Off the Record

Evie Dallmann 0:00
This is Evie with WKNC's Off the record. This is an interview with Benton, also known as Jonathan Hussey. I'm watching a movie or a show or something like

Jonathan Hussey 0:12
I'm watching a movie or a show or something like the first thing, I guess, is probably what I'm seeing visually. You know, how does it, how does the camera look, and stuff like that. But the second, and almost as important, or, if not more important, is the music. To me, it's crazy how a couple of notes, a couple of melodies, can shape the way you feel about what you're seeing. You know, like, I'm trying to think of I'm this, I'll use something that's very obvious, like Hans Zimmer, or something like that, or in in Interstellar, that score has been like, crazy overused, but it would not be the same movie at all if, if, if it didn't have that music. And that's just, like, super inspiring to me. And I've always just sort of like, I guess maybe had like a soundtrack in my own brain, like when I look at stuff and how I feel, it just comes out in the music. And I'm super fascinated also with that, the ability to sort of tell a story just melodically or or with the atmosphere you create with music. And I've always written that way. I've always thought that way. And I had a I've had opportunities to do it a little bit in the past, and something I've always wanted to do. And that the one thing I sent you the five foot 280 my brother in law reached out to me. He does editing for film and TV. And he's like, Hey, we are. We're doing a passion project, and nobody gets any money for it. But do you want to score it? Parameters were like, can you set a pace that's going to crescendo at the same point as the film does, which is, like, at the crescendo the film.

Evie Dallmann 2:03
It's like a like, synonymous with climax, yeah, yeah, yeah

Jonathan Hussey 2:08
Exactly, the climax, crescendo and the music, sorry, music term, it's where she's, like, launching off after the countdown and the and the drag car, just like rips down the thing. It's really awesome. It's really loud, and it's almost like a connection between the sound effects of that race car and the music all kind of blend into one sound, and it's just this big explosion. So I was just finding a way to build tension the whole time without doing a whole lot, and it's crazy. Like, if you were to watch it without that, you would maybe feel the tension, but really, it's just her talking and some videos flashing, but with the music behind it, it's like, you're like, Oh man, this is going to be intense, or this is going to be super awesome, or whatever. I even when I'm listening to someone else's music or someone else's whatever I'm I can't help but like and put my own melodies or thoughts into it, right? My own ideas on top of it. Like, like, remix, yeah. Just like, yeah. That's just the way my brain works. I guess I'm just constantly writing and thinking, yeah, that that I've always tried to just morph it all together, be the same human at play as I am at work. Like, get the work I need to get done. But like, with the mentality of, I can have fun doing whatever I'm doing. Like, I yeah, I don't know if that answers that,

Evie Dallmann 3:42
but no, perfect. Yeah, I agree with you.

Jonathan Hussey 3:46
When I'm one of my other jobs is to build sets and stuff for film and TV. So, so I'm still, I'm sort of all around it still, but like, it's just that's such a creative process. Even if you're just building, like, a hospital room or something. It's so fun to be like, Oh, they use this type of light switch and they use this type of hinge on the doors that I've gotta replicate or whatever. I gotta make this door look like it weighs 100 pounds instead of an ounce or whatever. I mean, that's not everyone's experience, but that's like, ideal work play to me, like I'm playing all the time, even when I'm getting work done. So

Evie Dallmann 4:22
I guess with like, set design and sound design, can you like, tell me about, like, how those, like, kind of meld together and mix and blend, and like how you dabble in each

