Mu (Fat Freddy's Drop)

Mu

... like Daniel Best from Sonar Kollective. He was the first person to discover a tune we did called "Midnight Marauders."

Tony Nwachukwu

Came out in 2003, right?

Mu

Yeah. A good friend of ours. We were close. Used to live in Detroit he fell in love with a girl and moved to New Zealand, set himself up there, but was still selling records and doing well in the rest of the world. When he went off to do a European tour, I gave him... Sent him off with 10 copies of "Midnight Marauders" and he just handed them out. Then, when he was in Germany, got the record to Daniel Best, from Best Seven and Sonar, and they loved the fusion of soul and reggae, and that’s kind of where it started for us outside of New Zealand.

Tony Nwachukwu

Cool. The bottom line is you must be knackered. You must be tired.

Mu

Yeah. I mean...

Tony Nwachukwu

It’s basically been full on for you guys since 2001, right? Especially for yourself, because I think... From what I can see... From what I’ve read, it seems a kind of consistent... Being in the studio, live gigs, doing these kind of small EPs and making this album. It's taken 18 months to make this album. Is your head clear at the moment?

Mu

Well it’s good being here, because I’ve managed to escape the studio, escape... I have a family. Get a break from that for a bit. Yeah, that’s kind of life at the moment is if I’m not at the studio then we're on the road with nine of us on the road, travelling, trying to push the record around across the world.

Tony Nwachukwu

Gosh. From 2001, was the beach at your studio... Has that pretty much been the HQ for Fat Freddy's Drop since then?

Mu

Yeah, out of seven of us in the band, I’ve always been the one with the most interest in the studio side of it, and I’ve slowly, over the last five years, built up a nice little home studio situated underneath a house. I’m lucky to live in a beautiful spot in Wellington which is from here to the wall is the water, the sea, and our studio looks out over the water. We didn’t really want to go to some sort of bigger, flashier studio and record our stuff. We wanted to... One, learn about the recording process, two maintain the control of it and three just sort of take our time.

I’ve been throwing all my money and my energy into making sure we’ve got enough gear in my basement to take care of all our recording.

Tony Nwachukwu

Sure. Apart from doing the studio thing and the live gigs, is that pretty much your bag in terms of how you’re living, how you kind of manage yourself and the band?

Mu

Yeah. I’ve kind of been working slowly towards how to be a professional engineer or musician, and that’s only been the last couple of years I’ve managed to get that situation to happen where all I’m doing is music and that’s mainly focused around Fat Freddy's Drop.

Tony Nwachukwu

So in terms of the making of your album, it took 18 months and it was a reflection of your live shows, you were saying?

Mu

I think it took 18 months because we were on the road a lot.

Tony Nwachukwu

So how did it work?

Mu

In certain initial periods we would just jam along, record the jams and then unfortunately get interrupted by having to get on the road again. We were touring and when we came back we started where we left off. So it was a wee bit sporadic at first and interrupted in the first half of the 18 months and then we decided in the later part of that we’ve got to sit down and nail it. We basically got sick of getting harassed by the New Zealand public, as to where the album was. We had to push on and get it finished.

Tony Nwachukwu

But it must be a good feeling then, knowing that you’re wanted.

Mu

Yeah, yeah. I mean, New Zealand is a small place, so the word gets back to you pretty easily and pretty quickly when people want something.

Tony Nwachukwu

Sure. Something I thought was really, really good was the fact that, in terms of your newer members of the band, that they’re actually members per se. A lot of bands, for example, have core members and they might introduce a drummer or a keyboard player when it comes to writing the album or performing live or whatever, but you guys pretty much kept evolving, in terms of your band member structure. I think that’s quite a unique thing. Has that always been your policy to kind of introduce...

Mu

Yeah. I think it’s an unwritten policy with us that every person that’s involved with our music project is very much an equal member of the project, both creatively and financially and I think that’s a really important part of and why we’ve lasted this long, and why hopefully we will continue to maintain the vibe, because everybody that’s involved feels like they’re in there and has something to contribute to the project. I think that the longevity of the band will definitely be reflected by that policy, I think.

Tony Nwachukwu

Oh, I would definitely agree with that. I guess there’s one thing to be said about being on stage and having that kind of improvisational approach to being on stage and making music, but at some point decisions need to be made, particularly when it comes to making the studio album. I guess you’re the person in the band who has to... Because you’re the producer, I guess. Somebody has to kind of steer the reins in some respect.

Mu

Yeah. I think that’s why the album took so long to make. We’re born on the stage. That’s kind of where we came from, and having to learn to write music and arrangements that were restricted to shorter lengths, was quite a tough process for us as a band to learn how to do. When we were writing the album, we went down many roads and had to retract and come back, and we’re just trying to find a process... It’s mainly just trying to find a process that suited a band that was pretty much just a live improv band coming up with appropriate length arrangements for an album. That was probably why it took a long time to do.

How it worked in the studio with having to make tough decisions is I was definitely steering the production and the studio and the engineering side of the album, but it pretty much came down to... Because we’re a democratic band, it pretty much came down to whoever was prepared to stay in the studio the longest pretty much got their idea in there. The whole process for us is trying to include everybody in the band, everybody’s ideas, everybody’s melodies, everybody’s arrangements, and it was kind of like one of those competitions where you’re at a radio station. You’ve got to keep your hand on the car, and you win the car, whoever keeps their hand on there the longest. Someone who’s there like four days later, that’s kind of how things happened. Just very natural, but if you’re stubborn and you stay in the studio and you’re there at five in the morning then you’ve got a better chance of your idea getting into the finals.

Tony Nwachukwu

But have you got an unfair advantage, because...

Mu

Yeah, I’ve got an... Yeah. I can disappear, go upstairs, have a sleep, and come back.

Tony Nwachukwu

What was the most challenging track on your album to actually put together? We’ll listen to it a bit later, but...

Mu

I found the whole thing quite challenging. The songs, the ones that were quite hard were the ones that went off the most live, which really had no live, were the hardest ones to produce for the record. Tracks like "Wandering Eye" that just had such a live feel. Like I said, trying to find that process of trying to maintain that live vibe within a record, those were kind of the hard ones.

