play together a lot. His band was more post-rock-ish. They had vocals, but it was like instrumentally very post-rock. He just kind of like felt like the right fit. And when we started, you know, working together, everything else just kind of like fell into place.
And bass player, is that somebody you know that? So bass player, we've had a couple of changes. Originally, again, in the studio, I played bass on the first two singles before we went in to track the rest of the record. We had a bass player come into the band to track the rest of Mirrors, the record, Gigi, and she was with us for a while. She moved to LA.
to, she got an awesome job offer. She's a recording engineer at Atlantic Records Studios now. We tried kind of the long distance relationship, if you will, for a little bit. Right. Um, and you know, it's, it's tough in that sense. I think if, if there was a little bit more like freedom as far as, you know, like work schedule would have gone, it could have worked, but it ended up just kind of not.
working out in that sense. And then we brought in our new bass player, probably a little over a year ago at this point, but he is actually not in Phoenix, Arizona either. He's in Virginia. Oh, okay. But he has a lot more travel freedom to where he can kind of get up and go whenever he needs to. So he was a fan of the band. He reached out to me on Instagram and was like, hey, love the music. We had been chatting for a while. And then when time for a bass player came, it just kind of made initial sense.
Mitch Barnett (21:27.006)
So he joined and then, you know, we hadn't, we haven't recorded with him yet. Gigi played on both, on both records, but Dave, our new bass player did our last tour with us. Yeah. You kind of have to have not only the right musicians that fit with you musically, but if you're planning to grow a band, you've got to have the right musicians in the right situation that can pick up and go.
When for sure you need to pick up and go. It seems like, uh, that's starting for, um, for still motions. Um, and you've done some, um, uh, touring already. Um, and so you did a, uh, a tour with, was it, uh, hubris and I hear sirens and Zealand, the North. Yeah. Just did that back in July. So how did that come about as a tour? Is that's kind of your first.
tour, right? Yeah, it was. And it's interesting because, again, going back to, I guess, with Still Motion's turning into more than what I really ever expected. I never really expected it to be a live band. Never expected to play a lot of shows. In fact, other than the tour, we haven't played a lot of shows. We've played like three shows before the tour. We've done some live streams during COVID and stuff like that, too. But.
There's honestly not much of a like post-rock scene in Phoenix. So it doesn't really make sense for us to play a lot of shows here. So like we're one of maybe like two instrumental bands in Phoenix. So it's, it's a tough scene with the tour. So it was kind of all centered around post festival. So we got invited to go play post-fest in Indianapolis, which was at the very end of July and.
The label that puts on Post Festival, Post Recordings, we were under contract with at the time. So like our contract just kind of came up and we're figuring things out from here. But Post was our label. We got invited to play it last year actually, initially, but when COVID hit things kind of got pushed back because they had to rebook bands from the year that was canceled. So we got pushed back to this year to play.
Mitch Barnett (23:46.29)
I hear sirens was on post as well. And so they were on their way to the festival and then hubris. Was playing the festival. And in terms of being in the U S for the festival, they had booked an entire U S tour. So us and I hear sirens, you know, they're in Utah, they're in Salt Lake. Um, so we had talked about getting together and touring out to Indianapolis for the festival. Like later into the fold.
I, or Hubris kind of reached out and they were like, hey, we're going to be on the West coast starting this day. Like, can we jump on tour with you guys to the East and go from there? So it just kind of all fell into place. And then Zealand, the North kind of came into play. We were looking at booking Texas dates and they're just very, very well connected in Texas. So they handled the booking of the Texas shows for us.
And we asked them to just like, hey, why don't you guys just jump on the shows? Um, so they played the three Texas shows with us and then, um, stopped there and we continued on. So what kind of, uh, venues are you guys, did you guys play? I, it was kind of a variety. Texas was, uh, Texas was awesome. They were like by far the best shows outside of the festival in Indianapolis, but, uh, we played El Paso.