Jonathan Hussey 4:37
Yeah, my, my brain is always creating, like, to an annoying fault, like, just, like, watch something and accept it for what it is. I am able to do that, but you know what I mean? Like, I'm just, I was born to create, I guess so I'm just do. Doing it at all times, and it's all the same. I mean, all art is the same, as long as it's it's coming, you know, it's coming from somewhere inside, and it's coming out, and however it does. But I guess I probably view them just exactly the same. I mean, musically, things just sort of morph and happen already. I just think musically, I think in rhythms and chords, but like, it's all similar, like, the way you would construct something is very similar to the way I would construct a song, you know, I just like, it's got the base parts that I think of. Maybe they're different with like, if I was building a room or something, I would be using wood as the studs and stuff like that, and the frames to put on the fun looking things after that. But maybe the the grid work of songs is like the rhythm and the structure of it. This is something I've never super thought. It's like, yeah, it feels very similar that I think that I create the way I create always, and I don't necessarily like, so if I'm designing a set, I just sort of like, already know what I want it to be. Like, I have the picture in my brain, and I'm just kind of accessing it and, yeah, like, what to a fall, because if I have somebody helping me, they're not, they don't see it with me. You know, it's like, I have to get better about transferring it over to a list or, like a program to draw it out or something. But like, Yeah, I'm like, Yeah, see, this is where this is going to be. This is where this is going to be. And they're like, No, yeah, I that's just the balance of life, isn't it? Like, yeah, play life in the creative field. Like, it's funny. I so I also play drums and 80s cover band, because, you know, that's how you make money in music. Yeah, it was one thing like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah. I'll record on people's stuff all the time and whatever. But this, you know, paid gigs, essentially touring with the Sadie's cover band. That's almost a little bit like what you're talking about with the passion project, slash the way to work and make money that is, it's fun, and I've obviously have fun anytime I'm playing music, but that's the side that's like, Okay, I'm doing this to Mostly to get paid for it. Yeah, where my project Benton is like the passion project, and I'll do it at night, on the weekends, in between all that stuff, just to make it work. But it's not like when, when you're doing a passion project, it's like it, there's two versions of it, when you're helping somebody with a passion project, that's a little different, because it's not your passion which I can it's almost like work, but just for no pay, but at the same time, you're able to pour in, like the same creativity that you would have on your own passion project. But like, you know, I don't know I have that same creativity almost in whatever I'm doing. Yeah, I was in my first I started playing music when I was old enough to even walk or do anything like I used to play with my dad at church and play drums when I was, like, four or five years old. So I grew up playing in front of people from that age, basically, which was more for me into knowing that's the only thing I wanted to do ever, was to play music in front of people and share that experience, or whatever it is. I don't, obviously didn't know, you know, when I'm 12, exactly what that is, but, but performing, or whatever it is, is just like sharing the the emotion of music and the the collective experience that it can be is just like invigorating, and it still is to this day, like Even with, you know, playing music that's not mine, it's still just as invigorating to be. So I always wanted to do music, and I was in several bands in high school, and I was in, I did some really cool stuff, and I played with a bunch of people, always following their passions, you know, because I was just, I just started with drums. So when you're just a drummer, you don't really, you have to kind of get on someone else's train, basically, you know what I mean, like? So I did that forever, and I played in a lot of cool bands and toured and and. And opened up for really big bands. But you know, when you're following someone else's path, you you It's you don't get the same fulfillment, I guess maybe, and you don't like you don't you're just jumping on someone else's coat sales. You're not doing the work, and it's not expressing your full thing, and you're doing music because you want to make it big, or whatever it is. Or you start to listen to people telling you to write music this way because it's it sells, or dress this way because it looks good. Or, you know what I mean, like trying to fit in all this other stuff. And then I, you know, I just got tired of that, and that led me to to writing my own stuff. I'd always written stuff, like I got a a laptop in high school because we had to, I had the band that was playing. It was, we were running loops and tracks and stuff, so I had to have a laptop, so I use the music programs from a really young age, learning how to produce and record and all that good stuff. So I was doing that. So I was always riding from 15 on, and I was like, I'm just gonna freaking do my own thing. And, yeah, do it all just because I want to. I don't care if people hear it, if people like it, if whatever it is, I just have to do it because I have to to release this creativity that's inside of me the way that I have to release it. And that's, that's the passion side of it. Yeah, I think, I think the people the trick is to be able to access that same creative flow, no matter what you're doing, like the people that are doing it really well you you're able to, at a moment's notice, get into that, like a realm that you just sort of get into. Like, you just kind of go and access this, this area, and now I'm able to pull out these ideas that I wouldn't have necessarily had, yeah, just think logical brain, yeah.