The most fun ones were tracks like "Ray Ray" which I’ll play a bit later on, which is probably a wee bit more from where I’m from, and the fact that it was completely constructed in the computer in Pro Tools and the MPC and being able to sit in front of the computer for days tinkering away.

Tony Nwachukwu

Is that the one in the MPC?

Mu

No. I’ve got a version of it in the MPC and I’ve got a... Yeah.

Tony Nwachukwu

OK. Should we hear that?

Mu

Yeah, if we have it.

(music: Fat Freddy’s Drop - “Ray Ray” / applause)

Tony Nwachukwu

So you can’t tell me that half of New Zealand’s music industry isn’t sniffing at you and trying to sign you.

Mu

Yeah, we’ve had different major labels in New Zealand sniffing around on our live gigs for a long time, but with the music that we’re running we are trying to bring something sufficient to the business side as well and being independent to us is incredibly important.

Tony Nwachukwu

Why is that?

Mu

For many reasons, but the main two is to have complete control of how we are perceived in the public and how we do things. And secondly, within New Zealand it just doesn’t make sense to sign to a label, when we’ve done all the ground work, we’ve played lots of live gigs, people know who we are, why would we give away 75% of the cash to a major label that wastes money spending money on bad marketing budgets, bad video ideas? There is no point. Where we get to see a very big chunk of all the music that we sell. So the maths doesn’t make sense to go to a major label. Make that money and keep it, you know?

Tony Nwachukwu

So, in terms of infrastructure, are you responsible for the business side as well?

Mu

Yeah, my partner Nicole, who lives out with us at the beach, she is the business manager for The Drop, which is a little company which is essentially myself and her who manages all the financial business dealings to do with Fat Freddy’s Drop. I kind of run the gigs and the bookings and that side of things and my partner runs the checkbook.

Tony Nwachukwu

As women should, as it’s much better than to spend it on equipment or something. In terms of being independent in New Zealand, obviously you developed some kind of partnerships with other companies in different countries, can you go into how that’s been for you? Say, your connection with Sonar Kollektiv licensing the album.

Mu

We decided not to give it away to one person outside of New Zealand and Australia. The Drop takes care of New Zealand and Australia, we have an English manager who set up a little label just to look after the record in England called Kartel, this guy called Charlie Welsh.

Tony Nwachukwu

How did you hook up with him?

Mu

He was dealing with another label back in New Zealand called Loop Recordings, who were doing a lot of electronic stuff and kind of on our tours through the UK met him and kind of thought that he’d be a good person to hook up with. We’ve kind of been, as far as distribution and hooking up with other labels, we’ve kind of been very much sort of dipping our feet kind of approach. We’d hook up with someone and like in the guest territories, we’ve gone with Sonar Kollective. The Kartel is kind of managing the UK, and the rest of Europe, and we’re currently looking for someone in Japan and trying to talk to some people here in the States, but trying more of an approach of not having one person looking after the rest of all, mainly for the reason that if it all tends to ship with that one person then we are rooted, so it is probably better for us to have someone taking... Like if the people in Germany screw it up for Germany then it is not screwed up for anyone else, and we just want to keep our eggs in many baskets. Kind of share the risk.

Tony Nwachukwu

So far, has this been fruitful?

Mu

I suppose that’s where we’re at at the moment. It is looking good, but we’re at a stage in the Fat Freddy's career where we are trying to sell records outside of New Zealand, so that’s where we are right now, in the middle of that. For us that means just constantly touring at this point just Europe and the UK.

Tony Nwachukwu

How many tours have you had in Europe?

Mu

We have done four, which is quite a big deal for us, because, one, that is 17,000 miles away from New Zealand, and our live shows are fairly produced and fairly high tech, so we have to travel with our own sound engineer. We have seven people in the band, we have managers, so that’s at least nine on the road. The band’s not a young band. Half of the band have got kids and families, and at some point in a two- or three-month tour you have to bring over your partner and your kid at some point.

Tony Nwachukwu

I didn’t know that part. Bottom line, in terms of earning a living and maintaining the band, it’s all about the live shows, right?

Mu

Yeah.

Tony Nwachukwu

So it’s like... it must be a challenge.

Mu

Yeah, when the live shows are very... We’ve traveled from New Zealand to the UK. Actually four times now, and the last tour was the only one that broke even, so we are looking from here on to hopefully start making money out of touring. We do very well in New Zealand. We can tour and play and make really good money in Australia and New Zealand, but we have to because we’re pretty much just throwing it all at the touring outside of those territories, because we are still slowly getting the name, but it’s not enough of a name to draw big fees to cover the travel of nine people.

Tony Nwachukwu

I mean, in this day and age it is surprising to have a band of three or four people, who aren't Top 40 or whatever. So is that your goal to kind of be pop stars?

Mu

No, we don’t want to be pop stars. I think there’s different tiers of business in the music business and obviously the top level is where they’re making a lot of stupid money. But I think there’s a level where you can maintain some integrity and just make good music and still make nine-minute, ten-minute tracks and hopefully sell enough CDs to make a bit of a living. We just want to sit in there, maybe the higher end of that is the aim, I think. I think we would be kidding ourselves if we expect to become pop stars. Maybe the lead singer would might take off and... [laughs]

Tony Nwachukwu

...do some R&B.

Mu

Yeah, do some R&B.

Tony Nwachukwu

I see your brain was just going somewhere right now.

Mu

[laughs] I just want to know where our lead singer is right now.

Tony Nwachukwu

So currently, apart from the album coming out, the album did quite well. I know it went double-platinum in New Zealand, you won a whole leap of awards, didn’t you?

