If you'd asked me what I'd wanted to do five years ago, I'd have told you I wanted to be Viktor Vaughn or The Game - I would want to be a rapper with an eight ball of coke in my pocket and a wad of hundreds. Because that kind of freedom - well, perceived freedom - is where I want to be.
John VandersliceIn fact, it's in my interest to love digital recording, and I just spent a ton on a new digital recording system, so I speak from a place of heavy investment in both sides.
John VandersliceTo make a live record - something that has a lot of life in it - is difficult. After slaving away for years in the studio, when I hear a No Age record or when I hear Yeah Yeah Yeahs' first EP or when I hear DRI or really early punk stuff, it's just so powerful, so raw - and I know how hard that is to create. It's very deceptive. It's like a Dardenne brothers film - it seems like just a handheld camera following some people around in a trailer park, but it's incredibly difficult to do that.
John VandersliceI wish I could go out farther from my musical history. I didn't realize how hard it was until I tried to do it. All the basic tracks on Romanian Names were done in my basement, alone, without any of the self-consciousness that comes with being in the studio. It was a completely different process. And those two things definitely made the record sound different. But you want this quantum leap from record to record, and maybe if I did make a quantum leap I'd make an unlistenable album. So maybe I'm lucky that I can't pull it off.
John Vanderslice