We played El Paso, we played Austin, and then we played Denton, Texas. In El Paso, it was a brand new venue. It was fairly small. I'd say maybe like a two, 250 cap room, but it was pretty packed. It was an awesome show. I was very surprised because I had no idea what to expect from El Paso, Texas. But it was really, really cool. We actually had a lot of fans come up from Mexico, like drive from Mexico to come see us play.
in El Paso, because it's a border town. It's like right on the border. And then Austin was packed. We played Mohawk in Austin, which is like a really famous venue in Austin. That place was packed. And then we played Andy's in Denton, which is probably like, I don't know, I'd say you could probably fit like 250, 300 people in there. They're all pretty similar sized places, except for the last show before the festival was
Mitch Barnett (26:06.646)
Jeffersonville, Indiana, which is like right on the, I guess, Louisville, like Indiana border. It was pretty small. It was like an outdoor venue, but like pretty small bar. They do a lot of live music, but yeah, fairly small spot. Yeah. And so four bands for the evening. How long were the sets? We each, we just played 30 minutes. Yeah. Just played 30 minutes a piece to keep it short.
Even the Texas shows like all three of the Texas shows I don't think started until nine o'clock and they all had openers to they all had local openers so we're talking like five bands on the on the Texas shows and it was uh Yeah, we weren't like the shows wouldn't be finishing up until like 1 30 in the morning typically That's a heavy night of tunes Heavy night of heavy night of instrumental
very loud instrumental music. Right. Yeah. What's next as far as touring goes for you guys? Anything on the schedule at the moment? So we don't have anything scheduled currently. We are looking at some stuff for 2024. We're also kind of trying to figure out some, me, Dave, our bass player, and then Chris, our guitar player are all very able to travel. Our drummer,
was until he just took a new job and he's a teacher. So it's a little bit harder for him to get away. So we're trying to kind of figure out scheduling for that. But he's also open to not touring with us and just having a fill in like live drummer on the road. And he would just be like our studio guy in that sense. So I don't know, we're kind of trying to figure all of that out, but we do have some ideas for.
for 2024 and we're in some talks with some bands as well to kind of start scheduling out some dates here and there. Talking about things that you do outside of the band, you've got Zonder guitars. And how did that come about? Is that something you've been kind of dabbling in over the years or? So I, let's see, I started building
Mitch Barnett (28:36.482)
probably like five or six years ago now, just kind of as a hobby. I was actually endorsed by a guitar company at the time. So I wasn't actually, I was contractually obligated to play their guitars live. At the time though, I kind of found that like, I was always kind of like looking for something different when I was in the studio recording and like my guitars from the company were great, but they didn't really like capture that something that I was looking for in the studio.
So I started just building my own to use in the studio. So I knew like, I know what I want the guitar to sound like, and I'm going to build it and I'm just going to use it in the studio. So I had said I was in restaurant management for a long time. I was in restaurant management up until COVID hit. So when COVID hit, uh, the restaurant group that I worked for, I was the operations manager, I managed like all of the locations and, uh,
COVID hit, we ended up losing a bunch of the locations. So at that point, I just took it as my out of the industry. I just walked away from, from the restaurant industry. And before I really knew like what I wanted to do from there, I really had no idea. Cause like my whole career, my whole identity has been in restaurants. So I just kind of turned and focused on the guitars and I was like, you know, I've got a lot of connections in that industry and I've met a lot of people.
with my time being endorsed by the guitar company I was endorsed by. And I had gone to NAMM, both summer and winter NAMM, Anaheim, Nashville, met a lot of people and I think I could make it work. So I launched it. I launched it right after COVID hit. Yeah, just been grinding since. So is it a whole guitar start to finish? How do you explain your company to somebody?
Yeah. So it started out initially as I was getting bodies sourced from people and like from various people and throughout the country, depending on the type of wood that I was looking for. So like I had a guy in Eastern Washington making bodies out of Alder for me. And then I had a guy in like North Carolina making bodies out of swamp ash for me and like, it's kind of like, you know, all kind of came together. But now currently I have a friend here in town.
Mitch Barnett (31:00.918)
who was a teacher at a luthier school, guitar building school in Phoenix. That's like, we have one of the biggest luthier schools in the country here. And he was a teacher there. And he left the school and started his own shop. And he's got a CNC machine at the shop and everything. So he actually CNC's the bodies for me, bodies and necks. And then I do all of the paint and all of the setup finishing work and go from there.