Evie Dallmann 12:14
But what I'm thinking about is fully effects, and how you're talking about like, you know, blending the explosion of, like the sounds of the cars and, you know, melodies, and also in terms of, like play and like experiencing, like what different things sound like, I'm interested in, like pattern recognition, like in the brain, and then also, like, I'm saying, like fully effects and like real life inspirations for melodies. So I guess, could you talk about, like, how you kind of made that sequence for the film?

Jonathan Hussey 12:48
Like, musically, sure, I think, I think in patterns, first off, all the time, like, as a drummer, everything is pattern. And when, when you learn rhythm too, it's literally just patterns and math. I see patterns and everything, and I I like I'm probably doing patterns with my fingers while I'm thinking, and drives people around me crazy. But that's first and foremost in the aspect of this score, I just it was mostly rhythmic, almost. But I used synths for it. Like, you know, you can turn synthesizers of oscillators, and you can turn the tone making ability off, and it's just noise, and then you can chop that noise up to sound. I think that's how a lot of early like electronic drums were made.

Evie Dallmann 13:47
They just chopped it sound, bite grabbed.

Jonathan Hussey 13:50
Yeah, similar to you taking out the sine wave or whatever. And it's just anyway, you can get a lot of cool rhythms with that. And most of most of it's that, and then just, like, almost like a droning note that just sort of kind of comes into play later, like, I think the the beginning of that is, there's a shot of her with the key in the ignition starting the car season, or a Car she's working on or something. And that was this, the segue into my score starting so it starts with, like the car starting up in just like a which is the most repetitive pattern you can have, one hit over and over and over again. And it sort of just builds from there, and the notes slowly, kind of pad in under it, and then I don't remember. It's been a minute since I wrote this, so I'm having to, like, log. I should have gone back.

Evie Dallmann 14:54
It's all right there, yeah

Jonathan Hussey 14:57
It's just like a computer, you know, I gotta access it. I. I was holding a probably, I mean, I'm a a minor or something like a more intense chord, and holding off on either the third of that would and just the the root note of it for the most. And then when the big hit comes, it's like, I add that the third in there, which becomes like, sort of a resolution, but it's still in a darker minor chord. But I might have even gone major. I don't have to listen to back at that, but it was almost like an aha moment, like I've arrived and, yeah, and there's nothing better than like, especially with synthesizers, like being able to have this whatever's in your brain, whatever sound you have inside, nothing gets it out better than a synthesizer, because you're literally creating the sound. You're morphing this wave into. You're bending it to your will, into whatever you want it to be, and it's just so I started with drumming, and I actually pretty much started just playing any instrument I could right away, too, like, I think it's very important for one, for people who are just learning the drums. They need to learn how to play a melodic instrument so they can understand the way music works. If you're just like if you're playing drums and you're just banging away on a beat and it doesn't necessarily flow with the chord changes or the melody of the song that the person singing, you just don't necessarily think about that unless you know melodic instruments like or you you sing yourself like you can play a regular a straight beat was just like a cut. You can sing anything over, but if you're doing a bunch of more complex patterns with the kick that could really clash with the rhythm of the vocals. Somebody must have told me that when I was like 14 or something. So I started learning other instruments, plus I was just genuinely interested in them. And right away that that started with synthesizers, like digitally on the computer. I never actually, I wasn't blessed with getting, like, an old role in Juno or anything when I was like 15. But, you know, logic had their own little synth module modelers in there, and you can go in and tweak all the parameters and start creating sounds just like you can on a real analog board. So pretty young, I started doing that. And I started doing messing around with, like, writing songs to movies without any where, like the mute, just mute them and, like, watch and see what I could do to change the the aspects of how it feels, or whatever. And anything can be come funny, if you change the music, like you've seen all those videos of like, yeah, awards or whatever, and if you change the music, it's like, are they what are they about to do to each other? Yeah? So yeah, I messed around with that feeling and and if Yeah, I could. I've never really broken down synthesizers to somebody, but they're incredible things. It starts with the oscillator and it goes through, it would be easier to describe if I was looking at one. I should have done this in my studio, and it breaks from these regular wave forms that you know sound like the most annoying sound you've ever heard just and when you run it through the LFO and the VCOs and the amps, it can completely change that into the most beautiful sound you've ever heard, and it's so cool with the filters, and it's just so very interesting. And then putting two oscillators together and slightly off tuning them, and I could go crazy, but I might bore everybody, and I love funk and jazz. That's probably my if I'm going to sit down at the drums, that's what I'm playing. Without a doubt, jazz is the most freeing music to learn how to play, and I'm speaking from a drummer's perspective on that, for sure, it can be incredibly difficult to learn