Mu

Yeah, we kicked up a bit of a ruckus in New Zealand. A few months ago we were asked at the start of the new year to be involved in the local main music awards for New Zealand. Actually, we were thinking initially that we don’t want to get involved with that rubbish, it’s all mainstream. It’s just not us. And then we changed our mind ‘cause I think that we’re in a position to hopefully change things in the music scene in New Zealand. Wouldn’t it be a just a wee bit stubborn and negative to do that? So we decided to go. We thought we might win one or two awards, but we were up for four and it would be good to go there and fly the flag for independent music, take off with a few awards and that’s what happened. We snuck in there and won four, two of the main awards and that was very rare. I can’t think of any other bands in recent history that were independent, not signed to a major, and to pick up some awards.

Tony Nwachukwu

Do you have to stand there and receive this award?

Mu

Yeah, we had to get up and...

Tony Nwachukwu

Did you have to dress up? Or did you just wear Fat Freddy's t-shirts?

Mu

We were looking pretty motley. We just kind of got up and... We didn’t even really have any plans for any speeches... Yeah, we just maintained our kind of low key vibe. We were humble and took our awards, and walked off stage.

Tony Nwachukwu

In terms of being at awards, for you it’s all about the beach where you’re at, your HQ, to be in a place where you’re surrounded with industry people who you loathe, so to speak, how did you feel being at that award it’s obviously got accolades, and it’s good to get accolades, but the bottom line, the industry is very much not where you want to be in terms of the whole major label thing?

Mu

Not really, but I think even globally I think the business model for the music industry is all changing, and I think we can be of help to ourselves and we can be a help to the people that are coming up and using the music industry to help get things changed. I mean, it’s all, for many reasons, changing with the availability of the music via the net and all that is changing. I think we owe it to ourselves and to other people to get in there and encourage change in the music industry. That is the whole reason for us to even accept our nominations for those awards recently, was to try and get in there and make it easier for more independent people to make music and get it out there, and not get ripped off and signed by major labels, you know?

Tony Nwachukwu

So the net has helped you a lot, you would say?

Mu

It’s definitely helped us, not directly financially, but as far as getting our music out there to the rest of the world, because New Zealand’s a long way away. I think for small countries like New Zealand that are on the other side of the world, they’re the people that the net helps the most, I think, with getting their music out there.

Tony Nwachukwu

So, what’s next for you? Are you working on a new album?

Mu

Yeah, I think I get back to New Zealand, I’m home for two weeks, and then we head off to... We just got a real short quick tour of places like Hamburg, Germany, most of Germany, through to the UK. Seven gigs in a row, and then we come back to New Zealand after that and we’ll be in New Zealand until the next European summer.

Throughout the period we’ll start to work on the new album, and I think for us working on the new album is drawing up some new samples on the MPC, and having a bit of a jam on stage and trying to write some new songs. We kind of write our songs on the stage. Just a simple idea, a simple melody, and then hopefully three or four gigs later it has started to turn into a bit of a tune. The first few times it will probably be a flop, but that’s cool. We’ll do that process for our summer. We’ll workshop tunes live. We have a pretty busy tour back home, so plenty of time to workshop some tunes, and then once we’ve done that we’ll probably come back to the studio and start turning them into the second album.

Tony Nwachukwu

Did you record... Obviously you record all of your live shows.

Mu

Yeah, we would travel with our live front of house engineer. He has a laptop out front and records it all.

Tony Nwachukwu

Do you use that information, that audio, for the actual studio album, or do you...?

Mu

It’s more of a reference, but it’s definitely not unheard of that there might be a little breakdown in the middle of a show where it’s just down to a couple of instruments, and they become a loop that’s a part of the track for sure.

Tony Nwachukwu

Will there ever be a three-and-a-half minute tune by Fat Freddy’s Drop?

Mu

Not by us. I think we have to give the parts to someone else to do a radio edit. I think we can’t just write anything less than four, five minutes.

Tony Nwachukwu

Is that “can’t” or “won’t”?

Mu

A bit of both. I mean, that track that I just played before has four main sections and a bit of an outro jam, but it started with eight main sections ‘cause you got seven or eight people involved in the writing process. Like I said earlier, whoever hangs around the longest on that night in the studio and during the mix-down is going to get their section in there.

Tony Nwachukwu

And in terms of trying to get a creative perspective on a track, is there any tips and tricks you want to share with us? In terms of getting your snare drum in there or getting your bass melody in there.

Mu

Yeah. I mean, like you said earlier, I have the advantage of living there, so when everyone takes off, I change everything and when they come back in the morning they hopefully don’t notice too much.

Tony Nwachukwu

So, seven heads in the studio making music must be quite a challenge at some times?

Mu

Yeah, it’s not always pretty. In that process of doing this album were many tears. But that’s just a good thing, I think. Out of those tears come some good decisions. You just have to get through that process of confrontation to get to what you really need to have on the tune.

Tony Nwachukwu

What would you say would be the thing that was the most thought about in terms of direction and... Was it more of the direction thing or...?

Mu

Yeah, it’s more... Usually those difficult moments come quite early in the piece as to where the direction of the tune should be going. Once we’ve all had our fight and we’ve decided to go down this particular route and style for this tune, we usually lock in around the same page. It’s usually stylistic or a vibe kinda of argument early on as to where the tune should go. Once we sort that out then it’s usually pretty straight forward.

Tony Nwachukwu

In recordings is it kinda of like...

Mu

There’s plenty of outtakes.

Tony Nwachukwu

You said you had something on the MPC.

Mu

Maybe I’m just gonna illustrate... to explain, when we play live we don’t have a drummer or a bass player. It’s all... the rhythms and the basslines usually start from here from the MPC and over the top maybe a three piece horn section, trumpet, saxophone, trombone, electric and acoustic guitar [played by] the same person, a singer and a keyboard player. And I just want to simply illustrate how we play live [prepares the MPC].

(music: slow arpeggiated sequence from Fat Freddy's Drop – “Midnight Marauders”)

... on the other eight channels that I have on the disk, I should take a feed from every mic on stage and... That’s really just... I don’t mix the band on stage, I just take every mic just so I can access their lines for doing echoes and delays and reverbs. What I’m sending back to the front house engineer is three lines, will be left and right from my mixer then a separate fixing. The mono fixing which is the delays only. I’ll go mental onstage with the delays. The front house engineers actually have fun bouncing it up. He’ll decide that I just got too mental and pull my channel out, or if it’s working then he’ll bring it out. I’m sure half the time he’s got it down.