Nice. Like most bands, you have endorsements either for individuals or, or band endorsements. Yeah. How does, how does that work? Like I noticed you had one that was bad cat amps. Yeah. And it's actually, um, I looked that up and, um, it's in Costa Mesa. Yeah. It's on West 17th or something like that. And I was born and raised in Costa Mesa. Nice. On West 18th. That's awesome. So.
That's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So the, the endorsement thing is kind of an interesting game. I mean, it's great because ultimately like you're getting a, depending on the, the level of artists you are, you're getting free equipment or you're getting discounted equipment in returns for promotion, right? So like you're promoting their product as an artist.
So when I got my guitar endorsement initially, I really loved the guitar company. I thought they were awesome guitars. They were like exactly what I was looking for at the time. I reached out, just made a connection with the owner and we just kind of talked things out. He's like, cool. So like, what are the plans for the band? And at the time, this was when I was in El West and we had already been playing a lot of really big shows. And
like some festivals and stuff. And so he was on board with, you know, signing an endorsement deal with me. And then some of the other deals kind of fell into place because of that guitar company. He actually made the connection to Bad Cat amps for me. So I'm still, yeah, I'm endorsed by Bad Cat. And our other guitar player plays a Bad Cat as well. I have an endorsement with HOSA, which they do, they make everything, but I use their cables.
Mitch Barnett (33:18.39)
their instrument cables and patch cables from a pedal board. And then, yeah, most recently we just, as a band, we got an endorsement with, uh, earthquake or devices, which is a pedal company affects pedal company. Are any of these companies, um, asking you for feedback as far as R and D for future products and stuff like that? Or is that not work that way? Some do. I think.
Like with Ballag- with the guitar company that I was endorsed by, they were called Ballagare. They were pretty young at the time, like a pretty fresh company. They're massive now. They're really, really big. But he was really into getting feedback from the artists and like really helping to like develop the guitars from, from there. With some of the other companies though, it's not necessarily, it's just kind of like, Hey, yeah, it's just a swap of like, here's some gear and just, just promote us, you know?
Some other companies, like, I mean, you'd be surprised though. Like I have a buddy that works for Fender. He is on the digital, the digital amps side of things. And Fender just released this, this new floor unit. That's basically an amp in a box this big that, you know, it's just a pedal. That's an amp simulator. It's got all the effects built into it and everything. And they did a lot of R and D reach out with artists that weren't even Fender artists, they just like, like they reached out.
He reached out to me and was like, Hey, can I pull you into a meeting and get your, get your feedback on this product? And, um, you know, so some, there are companies that definitely do a lot of R and D and, you know, ask for artists feedback. Yeah. A few months back, you know, starting to research what new instrumental music was out there. And I really hadn't even been much of a Spotify guy either. And, uh, I went into Spotify and figured out how it worked. And it's just like,
My God, every day when I sit down and start listening and searching, I mean, I'm finding, there's just new post-rock instrumental bands, everywhere from all around the world. So, they have all these mixes and everything. And that's really how I came to your music was, when you listen to mixes sometime and all of a sudden, you keep going back going, who's that? And go, oh.
Mitch Barnett (35:36.526)
still motions. And one of the things I liked about it was it there was I know you use different instruments on the recording, but sometimes I couldn't even, like, was that a guitar? Was that a keyboard? Was that a piano? What was that? And so what different instruments do you use? And how do you maybe kind of make them sound not necessarily like they were intended? Yeah, for sure.
So I mean, we're a four-piece band live. You know, there's four of us. So it's two guitars, bass, and drums. And that's kind of like the foundation of the band. On the records, I play some piano on the records too. So you'll hear piano on it. You'll hear some like synth and stuff on there too. That's kind of mixed in with the piano. And then on the first record, we have a song called, "'Through Doubt Comes Clarity'." When writing it,
I just like, I knew it needed strings. I was like, we gotta have, there needs to be some sort of strings on this track. And so I pulled it a violin player to play on it too. So as far as like making, I mean, what I, I have, I mean, my pedal board is like ridiculous. It's, it's the stupidest thing you'll ever see, but it's, uh, you can get a lot of sounds out of it. So like, I, you know, I.
I use my, you know, different, different effects to, to make my guitar or like the guitar sound something completely different than a guitar sometimes too. So yeah, I mean, it's, I don't know. I I'm, I'm pretty like cut and dry. I think actually like as a post-rock guitar player, my pedal board is actually dumbed down from a lot of other guitar players and the post-rock scene. Cause I'm kind of like a traditionalist and like.
I want a guitar to sound like a guitar most of the time. If something's going to sound different, I may run it through like, like a tape emulator or something to make it sound warbly and like old vinyl or something like that. But yeah, you give me delay and reverb and I'm pretty much like good to go for, for guitar. But yeah, I mean, I love, I love like pretty much every track has piano on it. There's always piano in the background of a still motion song. You may not be able to hear it right up front, but
Mitch Barnett (37:53.026)
There's always piano and it could be just mimicking the guitar too. The guitar and the piano could literally be playing the same notes. It's just kind of like, I like layering and just like building really like wide sounds, so like there's a ton of instrumentation in the studio that goes into a still motion, like into still motions tracks. Yeah. And with post-rock, there's a lot of layering and a lot of kind of wall of sound, but being able to, with dynamics, you know,
bring it down and spread it out is seems to be the real question. I really like how you guys do that. I appreciate that. Yeah. So when you record, I mean, um, the file sharing thing has been around for a long time, it's, I mean, a lot of people associated with, Oh, COVID hits. And now we're doing file sharing, but obviously bands have been working that way for a long time. Is that, um, is that how you all work?
when you're initially putting things together or you do. So we, we actually never write live. Like we never write in a live setting for me. I am like really ADD like ADHD to where like when I'm, when I'm writing, if I'm in a live setting, trying to write with four other musicians, like my head just wants to explode. Like I can't process what's going on. Yeah. You know,
So for us, and like, that was something that I found with L. West, cause that's how L. West wrote. And it was like the heart. It was the most difficult thing for me. Cause you've got a bass player, like trying to figure out a baseline for a track. You got the drummer sitting there like diddling on drums. And then you got a guitar player like playing stuff. Everybody's playing different things and my head just wants to explode. So with still motions, it's always been file sharing thing. And like,
I would say like sometimes Chris, our other guitar player will come over to like I'm here in my home office slash studio. He'll come over and we'll sit here and we'll write together, but like in a recording process, like everything that we write gets recorded. So, you know, from there, we'll ship it around. So I'll send it to Dave, our bass player in Virginia. He'll track bass to it. We'll send it to our drummer. He'll write drums to it, send it back. Now we've got a full blown.
Mitch Barnett (40:13.822)
Recorded demo ready to go and we can just go into the studio and like Revise that in the studio. Yeah kind of see what happens when you get in there for sure and stuff changes for sure Like it's never the demos are never the finished product You know, I've got I still have all the demos for the first record and if you listen back to both of them combined like it's like They're very different. Yeah yeah, well any work of art has to start somewhere and
Grow right for sure. You know, it just doesn't come out fully made. Yeah, definitely in regards to song titles for Instrumentals, that's obviously something that either gets done with no thought or with lots of thought. Yeah, how does it work for you? for still motions, it's funny cuz like I'm on the opposite end of like with the
band names, I'm just kind of like, oh yeah, take like whatever sounds good and like whatever sticks, you know. With song titles though, there has to be a connection for me. Like, I can't just like name a song some something like super random. So I guess like with the first record with mirrors, mirrors was kind of like, that whole record was like a reflection of past, like experiences past like traumas that it was.
like each song had its own place in like therapy for me. It was like working through like certain past experiences or traumas of my life to where actually like writing the song was like the therapy to that specific moment of my life. So the song titles are, you know, based around that story, if you will. Right. Synthesis was...
It came from a very different place. It came from COVID basically, right? Like it was a multitude of things. Like I had just lost my 12 year career at the time. And like, the world was going up in flames. And like, you know, we had some band members lose some family members during COVID. And it was definitely came from a darker place.