Evie Dallmann 19:39
Yeah, instead just feel kind of

Jonathan Hussey 19:43
Yeah. It's because the like, when you the guys that were originally writing jazz were not thinking, I'm gonna add a nine, and I had an 11, yeah, this chord gonna sound this way. They're just like, This sounds sick. Do. You know, and then the thing that makes it harder is us trying to dissect what they did and then teach that. That's what it's like. Yeah, that turns everybody off. But jazz is the most perfect example of personal expression on your instrument. Like you, I listen to jazz at all the time. I listen to Coltrane and Miles Davis and all the ones, but like they there's no, no music really expresses your own self more than jazz does. It's it's just awesome. Funk is very similar, but it's all about finding one pattern. This is just also more of a drone. Well, that's just what funk is, but one pattern in repeating that over and over and over again, and it's about the movement that it makes your body want to do, you know, like it makes you want to dance. That is, everyone should if you learn an instrument, you should learn how to play funk and jazz. But all those rules that you learn and how to play them are meant to be broken, yeah? So people get like, you're not playing it right well, or I thought we were playing jazz here, you know, I'm expressing myself. Yeah? The other part of jazz is like, especially in a band setting, it's listening to each other and talking with your instruments back and forth. And I think I've sort of just pulled that in. It's easy to do that when you're writing music all on your own, on your own, you know, everything just sort of naturally talks to each other, because it's coming from one brain, and it sort of works. I mean, that's a double edged sword. Some guys, it can be like, you should have bounced these ideas off of someone else before you put that song out. But most of the time, it all works pretty well.

Evie Dallmann 21:57
I forgot where I was going with that. Um, but like, yeah, in a band talking to each other, yeah,

Jonathan Hussey 22:02
I think, I think that applies in all bands, like, how, how does what I'm a play, what? How does what I'm playing affect the rest of the members in this moment, in this song? And that's super important when, especially on drones, because you can just, like I was saying earlier, you can just take over. You can ruin a song with a drum beat that's that's not right for it. It's very important to listen in music. And I think that that those principles have probably crossed over into everyday life for me, like being and it probably has to do with, like, being the youngest of my siblings too, you know, like the just sit back and watch everyone do crazy stuff and learn from that.

Evie Dallmann 22:48
Yeah, yes, exactly. That's sort of a

Jonathan Hussey 22:52
I think that's a band mentality too. It's just like, sit back and let's just see how we can all work together. And it's a societal principle too. I think if everybody comes at conversation, whether it's political or just whatever, if you come from the place of believing the best and the person next to you, then that would go a long way working on so I have a bunch of songs. I'll back up a little bit. I signed a little deal to this record label called Sonos Music Group. Sono Music Group? I'm, I'm signed to do four songs altogether, which is cool. That's fun.

Evie Dallmann 23:34
Yes, congratulations.

Jonathan Hussey 23:36
Thank you. And I'm going to put that out, more or less to just kind of finish that contract and see what happens after that. Yeah, like, and if, if so, I've got an album to release later in the year. So working, working towards that. I've got most of the songs sorted out and just about finished. I gotta record some more stuff on it, but the writing process is basically done. Yeah, for those, but the three I'm gonna put on my own on this one. So it'd be a four song EP, but there's three new ones. The two of them are pretty upbeat. One of them sort of like this way, like a soundscape, almost, oh, cool. It's got vocals in it, but it's, yeah, it's a little, it's a little bit different than anything I've released. I've got something I would say, as far as anyone getting into art or getting back into art. Just do the art. Just it doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter if it's good, if you think it's good, just create, get what's inside of you and create it. Just put it out there on anything, and don't sit on it either, especially as far as. Music goes or anything. Just make it and put it out. No one will ever know you got to make it. Just do it. Just start making anything.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai