Alright, Tom, what's up man? We're on the show, welcome. Hey Brian, great to be here mate, great to be here. I'm glad to have you. Kintala, your group with, is it Shay, right? Shay that you play with? Yeah, you guys just released an EP. We decided to call it, you know, before we talk, because it's in that gray area, seven songs, where does it fit? But an EP called Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost.
I want to congratulate you on it and let you know too that I've been listening to it a bit and played it a couple of times today as well. getting ready for this and it's good stuff, man. It sounds great. Nice production, nice sound quality and vibe to it and cool songs. So glad to get to talk to you today about Thank you. Yeah, Excited to talk about it, to be honest. Excited to meet you, you know, and just chat. Happy to.
Yeah. Nice. So I think one of the cool things about what you're doing with Shea is that you're doing it all. You're doing everything. So you guys really started from the beginning here. And I wanted you to just kind of tell us about that. Cause I know there's a lot of people listening that are doing the same thing or maybe feel like they need more before they can start. And I think what you guys did sounds like a great story of just diving in and doing it. Yeah, that's it. Literally.
God, it's been a really long process. Like we started kind of writing songs before we went to university. And it was before we kind of knew anything about production, anything about how to, know, music, not classically trained, like we had very limited experience apart from the fact that we like music and we like to share music between us. We like to share bands, kind of like, you know, go to as many gigs as we possibly could.
And we always had this intention, kind of like, in dream of, you know, just like performing music, writing music. we didn't, I don't think even the production aspects kind of like entered our minds because it was always the case, you know, you pay someone else to do it, know, someone else will do it. we've had so many like cases where we had half decent songs, but recorded them in like an hour in the studio and like rushed through and they just sound really crap at the end of the day.
So it took us a long time. We've had so many songs, we've written so many songs together. We were writing songs together before we were even friends. think we'd exchanged three words before we started writing songs, which was pretty cool. I guess to let the music speak for itself. One of the tracks, Ocean Blues, which is the last track on the EP, we wrote that probably about 10 years ago. And we wrote it in about 30 minutes, just with a guitar.
And Shea just put the melody down and I wrote the lyrics. Lyrics pretty much stayed the same in those 10 years. then we just kind of left it that. I think we did a demo on Garage Band, just with the drummer on Garage Band. It still sounds pretty good today, but obviously I'm biased. And then we just laid it there and we were just like, right, we'll come back to this. maybe sometime, if we can get a record. We were young, we'll get a record deal with the demos.
We'll send them off to record labels in Manchester and then we'll go to a professional recording studio and record it like the Pans do. And then I think it just, we live kind of got in the way a little bit, not in a bad way. But life kind of takes hold, doesn't it? Uni ended and we started working. We had to deal with the fact that obviously your dreams don't always become the reality and you have to graft for it.
You have to put in the hard work and it can be a slog, but an enjoyable one at that. I think it, so we released a couple of songs a few years ago and during COVID, which I'm sure a lot of artists can... They've probably been through similar experiences themselves where they had a lot of time on their hands and I just got Ableton Lite. I got myself a Focusrite and I just plugged it in and just that was it really. You know, I just laid down a couple of chords.
You know, we'd already always been kind of like throwing ideas to each other, but never really gave ourselves much of a time much time. before COVID. Just laid down a track, it's called Swallow. It's one of our earlier songs. And that just kind of ignited something in the both of us. You again, it was terribly, terribly recorded, the initial guitar. I think I set the game way too high and I didn't even really understand what an EQ was. So I was using EQ three.
on Ableton light and I was like, okay, this is weird. It doesn't really do much. It can do, it does a lot of things, but it doesn't make it sound good. So yeah, and then I sent it to him and that was the first song that we produced together. And when we released it, there's so many different aspects to the song that have to be right for it to work. But in the production, I'd say it's probably a four out of 10, but It set something off in us, yeah, definitely.
And Ocean Blues, I think, is like a testament to kind of like the process, know, the long process it's taken. That for me is a, you I love that song and I love that. look very proud of the production aspect of it. Yeah, it's a banger and quite happy with it, to be honest. Yeah, I guess I kind of showed you guys that you can do it. You know, if you just try and put yourself into it, that it can be done.
yeah, like, if you realize things later, like, yeah, you're not supposed to turn it up all the way into the red and distort everything on the way in. That's sometimes you need to just do that to learn. You need to understand why. And, that'll teach you real fast. That's it. That's it. It's like, you know, what are luffs?
That's something that just never, never entered my, you know, my, my realm of kind of like music and crazy music and, you know, just these little features, they all have to come together as like a little jigsaw piece. I see it as like a jigsaw piece and you've almost got a checklist of things you need to, you need to, you know, to know.
But fundamentally, you know, I think swallow is a Testaments are ocean blazes a good substance that and the production obviously matters But the core of it is like the the song the you know that the intent and I think that you know, they're two good songs quite proud Hmm. You said something earlier that I can relate to that like the production didn't even occur to you guys kind of when you were first starting out. And when I first started out, I was like cassette tape machines and stuff.