Mitch Barnett (42:27.882)
So, I mean, I think that whole record just kind of really like focused on grief and getting through it and like finding the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah. Um, and the songs, you know, all kind of, it kind of tells our, that record kind of tells our story of like the progression through that period of time, each song kind of like starting with welcome oblivion. That was the very first song I wrote. Like after I lost, I literally wrote that the day after I lost my job. I woke up the next morning.
came and sat in my studio and it just came out. Like I just, it just, I recorded the whole track and it was done. Wow. And then from there, like each song just kind of like progresses through the storyline, if you will, of that period of time. And yeah, it's, I think it kind of like represents it pretty perfectly and just like the progression of grief and mourning and just getting yourself through it and you know, finding the light at the end of the tunnel, finding the good and...
any moment that you're, you know, dealing with, whether it's good or bad and just really having to fight through. Well, it's funny you have. That's not funny. But I mean, here's a piece of music that comes out of some dark times. But at least for me and I think for others as well, it's there's an uplifting part in the music you all make. And that's one of the things.
You know, that I like about it and that kind of, uh, you know, the song titles, if you know, sort of make you think, um, like I looked up one of them, which I didn't really know, um, and maybe it's got a lot of different, um, definitions, but I think it's agnosia or agnosia. And, um, and the, and there's a few different medical, um, definitions for it, but one of them is the inability.
to process sensory information. And, you know, that's a pretty heavy line. So. For sure. Yeah. And I mean, that song, and that definition does kind of like perfectly sum up that track to me too. Cause if you listen to the track, it just kind of like, there's a lot of movement in it, but it's a lot of the same part and it just builds and it builds into this like.
Mitch Barnett (44:53.17)
you almost lose all sense of like, sensory like throughout the track. Cause it's like, I don't know what the fuck is going on anymore. You know, it just like continuously builds onto one part and like more starts coming in and like it just, it gets, it gets kind of crazy and wild towards the end, but yeah, it's a, that song was really just like, you know, losing your sense of like sensory. I felt like throughout, throughout that period of time, throughout COVID and like with everything going on.
in the world, but everything going on even within the band, you know, like I said, there was a lot of, a lot of loss within the band during that period of time. And it was one of those things to where like, you're in isolation. You don't know up from down, right? You don't know left from right. Like everything's dark. Like it's just, you know, you just lose all sense of the world really at that point and it's, you kind of lose your grasp on reality and it's, it was just kind of telling that story.
Yeah, that was definitely the story. It was an odd time for sure. It was. Yeah. Um, what's, uh, what's next? Um, new music wise for you. Yeah, it's interesting. Cause when we wrote Synthesis, I wrote probably like 35, 40 songs, like during that period of time, like during COVID, cause I just had nothing else to do. I was like, cool. I'm just going to write music.
So Synthesis was actually originally supposed to be like part one of two. We were getting ready to go right back into the studio. Like before Synthesis even released, we were scheduled to go into the studio to record part two. And like, it just didn't really feel right to me. It felt like this, like the story was kind of complete. I didn't really feel like lingering on it any longer at that point, if that makes sense.
Like just kind of trying to move on from all of that, that time. Some of the songs will probably hit the next record. There's a few songs that were still, you know, that are pretty much finished. We just need to go into the studio and record them. And then we're continuously writing too. We're still working on some new stuff, but we've got, you know, we've got a record where we're just, it's just about, you know, finding the time to get into the studio. So we're going to probably be doing that here pretty soon. Next record will.
Mitch Barnett (47:18.286)
Likely come in 2024. I would say it kind of all depends on the, the big, the big variation in time really comes down to the vinyl pressing. I'm a person that like hates long pre-order times. So like, if I have, if I see like one of my favorite bands releasing a record and they're like, Oh, the records out, but the vinyl is not going to be out for a year. Like that doesn't make sense to me. I want it to all come out at the same time. So
Like Synthesis was actually finished and fully like fully ready to go. Probably seven months before it came out because we were waiting on the vinyl. I would say we're going to, we'll, we'll track the record probably like end of first quarter, hopefully 24 and then the rest will be up to how long it takes to get the vinyl pressed. Okay. So, and vinyl's been a, a big part of sales for you or? Uh, the, the biggest.
The biggest part of sales. Yeah. It's, uh, so we were signed to the label for mirrors. They didn't, they weren't pressing a lot of vinyl for their artists at the time. I think just because like they hadn't really sold many previously. So they told us like, we're not going to, we're not picking up the tab on that. You know, if you want to do it, it's on you. And I said, that's fine. Like I'm going to do it anyways. So we did it. Uh, we got some help from some European distributors.