Tony Nwachukwu

I guess you go mental, you go mental quite a lot?

Mu

Yeah. It’s... Hopefully you’ll get to see a Fat Freddy's show at some point. I think at this point is what we’re best at, is playing live. We’re part way there with the album of making those... Saying the process of trying to become a... Make that transition being a live band to a studio recording was very hard. We’ve got part way there with this album and we’ve... I think the best is yet to come. I think... We’re starting a slightly different process for the next album.

Tony Nwachukwu

What was the most challenging thing about trying to get the live, live on the album?

Mu

When you... We did things in a weird... we’ve done everything in a strange order. We’ve become a very popular live band and then we’re trying to turn those into a record, whereas normally, people write a great tune and then they develop, they turn into a great live show. We’ve done it the other way around. It’s hard when you’ve written something onstage and you play it to people and it goes off in a room where there’s 300 or whether it’s 2,000 just rocking to your live show. Then you get in the studio and write a tune... It's just not the same, you know. a lot of changes.

Yeah. It’s just not the same. It’s not the same as being eight people in the studio listening to the monitors and playing live in front of 2,000 people and rocking houses. Trying to make that transition has always been quite hard. It’s just the vibe, it’s not the same in the studio as it is onstage for sure.

Tony Nwachukwu

Then, wouldn’t it be about trying to capture some of that, including some of the improvised recordings from the live...?

Mu

I think... That’s what I was saying, I think the process for the next album may be a wee bit different. Nothing’s set at the moment we’ve all... Since we’ve done this album I think all the people in the band, we’re all in agreeance that the next album should be more recorded in a more old school approach. With us all playing at the same time and actually writing arrangements that are a little bit shorter and just playing them. Then, taking the best take and doing a little bit of multi-track and studio manipulation later. Essentially at the heart of it is a live take by everybody. We’ll definitely explore those processes in the next album for sure.

Tony Nwachukwu

Do you think they’ll be... The MPC always be the master beat or do you think you’ll...?

Mu

Yeah, I think... Definitely for the live show, I think that gives us our club edge. Find that we can go into a dirty little 250 people club with a big PA and do that kind of night, two in the morning set. Or we can do the lovely four in the afternoon festival set. We can... got our bases covered and... also acts for me as a bit of a point of difference that we have from other people is that we don’t have a rhythm section, a live rhythm section. It is in effect that bass lines and the beats are locked down. The changes and the different colors actually come more melodically and they come from the rest the band as opposed to the accent being on fill changes and... With the effects and the beat and stuff does move around a few but it doesn’t get too boring with the MPC. Hopefully I’ll think of what other use to keep things interesting with the MPC.

Tony Nwachukwu

Did you have any situation where the MPC has been a bit naughty?

Mu

I’ve been lucky. It’s been a few years since I’ve had the MPC freeze on me in the middle of a set. It hasn’t happened recently. It’s actually the only thing I get nervous about, and I still get nervous about before a gig, is not performing in front of people or stuffing up, but actually the MPC freezing on me is my only nightmare that I have. But that’s why I use the MPC, it’s solid, it just never lets me down. Probably like five times in my whole career with Fat Freddy’s Drop.

Tony Nwachukwu

And you’ve always created music with the MPC?

Mu

My main tools... Obviously, live is the MPC and I’ve worked in Pro Tools for a long time. But we had a conversation the other day... I’ve reached the point where I’ve been doing production for a long time and I’ve always managed to hide from MIDI. And I’m at a point where I bought some software synths the other day and sort of delve into that world. But up to this point, I have always been programming on the MPC and export it into Pro Tools as audio, because when you’re dealing with six musicians, it’s always performance-based and dealing with audio. Definitely a lot of editing and cutting up, but cutting up real audio as opposed to MIDI.

Tony Nwachukwu

Sure. Obviously, that will bring a different writing approach in terms of using plug-ins or whatever. It’ll be a good one, trust me. It’ll be alright.

Mu

I think... Essentially, I will maintain the MPC and audio in Pro Tools side of things but [to] incorporate the MIDI as an extra factor will definitely be useful, I think.

Tony Nwachukwu

Do you use much outboard in the studio?

Mu

I mainly work in the box, mainly mix inside the computer, but that’s all about to change. I have got many plug-ins, my front end on Pro Tools is pretty good, I’ve got some really nice mic pre's, some very nice mics and hire in a couple of good compressors and use Apogee converters, so essentially what’s going into Pro Tools is pretty good. So I feel confident and all the mixing can kind of stay in the box.

Tony Nwachukwu

This is good because I mean, you know, earlier you said that, you know, you basically learned as you went along, right? You know, you’re already saying things like an Apogee compressor. You’ve obviously done some research in terms of what equipment to use, what’s best out there, you know.

Mu

Yeah, yeah. I mean, before, pre-Fat Freddy's Drop, I’ve kind of, I’ve been... I’ve always been, I’ve worked in other studios before. I’ve kind of set up mine here where I worked in a very flush studio in Wellington and had access to good gear and, yeah. I’ve always been interesting in finding out how to record things really well. That’s kind of my world, really.

Tony Nwachukwu

Definitely shows on the album, I’ll tell you. Sounds amazing.

Mu

Cheers.

Tony Nwachukwu

So... A studio Mu or the live Mu?

Mu

That’s a constant battle. That’s the Fat Freddy’s Drop battle. Hopefully, for the next album we work out how to capture a bit of both, a bit of good studio accuracy, as well as a loose live vibe.

Tony Nwachukwu

Has anyone got any questions?

Audience Member

Yeah. I got two. I got two questions. First is just about the name, Fat Freddy’s Drop. Is it named after the Furry Freak Brothers?

Mu

That’s kind of what we tell people.

Audience Member

OK.