And never thought about that, like microphone placement, how far it was actually the earliest recordings were on one of those like cassette tape machines that have a speaker built in and they're kind of just meant for like recording meetings or something. And yeah, I know it's so funny, right? Like I wish I still had mine.
I would record on those things and with a friend of mine and we would listen back and like some of the songs sounded like far away and weak and distant and some of them were like ferocious and we loved the ferocious sound but we didn't know why you know we didn't understand but that's that was some of the first things that got you thinking like it matters how we do this there's a whole other thing
And then I think once you start realizing that, then you start hearing all these terms, EQs, compressors, reverbs, and all these new things to you. You start to think like it all has to happen in a production. But sometimes when you just go in before you even know about that stuff, you kind of just do the simple stuff, which is really 90 % of it is getting really good at that simple stuff. Sounds like you guys went through that a bit as well. yeah, totally.
my technique, you know, back just before we kind of started recording stuff ourselves was especially when just taking the guitar out was I just slap a load of reverb on it and I automatically think, you know, it sounds a bit better. But you know, obviously that's stylistic, but the same thing occurs when, you know, I first time mixing, I was like, right, I'm just gonna slap as much reverb on this. Even on my, you know, bass drum, it's like, it just sounds, it sounds shit. Right.
you get you kind of get when you don't know what to look out for, you can kind of get just lost in in the mix. I find it very difficult to find your way out. And I feel now kind of more you know, a lot more comfortable if actually just saying right here are the ingredients that go into it. Here are the things you need to just keep an eye on. But like you said, that's kind of like the final layer, the components of the song. what really make it.
But what I find really, like what I love about mixing is finding components of a song whilst mixing. know, whilst in the session, you know, when you've got a bit of creative space and you've got a couple of hours and you can just go, right, okay, I'm going to be creative with the actual software and the instruments and I use the mixing software to actually, the DAW to write the song, to help write the song at least. Yeah, and that's it.
it's sometimes it's hard as well because we don't live close together. We share little pieces with each other. Google Drive is our go -to, just like sending stuff at late at night and then just kind of building it together. But I think that even with those small kind of light features, it can grow organically and it does grow organically, so it works. How did you guys meet then? Because you said you've spoken like three words to each other and you started writing music together.
Yeah, so we, let me think. So I had, I was in a band when we were like 15, 16. And then I had some, and I was just a guitarist and I could never comprehend singing or, you know, just doing vocals in front of people. And we weren't great, but we had, we were great, sorry, we had some great musicians in the But I think as a whole we didn't work. I could barely play guitar. I'd been playing it for like three months or something like that. So I probably didn't contribute in the best way.
Especially live. We had songs that were like eight minutes. But we didn't know when they ended. So we just kept going. Yeah, it was worth it. Anyway, it was all about doing pies at six form, stuff like that. The opportunities of that. And then I... kind of that fizzled out and I wrote some songs. I was quite happy with them. It was the first time I'd written some songs. Very kind of like stylistically kind of bands from the UK at the time, especially in the North of England.
Art of Unkeys were kind of like biggest inspiration of that. The Rascals, Libertines obviously down south, but they were kind of like the biggest inspiration. And just contacted someone who, a friend of ours, who was setting up some gigs and I was like, hey, Ben, do you want to come around and play some music to my house? And I'd never met him before. He came around, we shared some ideas and we clicked. And then this guy, Ben, was like, I know another musician.
He plays the keys and he could play bass. And this guy was Shay. So we started our first band, which was Don't Start Fires. We were not a protest group. We were a band. And that was me, Ben, Deccan, Shay. yeah, we like, before university, we played together for about a year and it was really good. We kind of played a lot of gigs around the Northwest of England. And then we went to uni and it fizzled out and I'm still friends with all of them.
But me and Shay kept talking about music and I kept... writing little bits and bobs here and there. And then from that, yeah, just culminated during COVID, I think I just needed a bit of a kind of escape, like a creative escape. I was always someone who was very creative when I was little. Visually, I used to love drawing, but I really just lost that. I fell out completely out touch with during school and then music became my thing but I was very late into the game.
You know, I've got a brother who's classically trained as a guitarist. He's a whiz kid. My stepdad's really talented as well. But I came very late. I think I was kind of like instinctively just said to myself, you know, you're never going to be good. So, you know, just keep it simple. Don't try. You know, I guess you can excuse yourself, but I just procrastinating a little And then, yeah, with Shay, we just kept chipping away at it ever so much.
And then COVID, just think came and I needed that release, I needed that escape. And that's when music, like production just hit me straight in the face. And I've not looked back since. Hmm. Yeah, that's cool that you guys met kind of like through a chance meeting. Like it sounds like even the person you were first hanging out with was pretty new to you too, right?
You guys said you got together and just started playing and it takes some guts and it's, but it's a great way to meet people, you know? But that's of, you meet people on a different level when you play music with them. You kind of, you learn a lot about their personality too. There's a lot of things that translate, it's, you know, it's worth it just to find other people. Like sometimes you got to reach outside your normal circle and just see what happens with others.
Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head there. There's like a soulful connection, I find. When it works, if you go into a session and you're frustrated and you're bent up and you feel annoyed about something, people feel it. In the way that you obviously, you have mannerisms and things like that, but you feel it, but when it clicks. And that's one thing that I definitely... we're definitely working on is kind of like that.
Because there's only two of us and it's the first time we've been in a situation where, I think there's a lot of interest in us doing live shows. We get venues reaching out to us and asking us and we get promoters pushing us and we want to make sure that we do it and we do it really well, but with two. That's challenge that we're willing to to overcome, I And we're working on overcoming. But when it's the two of us, that connection's even more important, I guess. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah. Cause if it's say there are three or four, you can kind of move around a little bit. You can. And that's the flip. It's the roll of the dice, I think. Because we know with the two of us, we've got it right. You add in more people and it might make it even better. And that's brilliant. I love that. But if, you know, in the worst case, and I'm not a pessimist, but in the worst case, it changes the dynamic. It changes it in a different way.
And I wonder if, you know, maybe we should roll the dice on that. Hmm. Well, I guess you can always go back to two, right? But it, it's interesting. I've been in, guess, bands from, you know, just two people to maybe like five is about the biggest I think I've ever really played in. And when you have two or three people in a band, there's only one conversation going on at a time. Like if it's you and me, we're just talking. If there's another person there, we're all involved.
But as soon as there's a fourth and a fifth, now there can be like two different conversations going on, two different kind of things happening. And sometimes that can get tricky, whether it's even just like paying attention, like, come on guys, let's go. You where does those, where'd those two guys go? You know, those types of things happen. But, you're right. Like it's, it's a big change and it also.
as far as just like availability, you said before life gets in the way and every new person you add in like makes it a hundred percent harder to find common times and you know, ways to actually do it together. That's it as well like conceptually, can tell there is two people. Like we made it, we created it and it's a sense of ownership. Do you wanna give your baby away or do you wanna split your baby in three?
And that's, I'm willing to have that conversation, but also, it's hard to say, it's hard to give things up, especially when they're so dear to your heart. And it might make it more productive, then conceptually, does it work? Will you speak of the same things? you, you, you're stat, you're stylistically, will you maintain kind of like what you want? But then, you know, I guess you can, you can benefit from that. People, people bring in ideas, don't they?
give, they bring in, you know, they bring in new, new things. And, you know, I'm not, not, not fearful of that, but it's certainly something that, especially when we think about doing live stuff, we need to address, which is something I look forward Hmm. Yeah, it's tricky because it changes and playing styles, personality styles, everything will change a little bit. And I think the most important thing is actually the relationships. You know, as I've been doing this longer and longer.
When those are good, the music can be good. When they're not, it's much harder to have the good music. And even if the music is good, it's hard to enjoy it when the relationships aren't working. And there are, mean, a lot of people can play well, you know, so finding somebody that plays well is almost easier than finding somebody you can get along with. At least for me, it seems to be that way. But, I guess, yeah, the ideal thing is when you get those two in line, then, then, you know, you win.
Then it's, then it's an easy choice to expand. And it's like the inner -sphere relationship obviously is like the most important thing. But then the outer -sphere as well, like the people with the inputs on the outside, those relationships are often shifting, especially when you're an independent artist. And if they're, it's sometimes quite challenged to align them all in the direction that you wanna go.
Especially when it's like personal relationships, but then also kind of like the industry relationships. you need to have positive ones. And I think as an independent artist, coming up to the release of this EP, you always want to navigate it in a way that is going to be beneficial to you or to us as artists, but also is going to safeguard who you are, what you are. We've heard so many stories. of bands kind of like selling themselves out to labels.
That's not how things work these days, you know, because major labels aren't, know, signing as many artists as they used to. especially when it comes to like publishing companies and things like that and social media, it kind of forces you or, know, it can have an impact on the artists that you want to be. So I feel like we're quite, hopefully quite sensible. about the relationships that we have.
And I feel like that may be something that, it the surest fire way of getting the most commercial success? I don't think so. But is it a way to kind of like keep the heart and soul of what this is? I think that's certainly something I'm proud Yeah, that's more, you know, maybe you can make a few sacrifices and changes here and there, you know, and get some short -term success, pretending to be something else or acting like something else.
But in the long game, it's probably best to stick to, you know, especially if have a clear vision of what you want to really like focus in on that and cultivate that over time. because, yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to get known for something that you don't want to be known for kind of, you know, something is one thing's expected of you. know, meanwhile, you have a totally different idea, but. know, things today too, are so come and go, you know, every.
nothing seems to stick around too long. And I think that kind of works in a lot of people's advantage too, where it's a little bit easier to reinvent yourself. Yeah, that's Yeah, I think that coming from the North West of England, bands like Oasis, Stone Roses, The Smiths, everybody's trying to, I feel like there's a very certain expectation of what an indie band should be from the amazing cultural significance of those bands.
And if you're not a four piece and you're not playing kind of traditional kind of like indie guitar music, then you're not going to get the kind of commercial, let's say, spotlight as the next band. And I think that that has been something that has been really interesting to see, you know, because we did, you know, we come from the Northwest. We're a duo. We don't play kind of like traditional two guitars, bass, drum set. We experiment a bit with ambient tones.
There's quite a bit of electronic production in there as well. And it's not kind of like your quintessential indie music. And that's no discredit to those other bands. They do. they deserve the spotlight, they deserve the commercial success. But at the same time, it's a challenge for us because I feel like because of that, the relationships are harder to build. You see what I mean? But then you don't want to compromise on who you are, I guess. Mm -hmm.
Well, I guess there's already a scene there, so you could decide to try to fit into the scene, but if that's not what you're doing. You know, sometimes within scenes though, there's a bit of room where you can be like kind of the odd balls, like at the show, you know, where you can, the sound you guys have, I think is still close enough to rock band kind of stuff that you might be like maybe the, the mellow act in between some of these other things, the more like experimental kind of thing.
And that could be a breath of fresh air at a show that has one of the same thing after another. Sometimes just like embracing that difference is the strength too. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally embrace the difference. It's not something that we set out to be different by any means, but I feel like it's just an expression, like an honest expression of what we want. I often think to myself, what is the type of music that I want to listen to? And obviously that varies day to day, hour by hour.
But I feel like there's a consistency across the Kintyre tracks, certainly the ones on the EP. where it's like, that's the type of music that I would want to listen to in my kind of like best case scenario. You know, obviously I'm biased and I don't listen to my own music. It's hard to sometimes, right? But if I said, yeah, that's true. Yeah. You hear it all the way through and you know what went into every single thing. So yeah, that's one of the curses of making your own music.
that's a good point. Yeah, I'd love to be able to... It's great to hear... Sorry, to see people hear it for the first time. That's nice. And, you know, it's sometimes hard to disconnect, you know, the pride that you've got into the project and obviously some levels of bias as well, but also a lot of kind of like inherent self -criticism. think I'm very hypercritical of myself. Shea is as well. That is probably a good thing in terms of the actual music itself.
But man, I, you know, I can't remember how many hours I've spent on like Aztecs. The opening track, like that was maybe a hundred hours, I reckon. And I loved every minute of it, apart from a couple of frustrations here and there. But what is crazy is Because that was challenging, think. Some of the recording that I did was kind of like, we're in the middle of a move and yeah, some of it was challenging.
And I think the mix had to be worked around those challenges, which is probably why it took so much time. Really happy with it as an end result. There are a few things that I would change if I could, but it's finished it like a couple of months ago. nothing's ever perfect, right? I don't think any artist would ever say this is a perfect song.
However, it's crazy because everything in all, which is the third track, and that's our most commercially successful song, I think I wrote that in like two days. It was like mixed and I think I mastered it the week later, but like after two days it was done, you know? So it's mad, it's it's tit for tat. swings and roundabouts we say. swings and roundabouts. I like it. What were some of the challenges you ran into on Aztecs? That's the opener, right? That's the first track, I believe.
Yeah. What made that one so hard? I found it quite difficult to find I think there's a few challenges. So there's like a conceptual challenge, like lyrically. I was reading about like, I'm mad into history, right? I don't want to turn anyone off your podcast. So I'll keep it very brief. I'm into history and I was reading a book called The Fifth Sun by historian called Camilla Townsend. it's like, talks about the fall of the Aztecs, right?
But it also talks about the Spanish conquest the impact it had on their culture and their society and their identities, which is what the song talks about. But it also talks about their of like continuity as well and the fact that they, know, that their oral histories like still exist.
And for me to fit that into a song, I wanted to, I had to, like it was something that was just so resonant in me at the But to do that in a song that was catchy and to do that in an opening track and to make it fit within the wider themes of the EP was so hard. Like I didn't have the lyrics down for a long time. I had some ideas, but it took me a long time to kind of get that together.
In terms of the actual recording process, like I record the vast majority of stuff on my AKG 214, which is just a pretty straightforward condenser mic, right? But I was finding it quite difficult to get like guitar in there at any point. It's pretty much keys all the way through. And luckily, Shay and I had some time together and he just laid down this guitar riff within like 10 seconds. We were just playing the song over and over again. This is it, like it's the moments, isn't it?
I feel like those moments are so important, which is why a hundred hours is worth it, because you might spend 80 hours and it might sound like shit, but then you might have a moment in your 81st hour where it's like, okay, this is why you've been trying so hard because you found a moment and it takes two sometimes, definitely. Should I just lay down this guitar riff and then it worked, know, pieces started coming together. And we, you know, we mixed it in there, it sounded great.
And then it stayed. And the other thing is that in terms of actually like tracking drums, I don't have a drum kit in my apartment. So it's really hard. So I had a, I luckily found a spare kit at a music school and I was just getting samples from little takes that I'd done. And that was the first time that I tracked drums in a song before. I was really kind of like keen to try and get away from MIDI, which is what I'd been using prior to the EP.
And everything going on was the second track that I did that. But I used quite a few other samples as well. So actually, learning how to track drums was hard. trying to get that into kind of a fast cohesive beat. I'm not a drummer. You know, I've only been kind of like drumming inverted commas for a couple of months now. Well, since September actually. But yeah, trying to actually learn the song. I honestly struggle to play it now. But just trying to those, capture those moments.
That was the thing for with the intent of having that song being able to be played by a drummer. Do you know what mean? If that makes sense. And so my friend Deck, who's in our first band, I'll send, I haven't done it for a bit, but I usually send him the drums and I'll say, does it sound okay to your ear? Like, does this work for you? And most of the time he'll say, yes. It's been a few times where it's been just work on this, which is great. That's great feedback.
And obviously we've got friends in bands and things like that and people who give their honest opinions, which is great. yeah, long story short, it was a nightmare, but I'm happy with it now. And did you track the drums with just the one mic? Yeah, cool. Yep. So again, that was a challenge, but I just tracked it with individual placements. You know, I the piece by piece. Yeah. Yeah. And I just had a little, I had a little tea towel. So I was hitting my leg.
You know, I was doing the snare and I had the hat, I was just hitting my leg instead of the snare with the tea towel. Yeah, just trying to track it out. And again, you it just took so long, but the drums sound good. And then there are some sampled elements in there as well. But yeah, happy with it overall. That's a cool way to solve the problem, right? You you're trying to figure out how to do it, how to make them sound good.
And then to use like your leg, you know, just, you know, you could invest in a, some piece of kit, a hi -hat or who knows what, you know, but sometimes, by figuring out how to deal with the problem, you come up with these interesting solutions and then you get like a unique sound, right? Cause he could have bought the hi -hats that everyone had or everyone has and to do the thing on the leg, no one's doing that. That's like something that makes it stand out. The kit was so bad as well.
like, you know, post recording to make that sound like a decent kit is hard. And, know, a lot of EQ compression. So, yeah, it was, but I like that. Like that speaks of something like you mentioned. I feel like sometimes when you're confined to certain kind of like practical spaces, especially in terms of like instruments as well. It makes you, it pushes you to be more creative. Like it forces you to move more creative.
You know, like in the moment I mentioned before, like I haven't touched my guitar in ages, it's in the box, but I've got loads of samples and stuff that I've been recording over a couple of, you know, last couple of years. I've started to piece them together now. you know, cause they've been, you know, left to the wayside, but actually going back to those things and starting to try and work with them. even without any kind of like new stuff is quite cathartic.
I find it quite, I love that with production. love that with writing is that you might record something on a day. You give it no credence, you give it no credit. You put it to one side and then six months later you open it up and it's like a nice little surprise. I don't know about you, but I have a terrible memory for like keeping up with everything that I've done. So it's like, thank you, past self. for doing this. Sounded, sounds good. Cheers.
Yeah, sometimes you don't hear it too when you're working on it or you lose it the next day and you're not feeling it anymore. But once in a while you come back to something like, you know what? I get it now. I'm with this. I can work with this. I can do something with it. that's, you know, again, like having that problem is kind of a good thing, you know? You wouldn't do that if your guitars were out, right?
But since you're moving and they're packed away, well, we got to find something else to do. There's kind of like no excuse not to be creative. I totally agree. find it like, yeah, that's it. like practically, it's also economically like, I'm very blessed to have the equipment that I have, you know, it is minimalistic. It's simplistic, right? I like to keep it that way, but it is hard.
Like I don't think enough independent artists kind of talk about the fact that you know, you can make music with just a focus, right? And a crappy mic. And you can make good songs with that. You can do it. if you can think crazily outside of the box. But I think that that's constraining as well to some extent. It can be hard. And a quick fire solution might be OK. Buy the new gear. Buy a drum sampler. Buy a mixer. And that costs money. It's very hard to build up. It takes years, right?
I find that that's something that isn't talked about enough is that it just takes a lot of kind of like slow investment over time to build up your equipment and get your studio space or whatever it is. And that's something that I wish I'd kind of factored in when I was a little bit younger because I would have started a little bit earlier. But then again, I didn't have the means, neither of us did. You know what mean? Going to uni, you can't afford to do that.
know, working since we were like teenagers, it's hard to do that. So I'm really proud of the fact that we've got to this place now through that kind of graft that we did and continue to do now. If that makes sense. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, it's a lot of money to get the gear you want. And every time you get a new piece of gear, it's also a time investment because now you got to learn it. Now you got to figure it out.
And sometimes you're better off just figuring out ways to make what you have work for you. Figure out solutions and... making stuff with, with what you have instead of, okay, I got this new thing. Now I'm going to have to spend the next two weeks just learning how to use it. Just trying to fiddle with it. I've definitely got into that a lot. When I first got a computer for doing production and plugins, it was like, wow.
Like, you know, when I was starting out, I just had like, I had like eight app machines. I don't know if you remember those with the VCR tapes, basically. And, and it was great at that time to have that from my four track cassette recorder. was like going from zero to a hundred. was amazing, but I had a compressor and a reverb, like hardware. That was it. And so if I'm doing a mix, like one thing gets compressed and one thing gets reverb, or I could.
Kind of, then I learned how to like rig up the mixer to like have a send and a bus type of thing, but it was only one reverb sound, you know, and that was all you had, but you figured out ways to make it interesting and stuff you can do. But then, when I got the computer and plugins, it was just like, let me get as many of these things as I can. You know, cracking software off the dark corners of the internet. It became.
Yeah, lots of people do it, it's, you think you're helping yourself, but I don't think you are anymore. because I spent months and months just downloading stuff. I didn't make any music. And then I had all this stuff that I didn't know how to use. So I had to either learn it or move on. I wound up just getting rid of it all. And even now, like at this point, Let's see, I got my first laptop in like 2005.
So I'm going on like 20 years of, you know, the same kind of a file structure that I started when I didn't know what I was doing. like, you know, like each time you upgrade your computer, you like, you like import the old hard drive. So I'm still dealing with the same structures. And sometimes I'm just like, I want to just delete it all. You can't do that, though. You can't do that. I sometimes think like if I did that, I'd be way more productive.
know, just, just because I'd have a fresh start, I'd only use what I need. I only get what I need and, you know, whatever I've already got, would probably half of the stuff I've bought, wouldn't re -download. Yeah. Sometimes I find that just like, so first of all, the plugin thing, I totally did the same thing. Like I went down a rabbit hole and I was like, right, need all, obviously, yeah, like the UAD stuff's amazing, but it's so expensive and there's no way you can crack it.
So you have to invest in that. Right. And some of the Wave stuff's great, a lot cheaper. But I found I found FabFilter, I got the FabFilter bundle and that's just like my everything. I everything with pretty much, I use all of it. And I found that that was a way for me to get out of the fact that I was just like looking for so many things. So many stuff like for MIDI, like I use Labs. It's a free, free, so yeah, yeah. they're good. They're like the soft pianos. That's the best piano I've found.
And you know, some. Amazing stuff out there that's really expensive. So yeah, I think it definitely, definitely agree with you. Try and keep it simple. It's not gonna solve the problems that you're encountering by having a plug -in that costs 200 quid. Maybe Soothe, maybe Soothe does solve some problems. I do love that plug -in. But yeah, like just have a straightforward set of tools and just use those creatively.
And then I kind of let my pedals do the rest and I have a very simplistic pedal board. And I use that to compress and distort and to saturate samples and things that I record. that's yeah, yeah, I do. Nice. Yeah, it sounds like you said sometimes, if you have a reverb at the end of it, you need to switch that off. But I've got a... What's it called now? I can't remember the name of it now. I'll come back to you. I've got an amazing tape delay at the end of my pedalboard.
And it just works wonders. It saturates, it gives a little bit of distortion, but it also gives a little bit of chorus and delay. So that kind of gives a nice little shine and adds a little warmth to things that I record. That's cool. what do you do? Like you said, you use an Ableton, right? So are you using like the external audio effects? Are you? Yeah. then sometimes, there's different ways you can do it. But I'll use the external audio effects.
Sometimes I'll put it through a return track and just kind of mix it in slightly. So it's just almost like a nice little clean sheen over it back into the mix. That's my kind of preferred method. You can hear that ocean blues, like the drums, the drums are so powerful with that. And that's kind of like the first time that I really used it for the first time and was really happy. It just gives it like a big kind of like big booming effect. It's very natural, very, yeah, very pronounced.
But sounds very, very unique as well, I think. Especially for like a pretty standard indie alternative track. Right. Yeah, that's a great. It's a lot of fun too, right? Running stuff through that. Cause you kind of, you're in the moment really, because you kind of only have it for when you're doing it. And then once you're done, you're going to unhook everything and it's not saved in the project unless you print it or record it.
But you can't just call it up like you can your plugins and just like, okay, I'm to turn it a little bit here and tweak it there. It makes you commit. that's so much about, you know, making music. is making decisions and committing to them and moving forward and seeing what happens next. And that's a great way to get. as well. Like for me, it's finding the moments. You you do that, you've got a certain amount of time. You know, you want to find that moment and it's a striving deco.
That's what I use. You know, just really, just like really subtle distortion, really subtle saturation. You can obviously, you can put it through the mix. You can add a little bit onto it. Like I'll always add a little bit of a filter saturation on. The tube, that presets, amazing. But yeah, you capture that moment, you put it through, and sometimes it doesn't work and that's okay.
But I feel like the fiddling aspect of plugins, you're trying to solve problems that perhaps exist in the mix that aren't solvable, and you can't just spend 300 quid to find a solution for that. That's just It's not like sane behaviour is it? But we've all been there. I've been there. Well, it's easy to believe there's some answer out there.