You know, on the cost, they helped like cover some of the costs. We pressed a hundred initially, cause I had no idea what was going to happen. It was the first record and I was just like, yeah, we'll see what happens. So we pressed a hundred cause that was like the minimum and I put up the pre-order and we were 80% sold out by the day the record released and then the day the record released the rest sold. Like I immediately placed an order for a second pressing and put up a pre-order at that point.
Cause like vinyl turnaround times at that point were way quicker. It was like two months at the time. So it wasn't like a long wait whatsoever. We put up the pre-order and the pre-order sold out in like two or three days or something like that. We didn't press anymore. We just did those 200, but yeah. So, I mean, that was a huge opportunity for us to, you know, make back costs on recording and everything like that. Cause it was, you know, selling vinyl for 25 bucks that costs.
Mitch Barnett (49:41.742)
12 bucks, you know, we're making 12, 13 bucks a record. You sell 200 records. It's a good amount of money. Right. And then the second record with synthesis, post recordings, press the vinyl. Like they, they covered the cost for pressing and we pressed, we up to 300 for the initial pressing for, for mirrors. So, or for synthesis. So, but yeah, it's always, it's always a good way to, to recuperate costs of recording and
anything else that goes in. I mean, it was like, you know, recordings, not cheap, masterings, not cheap. So any way to make some money back on any of that is always a plus. And so there's considerations with recording time with how long the music is, right? As far as putting it on an album and then deciding what quality of vinyl you're gonna use. What is your process there as far as what you use and time-wise? So ultimately to like...
to guarantee that. So, I mean, you can always press a double vinyl, but that's just ridiculously expensive. I always just try and keep it to one, which is really about like 35, 40 minutes, depending of music, which I think is plenty for a record. Like I honestly couldn't tell you that I would sit down and listen to a record longer than 35 or 40 minutes straight through. It's kind of my, like my mental capacity. So like...
I stick with that when I record and just keep to one, you know, one vinyl. So when we're writing, it's usually about like five or six songs, depending on how long the songs are. So that's kind of where, like why we keep to both, both records we've released, I think have been six songs. So we kind of just keep to that platform. Yeah, I think when the whole CD thing came out and you were able to put all this music on, a lot of music that shouldn't have been on.
maybe recorded, right? Ended up just because you could, you know? Yeah. And, uh, you know, I grew up, I grew up in the seventies, all those records, all those great records. I mean, it did seem like kind of just the perfect amount of time. Yeah. Um, you know, you get through one, you flip it over, you get through the other and you have all these great songs and, um, for sure, you know, depending on who it was, there'd be filler, but, you know. Yeah. And that's my thing is like, I never, I never really want to, I never want to have like
Mitch Barnett (52:06.286)
filler on a record. You know, like every track that I'm going to put onto a record is going to have its place and like have significance to me. It may be filler to somebody else. Somebody else may think it's a filler track, but like that song is on the record for a reason to me. Yeah. You know? So. Well, cool. I think that'll do it. I really appreciate the time. You know, I'm talking back about the names of post-rock bands. I live in the San Luis Obispo area.
And I came across this brewery and they're called There Does Not Exist. I like that. And it's like, man, is this a post-rock brewery? You know, and I just I just found him. I haven't been over there, but I see they do some live music. So we'll have to have a big, you know, post-rock concert over there. So nice. That would be awesome. Let me know. I love I love beer. The last the last restaurant group that I was with was a was a craft beer bar. It was like
31 taps, craft food, like all scratch made food in house. Oh, nice. We were getting ready to open a brewery before COVID hit and then we lost the location that was gonna be the brewery. But yeah, I'm a big beer drinker. So yeah, would definitely love to come out and check it out. All right. Cool. I'll look into it. Yeah, let's make it happen. All right, man. Thanks a lot. All right.
I really appreciate the time. Absolutely, yeah. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. You got it. Thanks for listening to the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. Let me know what you think of it and who you'd like to hear featured on the podcast. Hit the follow button to be notified about the next episode and check us out on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube by searching the Instrumentals of Rock podcast. See you next time.