Mu

But I feel comfortable in telling you the truth. I’m sure they made it everywhere else in the world, but back in the day there was some acid, some LSD that came out to New Zealand called Fat Freddy’s, and that was probably the best and the strongest acid that I’ve... I don’t take acid anymore. This was a long time ago. Myself and Toby, he’s probably hiding over there somewhere. He might not have been involved in this. Me and the singer, I definitely took some, these trips. The very first version of a track called “Hope,” we did came off the back of a two or three day session on these Fat Freddy’s. That was the first thing we’d ever done, and we didn’t have a name, we were just tinkering around in our pretty basic studio at that point.

We gave it to the local radio station because they had... It was the 21st birthday of one of the local student stations in New Zealand and they wanted a track, and we gave them this track, and it was pretty cool. They said, "What’s your name?" We don’t have a name, so we just kind of... We just called it Fat Freddy’s. That’s kind of stuck. The aim was definitely to lose that name and come up with a proper name, but it just never went away. [laughter] We just tell the press, because we kind of don’t want to push that whole drug thing with that music. We just tell the press, yeah, it’s the Furry Freak Brothers.

Audience Member

Probably the name for the acid came from the Furry Freak Brothers.

Mu

Yeah, yeah, totally. Indirectly, it’s the truth.

Audience Member

My second question was about when you perform live with the MPC. Do you usually load one file with different drum kits and stuff, or do you load several files in a row?

Mu

Each song will have its own program. I can normally fit half the set on one load, so it’ll be five tunes and five different kits and five different sequencers. I’ll mainly be reloading half way through our set. Usually, there is one song that we use during our set, which is called “Roady”, and we start with a very kind of jammy horn acapella while I’m reloading.

Audience Member

Since you have such a large group of people with the band traveling around, have you ever had a phase where you say, “OK, for now people are busy, so we only play with part of the band,” or you just turn down the show or tour if not everyone can do it?

Mu

We pretty staunchly stick to the seven-piece and that’s kind of, we can’t do it, then we can’t do it. Yeah, it’s funny. That’s the norm, but unfortunately, we’re about to head to Europe again just for a short trip, and one of our horn players can’t make it, so he’s going to miss the first gig or two. That’s kind of the first time that this has happened. Yeah, pretty much staunchly stick to the seven-piece, and that’s that.

Tony Nwachukwu

You’re drafting someone in for that or you just kind of have the...

Mu

We’re just try and wing it without, yeah.

Tony Nwachukwu

Killer, OK.

Mu

It definitely won’t be the same. It’ll be something different, it’ll be something cool. We kind of stick to that whole band or nothing. It’s quite hard to articulate why. There is some sort of freaky live magic that exists when we’re all playing, and there’s no point in trying to do it without anyone here.

Audience Member

Did musicians find it hard in the studio, if they are so used to play live, to vibe off of each other? Are people going in on their own or did you try and keep it that there’s a couple of people playing each time?

Mu

Initially, we started off very much quite separately. We would have the basic rhythm track in Pro Tools and a couple of horns would come in and do their parts and then the vocalists would come in on another day and they would do their part, guitars and all. Initially, it was quite separate. We found later on that it didn’t really had as much vibe. So we kind of went around in circles. We started off like that and then come back and get all the horns on a couple of occasions to come back and stand in front of one mic and just play together. It was a good thing that we have our own studio so we could experiment and work out what works best. But initially, it was a lot of stuff done separately having to come back and build it together.

Tony Nwachukwu

Is there a track that you are most proud of?

Mu

I’m pretty proud of the whole album, to be honest, I think, yeah. That’s, um... That’s not perfect, none of it. You’ve always got to leave room. That’s the whole thing about making music, is there’s always room for improvement. If you ran out of room for improvement, then you might as well do something else. I’ve always put into context that this is where my, our, skills are at this point and this is what we’ve produced and that’s cool. Move on, learn new lessons and look to improve. Generally, I’m pretty proud of it, of everything we’ve done so far.

Tony Nwachukwu

And when you listen to the album now, you know, when you walk into supermarkets in New Zealand or Tesco’s in London when it’s playing in the background, what kind of thoughts go through your mind?

Mu

It makes us proud. Especially back home, we are kind of like the cafe kings back home. If you go in a cafe in a major city in New Zealand, it’s usually the first album with only four tracks that play for 80 minutes. But those are usually pretty proud moments... Yeah, it’s great. I mean, we always wanted to maintain some underground integrity, but at the same time we’re making music for people to hear it and for it be heard, either way that’s great.

Tony Nwachukwu

It’s hard trying to strike that balance. On one hand it’s good that people hear good music, especially in this day and age, at the same time I think it’s interesting that this whole idea of being underground in terms of perspective and what you’re trying to achieve, I think it shouldn’t be underground, it should definitely be overground.

Mu

I mean, what’s underground and what’s mainstream at the moment, I’m pretty sure it exists outside of New Zealand as well, it’s just so much rubbish on the charts. That’s just what people are fed, so that is what people know. And if you’re in a position to push good music into people that don’t know otherwise, then that’s got to be healthy. Because the masses are just getting fed rubbish and if you are in a position to feed them something that’s a wee bit different, a wee bit better, then that’s got to be good.

Tony Nwachukwu

But the fact that you had a number one, isn’t it quite possible that Fat Freddy’s Drop could be mainstream? In the sense of sales and in terms of profile, not necessarily music taste...

Mu

If that’s the case, then that’ll be great, I reckon. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if we didn’t have to change the music that we’re making. Certainly, we’re reaching out for those sales back in New Zealand, they’re up there, I think. When I left New Zealand to come here, the album was just selling over 40,000 records. In a country as small as New Zealand, that’s pretty great.

Tony Nwachukwu

All from the beach, all privately distributed, that’s great.

Mu

For a country our size it’s huge and it won’t stop. It will keep on going, I think.

Tony Nwachukwu

To every household in the nation...

Mu

To every cafe, yeah.

Participant

I was going to ask a question, you mentioned before about your mics, you got really good mics. Can you tell us a little bit about your mics? Are certain mics that are more specific for recording vocals and ones for recording a horn section? Tell us a bit about that side of things...