And if I can just download it, can fix my, especially when you're in those desperate moments when, and this happens to me all the time, no matter how long I've been doing music, I always come to the point in the song where I just, I'm convinced, like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no skill. have no experience. I've, I'm an idiot. I'm like, everything's out the window, right? Like I can't figure this out. I don't even know if it sounds bad anymore. I don't even know if it sounds good.
and you want to just find that one thing that'll just fix it for you. But it's like that's a plugin for like your brain. You need that for in here, not in the computer. And sometimes you just need space and time, reflection. It's really hard with social media because algorithmically, I'm sure, it's the same for you. Everything's pointed to just saying, here's the best way to produce a song in 30 seconds.
Here's the best way to master your song using these essential product plugins and buy them now at this code. Here's me, successful music producer. and you just got to, you kind of just got to block it out. you know, you're on your individual path. Everyone has different contexts, things like that.
And I just try to kind of like separate it and I just go back to that space where I'm like, what kind of music would I like to listen to if it was delivered to me on a, on a plate and can it be authentically, can it be true to myself? can it be authentic? in terms of how it sounds and can it be an experience? An experience of my own but also a shared experience. And think stylistically quite a few of the songs are quite different on the EP. It's not an album, it's an EP.
you Yeah, and I think that's just a case of kind of like changing tastes of my own, of Shay's, but also I hope there's like some kind of like cohesive glue between the tracks as When you guys are working together, you're sending files over Google Drive, you said? So what does that look like? How much, like say the first drop on Google Drive, what is on that? Like on that track? so it's like some of it's, I don't know. Some of it depends on the, on the, on the track to be honest.
Some of it's a vocal recording. Sometimes it's like a baseline. Sometimes it's like, just a guitar. it depends on how much we've done, like how much of a demo. so like I tend to, I tend to try and find, I always want Shay's opinion. And I always want his kind of insight because he is someone who can quite quickly change the dynamic of a track just by a few suggestions.
Whether that be literal suggestions or whether that be melodic suggestions or chord progressions that take it into a different way or take it into a different path. And I feel like he has a really good ear for mistakes and a good ear for things that I might not notice. Because when you're just in the zone, you might not recognize that there's perhaps something, there's a pop or a click here or there or maybe the bass is slightly detuned, whether intentionally or otherwise.
And it's just kind of that conversation. I'd say it's a con like we converse through files and through kind of just chatting to each other. And all of our tracks will be there from the outset. It'll be on the Google Drive. They'll be there from the demo. And then they'll just kind of like gradually grow. You know, like the three evolutions of Pokemon. They go from level one starter Pokemon to kind of like Go Charizard level. Hopefully, you know.
Yeah, and then we've got loads of stuff that's just like there, like loads of tracks that we haven't finished just because of limited time, limited focus, but also you don't want to just push out anything for the sake of it. And you get, again, like on social media, you get musicians who are very successful commercially, who are saying just drop, drop a track a week, drop a single a week, get as many... views as you possibly can, get as many plays.
Even if it's like a mediocre track, just drop it because your audience loves engagement. And the market's so saturated that you're competing against 100 ,000 tracks a day being uploaded and distributed. And I just can't deal with that. I don't want to do that. I'd rather something be there that is just like a proper expression.
and actually like has thought and attention paid to it as opposed to just dropping a track that, you know, I could pull out a track in two hours if I wanted to, you know, with, with, you know, I don't know if you, I'm sure you have like Ableton 12 is insane in terms of like the new MIDI functions, like chord progressions, all of that. You know, it's, it's, genius. It's amazing. And you can put together a chord progression, drum beat, put some vocals on it, and you can get it done in two hours.
But does it speak of anything? Does it mean anything? And that's not the type of music I want to listen to. I want to listen to music that actually means something and has like maybe vague conceptions and meanings that don't slap you in the face, but can resonate. And I hope that that's what Kintela is and what it will continue to become. We've got loads of stuff on the agenda at the moment. We've got quite a few tracks that we're doing.
We're going, like we've been talking about, we're going in a more simple, analog, guitar -based direction. with a few tracks that will work out at the moment and for hopefully our next project. But like, it's still going to speak to what we are and that's like a pretty alternative, quite quirky, ambient and somewhat electronic at times duo. I've always found it quite hard to define what we are and I think that's probably a good Hmm.
Yeah. You know, there's a lot of different approaches to this, right? Like, pressing yourself to try to do something every week gets you through the process a lot. Then you learn a lot and you move fast and you might... Sometimes when those, I get those songs like that are handed down from the above, you know, and they just sort of arrive. Sometimes they're like, they're exactly where you are in the moment. And they work.
Sometimes it takes a really long time to even learn what the song is about and what it's trying to say. And those are songs that I often like just as much. It's kind of the beauty is I guess you don't have to do it either way, but like you were saying before, the kind of like pressure that you see online can be a, that's I think the real problem. You know, just this. You got to do this, you got to do that. Like you kind of got to do what you want to do.
