Na Band: Looked Upon, Interview pt 2
May. 20 2008
Our editor Ricky Alcantar interviews Jeremy White and Devon Kauflin about the Na Band release “Looked Upon.” Jeremy is the album’s producer, and Devon the lead vocalist and band leader.
The second half of their interview covers the production process, songwriting, what happens when you record past midnight, and a mullet wig. (Read the first part here) Get a free track or buy the whole album.
[Photo L to R: Devon, Danny Mays (keys), Jeremy]
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Ricky: I’ve heard the production of the album was a little…”unorthodox”…true? What makes the production on this album unique?
Jeremy: I guess it is unorthodox for a worship album. When we started talking about the project, Devo and I both decided we wanted an organic album. I listened to lots of 70’s folk and rock for production ideas. We decided that warmth and tone were going to be more important than how crisp and clean things sounded. So we used some old equipment from the 70’s, 80’s, and earlier. The results are some pretty rich sounds—but lots of hiss and noise. We also recorded some of the parts outside of the studio—for instance the guitars for “What Mystery” were recorded in the pastor’s college library at around midnight. If you listen to that track you can hear the wood floors and space.
Devon: I love to sing hymns. They communicate the old, old story in a way that makes you think about it. It’s hard to just gloss over what’s being said in a hymn. They don’t take language lightly.
Ricky: Can you give us a window into what the process for creating the album was like?
Jeremy: Here’s a breakdown of a typical song…
-Devo would record a guitar and vocal scratch track and send it to me in San Diego.
-I would decide which direction to take the song and how to arrange it.
-Devo and I would bounce the song back and forth and refine the ideas.
-Devo would get the track to his band so they could learn the parts and think about how to improve on them,
-Then I flew out to Maryland to record. The band would come in and take the parts I wrote and bring life to them—they would interpret and shine them up, add fills and give suggestions for what might sound better.
-Many times the musicians would come up with ideas not in the original arrangement. Like the Rhodes at the end of “thy way not mine.” That part came to Danny around 3 a.m. and we deliriously recorded it. It made it onto the album.
-I went to Australia and for 5 weeks in the middle of project and edited the album on my laptop in my wife’s pink childhood room,
-Then I flew to MD to record the second half of the album,
-Then back to San Diego to mix, and LA to master.
Ricky: Many of the songs you and Jordan wrote for this album used old lyrics. Why did you decide to work with dead co-writers like Isaac Watts?
Devon: Because they are way better writers than I am. It was actually mainly my songs that used old lyrics. My brother Jordan did, and does a great job of taking ideas behind hymns and communicating them in a new way (like “Ransomed,” “All I Have Is Christ”).
Also, I love to sing hymns. They communicate the old, old story in a way that makes you think about it. It’s hard to just gloss over what’s being said in a hymn. They don’t take language lightly. I want to learn from them and I’ve found the best way for me to do that is participate with them. What I’ve sought to do is simply remind people of the truths in these hymns by making them more accessible and sing-able. I want these words to still serve the church after I die. I pray that people would continue to re-arrange these hymns and other hymns that these songs might serve the church for many more years to come.
Ricky: Any good stories of shenanigans during the making of the album?
Jeremy: Plenty. The first thing Devon and I did when I arrived in Maryland was go to Wal-Mart and buy a bunch of random things to put in the studio, like the Mullet wig we tried to make Jordan drum in. I think he wore it for one song.
One night around 12:30 Matt Wahl, Kyle Martineau and I set up some large speakers in the men’s bathroom and ran two microphones on each end of the bathroom, and then blasted the drum tracks for “God Over All” into the bathroom and recorded them back into the studio. I then took all the noisey bathroom tile reverb drums and smashed them in a distressor/compressor. It’s a noisy track—you can hear the air conditioning in your left speaker. (Hear the reverb-ed out drum sound) But I think it added a really cool effect to the song. Kyle and Matt left halfway through and I cleaned up till 2 a.m. I am still a little bitter about that.
Devon: It was a crazy time recording the album, but one story sticks out to me the most. We were able to use the Steinway Grand Piano in the auditorium of Covenant Life Church for our piano tracks. It’s a beautiful instrument and we blocked off an evening to knock them out. Right after we got everything set-up and ready to go, Danny, our pianist, went backstage for a moment and discovered what was essentially a waterfall cascading down from above the ceiling of the backstage area. There was a large collection of water in the room up above and it poured down. Needless to say we weren’t able to record any piano for the next few hours. We ended up getting back in at about 12 a.m. and recorded the tracks until 3 a.m. The funniest part was that much later in the process as we were mixing the album we discovered a few quirks generated because of this mishap. In one song you could hear a facility guy talking in the background. On “Nail My Glory” if you listen very, very closely at the end of the song you can hear the security alarm going off. It was definitely an adventure.
Ricky: How would you guys describe each other and your relationship?
Devon: We knew each other through high school, but definitely didn’t roll in the same crowds. Going into this I had no idea how we were going to work together, but I was optimistic. He easily exceeded my expectations. We were able to work closely throughout the whole process and he quickly became a good friend. I especially appreciate his humility, as he was aware that this was very much a learning process for the both of us, and the way he stretched me as an individual to work hard musically. I have much respect for him.
Jeremy: Devo and I went to highschool together. We were not friends. He was the jock who liked country music, and I was the kid who would walk the hallways with a closed mouth full of water, and spit it out at random times and try to scare people. Those two kinds of people don’t often mesh.
So when we started the project together there were some questions as to how well we would work together. The long and short of it is that we are great friends now. I have tons of respect for Devo and his love for the Lord and how he cares for his wife. Despite his only shoes being 4 pairs of the same color Timberlands, we found that we had plenty in common.
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Get a free track or buy the whole album.
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