Mu

I auditioned quite a lot of mics pre writing the album and tried a lot of classic stuff, like a Neumann U87 tried some AKG 44 mics and I unfortunately couldn’t get my hands on a U47, which would have been cool. In the end as the main vocal mic I went for a company called Blue Microphones and they make the most top end non-tube mic, which is called the Kiwi.

Tony Nwachukwu

Is that a bit of an irony there ‘cause it’s called “Kiwi”?

Mu

It’s a total coincidence. Blue Microphones is a company that I think is Latvian, they used to make the capsules for Neumann back in the day. They went off and set up their own company and they had all these fruity names for their range of mics and this one happened to be called Kiwi. That’s what sounded best to me. And then in the end, just ‘cause it’s a home studio, we used the Kiwi on a lot of the album. If I had resources and would have the money, I probably would have gone for the horns... I would have used ribbon mics. But unfortunately there’s not a lot of places where you can just go and hire flash mics. You can buy them, but you can’t hire that stuff outside. I found one really good condenser and had to use it on most things.

Tony Nwachukwu

And where did you record mostly, in the basement?

Mu

Yeah, it’s one bedroom bed set with a lounge, a separate bedroom and a kitchen upstairs and I turned the bedroom into the recording booth and the lounge into the control room, closed the door and pushed record. Everything in there, from drums to horns. We use the MPC for the live show, but a lot of drums and live bass did make it onto the record.

Participant

I just wanted to ask... On the way over here on the plane from New Zealand in the back they had all the audio channels that you can listen to on the headphones and stuff and channel 15 was Fat Freddy’s Drop. So basically, they had a whole bunch of the album, some of the old stuff, some exclusive stuff and “related” kind of Fat Freddy’s Drop tunes. I was just wanted to ask you if you make a lot of money through the licensing and if it’s one of your financial outlets ‘cause there’s heaps of compilations with tracks on them. I just wonder if that’s a really viable option in terms of trying to make some money.

Mu

I’m not too sure. I could be wrong but I think, because it’s public performance and the airline paid their APRA – in New Zealand it’s called APRA, who look after collecting money for artists – I think maybe they’re just allowed to do that.

Tony Nwachukwu

Are you guys published?

Mu

No, we haven’t got a publishing deal, but we almost signed a publishing deal, an administration publishing deal, just to get us through the next couple of years before we sign to a major.

Tony Nwachukwu

And that would be an equal split as well in terms of writing?

Mu

Yeah, for sure. I think it’s important that everyone remains freely down the middle for everyone to keep their credit.

Tony Nwachukwu

Sure, that’s very admirable in these times. I’d like to hear something else, actually. [to audience] You wanna hear something else?

Would you say that you’re a superstar?

Mu

What’s that?

Tony Nwachukwu

A superstar.

Mu

I’m fairly well known in New Zealand.

Tony Nwachukwu

So when you’re walking around in the street, people know who you are?

Mu

It is getting a bit strange like that. People are starting to recognise me down the supermarket Only because we put our first video out not that long ago... We feature quite heavily in the video and the video is getting quite major play on TV back at home.

This is one of my favourite tunes on the album that noone seems to have really found.

(music: Fat Freddy’s Drop - “Del Fuego” / applause)

That’s the more sensitive side of Fat Freddy’s Drop.

Tony Nwachukwu

[laughs] Can you talk us through how this was put together?

Mu

That was actually a really a fun track to work on in the studio. We kind of constructed it and wrote it in the studio, but it was one of the few tunes that was big, long takes. A lot of comping and editing was involved in the vocals on the album, taking little bits here and there from all different takes. Whereas the vocal on that track was pretty much from start to finish. The bass was the same and the horns with a little bit of construction with the beats, pretty much everyone played from start to finish.

Tony Nwachukwu

And it was all done within Pro Tools?

Mu

Yeah, that was all done in Pro Tools.

Tony Nwachukwu

You’ve got a really warm sound for using Pro Tools. What kind of plug-ins did you use for the compression?

Mu

My main... I used the Sony Oxford plug-in, they got a great EQ and presets. That’s one of my main plug-ins I use with a little bit of some of the mastering stuff from Waves, the C4 and the L2. I have two lots of plug-ins that I bought. I’ve got a laptop and I’ve got thousands of dollars worth of cracked plug-ins on, but in the studio I use a fairly clean G5 with stuff I bought, that’s just Sony and Waves.

Tony Nwachukwu

And for the dubby delay, what do you tend to use for that?

Mu

I either use tape delay echos like the Roland Triple 5s or the 501.

Tony Nwachukwu

You got one of those?

Mu

Yeah, I’ve got one of each. Just a quickie, which is a good trick I can [recommend] is using Digi Design delay, which sounds pretty terrible, but on the return channel, if you slap on some amplitude or some filthy filter, it kind of makes the sound a wee bit more like a tape delay.

Tony Nwachukwu

That’ll make it a bit more coarse and a bit more like analog. OK, killer.

Audience Member

I was going to ask about the song writing process. How does Dallas approach that and is it just his own thing or does everyone have a hand in it and does he work out something before hand? Or does he hear the music and then it comes from there? How does that work?

Mu

He usually comes, the lyrics are totally his thing, he writes the lyrics. He’s usually inspired by a jam with the band, we’ll come up with some new jam and that’ll set some new tone or some new vibe and then he’ll sit there in the corner of the room with a pen and paper while we’re jamming and write some lyrics. Then, it’s just to-ing and fro-ing and he’ll find a chorus, find a find and then suggest some changes in the music just to suit the lyrics he’s just written. It’s all pretty natural. He usually comes off the back of the music, the music’s usually first.

Audience Member

Would you say that your lives shows have changed since releasing the album in terms of that, a lot of the people touring England have heard the album and they want to hear the tracks from the album. Would you say your live sets, the songs are actually finishing now instead of doing the 30 minute roll over into the next track? Have you found it’s changed?