You also want to preserve this as something that you actually enjoy and that brings you meaning, even if it's not the song itself being meaningful, but just the act of doing it and expressing yourself and going through that sometimes, you know, frustrating process of creating something, but it's rewarding. in a lot of ways, sometimes really rewarding when they happen fast and sometimes and you really had to bleed a little and spend some time that has its benefits as well. totally agree.
like, I think that when it comes to actual, I don't know, the whole process, I feel like the music industry has become a lot more equitable. So like I do, do kind of like rage against like these quick solutions and kind of like this, this tendency to just produce and kind of saturate the market even more and you know, the consumer, the consumer culture of it. But I feel like even with that, I've benefited from the fact that music is so much more culturally equitable now in terms of access.
can do things that was never like, we were never empowered to do, maybe two decades ago, like it was so hard to do. You needed a label, you needed a publisher, a distributor. So I'm really happy the fact that you can, you know, we have the opportunity to express myself and for us to express ourselves as a band. But even with that, you kind of got to just navigate in a way that speaks to you, you know, and speaks to kind of like what you want from Yep, that's true. We are.
in a great time to be making music, to be making art, to that you can actually just put it out there where people could potentially hear it. That's insane. Like you used to have to get it in their hands. And first of all, you had to get it. You had to turn it into something.
for a long time, for me, that was putting one cassette tape on one side of the dual deck cassette machine and putting the other one on the other side, hitting record and then hitting play and just dubbing losing the quality in real time to make one copy. But that's like such a beautiful thing as well. Like I totally can't, like I have to buy a record if I love the music because I want to give like credence to the art and the work that these people have made.
But I also want to experience it in a physical way and I don't want to lose track of that, you know? It's great to have our music on Spotify, on Apple Music and we We've got some amazing attention to the EP, the best we've ever had in the last couple of months. But that's only temporary, whereas that physical aspect is something. And I don't want to talk too much about it, but we've got some things in the pipeline regarding that. So yeah, I hope that people can also enjoy Kintala in the future.
in a physical sense, which I think, you know, it does mean a lot, doesn't Definitely, I mean some of those tapes that I made for my bands when I was like 18 years old by hand one at a time like they still exist Some people still have them and they might find it one day and put it on and get a kick out of it or But the stream they did last week is already gone It's just poof. It just disappears It's a moment. It's a moment.
And I find myself like, even my like favorite bands, my favorite songs, they get lost in like this big amalgamation of all the, all the stuff that Spotify is trying to sell me. And it wants me to listen to. And it takes me to switch off from that, like to turn my phone off, turn my, to put my laptop away and actually just look at my records collection to remember. and to think, okay, this is what actually inspires me. Discovery Weekly is great.
It'll give me music that I like to listen to, it sounds good. The BPM is kind of like what I traditionally would like to listen to. Sounds like Rangbin, which is a great band that I listen to a lot, but it takes me a moment to actually look at my record collection to think, okay, this is actually what is pushing Keem Tyler in that direction, from me being a child to teenagers, to adults, these are the records that actually made what I do now speak, you know, actually happen.
And it's also like, you know, it sounds weird, but it's like ritualistic, it's like putting a record on. It feels so good. It's like a physical thing, like you said, the tapes, like that's something that you can't get away Hmm. Yeah, it takes a little more effort. You got to be more deliberate about it. I love putting on, you know, just sometimes just a random playlist and just letting it play. And I hear stuff I like and it's gone and don't worry about it, you know?
But, when you decide I'm going here, I'm going to put this on and I'm going to see what it's all about. That's yeah, that's a different, like you said, ritualistic is a good word. That's it, Follow the ritual. Yeah. All of it's a ritual, right? From the creation process all the way through to the listening. of Well, cool. Where can, obviously I guess we've said it, right? They can go to Spotify to check out the album, Kentala. Not all those who wander are lost. Sorry. EP we calling it right.
Yeah. and I think is it Kentala .com? dot dot UK. Yeah. Cool. and I'm going to put this in the show notes too. And you got like the Instagram as well. when you can see you guys kind of doing stuff too, which is fun. Yeah, so like that's it. Like we are, we're busy. Like we're busy doing, we're busy making music. So it's oftentimes hard to kind of capture that, you know, on social media.
But we do like little bits here and there and just like teasers, but we've got some kind of like pretty big plans in the works for the next, let's say 12 months. You know, we want to, we want to kind of like ritualize the EP, let's say. I don't want to tease too much, but and then also, yeah, some plans for the new year as well, which I'm looking forward to. So, yeah, if people want to listen, great. You can reach out to us on Instagram. It's kind of like what we use Twitter as well.
And you can just look out for us on Kintyre .uk. That's where we kind of update, post our updates and any merch as well. We currently sold out of merch, but going to be posting some new merch very Excellent. Good problem to have. That's it, it's not a bad problem. I won't complain. Very good. Well, Dom, it's been awesome talking to you, man. And I want to thank you for your time and the great work. thank you to everyone that's listening. Go check them out, Kentala. Anywhere you're streaming.
And you can also go to the website, Kentala .UK, or check them out on Instagram. I'll put them all in the show notes so you can get them there. Cool, man. It's great talking to you, man. Thank you.