Mu

Yeah, it’s definitely had to change a wee bit to cater for... In New Zealand now we’ve started, that CD when I played earlier from, Live at the Matterhorn, was 20, 30 people on a Sunday night all probably stoned and drinking whiskey. Now, in New Zealand, when we’re doing shows in town halls to quite big numbers, you kind of, you feel like you have to give the set a wee bit more shape than we used to, that’s the down side of getting popular within New Zealand having to... But still having to, the songs are still, they’ve gone from being 30 to 40 minutes down to 15 to 20 minutes. We’ve made some compromise there.

Unfortunately, what we used to do a lot is, just the other day I came up with a really cool sample I found at home on a record and Don Love put a kick and snare to it and played it that night with the band. Unfortunately that doesn’t get to happen as much because people want to hear some of the songs. It’s a bit sad. Yes, it has changed a wee bit.

Tony Nwachukwu

What’s the track that people keep on asking for?

Mu

People always ask for “Hope” and “Midnight Marauders” and we very seldom play them. That’s kind of us just being stubborn. They’re songs that we’re kind of done with, we didn’t put them on the album and... It’s very much maintained a bit of an attitude and it’s also our music and we’ll play what we want to play at the time and “Midnight Marauders” and “Hope” are songs that we kind of done and dusted a few years ago. We’re happy to release them on compilations but not happy to play them anymore. Usually if a gig goes off, especially overseas, and it rocks, we use them as encore tunes, “Midnight Marauders”, but they’re definitely not on the set these days.

Tony Nwachukwu

How does it work, seven people doing an encore? Do you all go off and come back on, or do you hide behind the instruments?

Mu

Yeah, we all just get off and we don’t look to do an encore, but if it’s there, then we’ll do it.

Audience Member

I wanted to ask if there was anything else in the pipeline aside from Fat Freddy’s Drop? You know, remixes or any...

Mu

Yeah, there’s a bunch of remixes coming out soon that other people have done for us. I don’t know if it’ll get to the point where I can get back into the studio doing some non Fat Freddy’s Drop stuff other than being remixes of other people. Other than just taking a break, we’re trying to fit it all in really, it’s just time really. Outside of family, Fat Freddy’s Drop, there’s not that much time really. Definitely trying to.

Tony Nwachukwu

Have you got a routine to the way you’re trying to combine family life with studio life and Fat Freddy’s Drop?

Mu

I’ve designed my life, because I’ve got the studio downstairs and I’ve got a fairly good work ethic and work long hours. Because I work from home, my daughter’s six and she probably gets to see her dad more often than most kids. I do a 10-hour day, or eight-hour day everyday that might take 15 hours to do. I’ll go downstairs, do some work, come back upstairs, hang out with my kid for a bit. Go back downstairs, do another couple of hours. The important times I need to be with my daughter, I am. When she goes to bed at 6:30 or 7 and I get out of the studio at midnight. By the end of the day, I’ve done an eight hour day.

Tony Nwachukwu

Has she ever got to go down to the basement?

Mu

Yeah, she’s got some, her and all the neighborhood kids have made into Pro Tools, many, many a time.

Tony Nwachukwu

Have you found any other up-and-coming Kiwis?

Mu

Yeah, there’s a bunch of good stuff coming to really look out for. A lot of really good singers to look out for. Some of the people that were involved on our album just as guest musos... A good rapper by the name of Lady Six, I think we might be involved next year in giving her a hand to put out an album.

Tony Nwachukwu

Is that going to coming out on The Drop maybe?

Mu

Yeah, maybe. The Drop has never really had the intention of being a label, it’s been a small business set up to run the matters for Fat Freddy’s Drop. But there’s kind of a need for a label to happen down under just to help people to put out some stuff. ‘Cause there’s a lot of single artists or bands that don’t have good vocalists and they need a bit of help.

Tony Nwachukwu

And obviously, they’re going to look up to you ‘cause you definitely changed things in New Zealand in lots of ways.

Mu

It’s good to have been part of a changing era. It feels like in New Zealand a lot of change is happening in the music industry at the moment and it feels good to be involved in that.

Coming back to that, I wanted to play a remix. This is a friend, talking about up-and-coming people, this is a producer in New Zealand who I rate [as] probably one of the best in the country. I play a quick snippet of the track that he has remixed so you can see where it’s going.

(music: Fat Freddy’s Drop – “Wandering Eye”)

(music: Fat Freddy’s Drop – “Wandering Eye” (Submariner Remix))

Mu

This guy made a great album with a Samoan rapper in New Zealand by the name of Kas, his performance name is the Feelstyle. I don’t know whether their album was available outside of New Zealand, but the album did really well in New Zealand. He raps both in English and in Samoan.

Tony Nwachukwu

What’s the name of the artist?

Mu

This guy [points to record playing], is named Submariner and the rapper is called Kas, the Feelstyle.

Tony Nwachukwu

Nice man, thanks for sharing that. Is that going to be out soon?

Mu

Our next single that’ll be coming out in the UK will be the album version and that remix.

Tony Nwachukwu

Is that going to be available in New Zealand as well?

Mu

Yeah, that’ll be available hopefully everywhere. In New Zealand we’ll have to import it.

Tony Nwachukwu

Why is that?

Mu

Just because singles are obviously a good way of pushing sales for an album and we don’t need much help in New Zealand. The single idea is an English initiative, they’ll bring out a 12" with the album version along a remix.

Tony Nwachukwu

OK, so that’ll be some eBay fodder for the Fat Freddy's fans at home. I was going to ask you, what is the story behind the album getting mastered in San Fran[cisco]?

Mu

In New Zealand everything is very DIY. There’s a lot of people like us, just bedroom producers who do stuff at home in the basement. That’s fine but there’s no one with the experience and all the gear to master records. On our side of the world, generally I reckon, certainly there’s no one in New Zealand. People would argue that there’s someone in Australia, I would tend to disagree [laughs]. I wouldn’t trust my record with anyone in Australia [laughter]. So I went on a plane and went to San Francisco. This friend of mine was living in San Fran quite a long time ago and he was working in a record shop and also working for a label and he put together a compilation and he suggested using this guy George Horn. He is quite a famous old-school kind of engineer, he goes right back with Fantasy Studios with a very long history and he engineered jazz, soul, funk and been around since the ‘70s. He used to master – not so much anymore – but he used to master a lot of the Ubiquity stuff. I just kind of thought he is an appropriate masterer to use just because he is dealing with both DJ records and live instrument records and we are a little bit like that. So stylistically we just thought, let’s give it a go... he did “Midnight Marauders” way back in the day and did a great job. So we thought, we’ll go back to this guy, because he’s going to be better than anyone in New Zealand.

Tony Nwachukwu

And how has that whole experience been for you being in the mastering room with someone who is mastering your guys’ baby?

Mu

It was good. He’s an old guy, he’s really old... well, not really old, but he kind of walks with a limp and he looks like as if he’s about 70, 80. This old guy’s sitting behind his console [mimes knob twiddling] and puts a DAT on and just cranks it right up, sitting there with a volume that was probably too loud for me. And he’s just this little guy hiding behind his console going, “Does that sound good?” “Yeah, sounds great.”

Tony Nwachukwu

Do you think it made a big difference to the record?

Mu

Yeah, for sure. He just had the experience of knowing what frequencies to tickle and what to compress. Basically, he just gave it a good squash and turned it up. He was good, he didn’t want to change too much, he just wanted to get a hold of the bottom end and make sure it wasn’t too loose and pretty much leave it as it was. That was a good experience. I mean, I didn’t want to get too involved and ask too many questions. Had it been a situation where I wasn’t liking what he was hearing different I would’ve jumped in the air and said something, but it sounded great so I left it to him. But I needed to get to someone outside of New Zealand, someone that had analog gear. It was an album that was essentially digitally recorded and I just felt it needed to have it pass something at some point on the way out that was analog.

Tony Nwachukwu

Most definitely. And did you master back to DAT again?

Mu

Yeah, he set two DAT players through an old Scully console, not too much outboard, most of it was just the EQ on the console and the only modern thing that he had was a limiter, the hardware version of the L2.

Tony Nwachukwu

The Waves thing?

Mu

Yeah, the Waves L2 was the only kind of modern part of the chain.

Tony Nwachukwu

So you were a very happy man on the way back from San Fran, I guess.

Mu

Yeah, it was cool. I was listening to it on my iPod on the way back flicking through the newly mastered record and other stuff on my iPod and it all sounded good.

Tony Nwachukwu

Is that something you will always definitely do in the future, always master your record outside of New Zealand?

Mu

Yeah. It’s more than just the gear, it’s the experience. I don’t feel that I necessarily have to go back to George, but I think you got to go somewhere where the person who is mastering the record, he or she is of reasonable age and has been doing this for a while and has the ears and has the gear. Both of those things don’t exist in New Zealand. I mean, I have really been enjoying the mastering the Sonar Kollektiv people get all their stuff mastered at, a place called Calyx.

Tony Nwachukwu

It’s in Berlin, isn’t it?

Mu

Yeah, by a guy called Bo Kondren. Personally, I would feel happy to jump on a plane again to Germany as opposed to America, but it’s just got to go somewhere where someone has got the ears to do it, really. But I’ve been enjoying their mastering a lot lately.

Tony Nwachukwu

Do you think this is something that you ought to add to your list of experiences and things you want to get into, the whole mastering thing?

Mu

Eventually, I wouldn’t mind. I kind of do a lot of mastering for people in New Zealand just inside Pro Tools at home, just for people that don’t have [the possibility]. I think I don’t have the gear and the experience but I have an ear for mastering and the feeling for mastering and I end up doing it a fair bit for compilations at home ‘cause a lot of people don’t have the resources, or mainly the money, to get it done properly. People come to me and ask me, “Can you master the single for me so I can get on radio?”, I say to them that I can probably give a hand but usually suggest to them that they should go to a proper mastering house and get it done. But it’s usually pretty obvious very quickly that they don’t have the money to do it and I just squash it and turn it up for them, so it’s got a good level. Eventually, to do it properly with outboard gear would be definitely something I would like to do later for sure.

Tony Nwachukwu

It’s about building up the analog roster, I guess. Is there any kind of equipment that you are after at the moment?

Mu

I really want to buy an analog console. Trident have just put out this new desk called the Dream Series. I definitely want to get more analog on it, move a wee bit out of the box. Actually, I just sat here on the Friday night and listened to – who was it? Mathew Jonson – who does music just in his computer and I was listening to his music and it was huge, it was fat, and just because he didn’t mix it within the computer. I wouldn’t mind going down that road. Maybe using Pro Tools is the way to record things, but definitely get it out of the box and get it onto a desk. You know, mix and go straight to DAT and get it out the computer. And the way Mathew mixes down, it was quite interesting, the whole chain. I have got a Rosetta 800 [by] Apogee and AD-DA conversion on the front end of Pro Tools so I can get in and out quite easily and quite high-end. I’ll be restricted to eight outs but it’ll work. I just have four stereo pairs and the main elements coming back through the desk.

Tony Nwachukwu

Just to get that warm kind of finish. [to participants] Has anyone got any other questions? There’s a quote I read, and I really like this, it says, “Take your time and be confident with your decisions. Confidence is based on research and thought. Don’t want to make too many mistakes.”

Mu

Where’s that from [laughs]? I mean, that’s how we are trying to live our lives. In this business making music it’s just so hectic and so busy, you haven’t got time to make too many mistakes. I think it’s better to take your time and research it all and having all the options, be that being creative in the studio or be that from a business point of view, just take your time. It worked for us many times. Like I said earlier, we had lots of major labels sniffing around and trying to tie us to go down this particular road. And at first on the surface it looks like this is a great deal, we should do this, and we should go down this road. And every time we haven’t done that and stuck do our guns and gone our own way, and six months later down the road we look at that option had we done that, it would have all turned to shit. That’s probably what I was trying to say there. Just back yourself and your decisions and take the time to think about it. You got to back yourself.

Tony Nwachukwu

Mu, thank you very much indeed.

[applause]