Interview: Jeff Snyder
Jeff Snyder is a composer, improviser and instrument designer based out of Princeton, New Jersey. Earlier this month he brought his latest invention, the majestic Electrosteel to Nashville for a showcase at Vinyl Tap and his electro-country band Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves' performed their new album Bury Deep My Heart at Honky Tonk Tuesday.
What drew you to Nashville for your Electrosteel event at Vinyl Tap?
A couple of years ago, Russ Paul and Writ Wright, two steel players in town, invited me to Nashville to hold an event showcasing my new Electrosteel instrument I'd invented. That was really fun, so when I finished the newest Owen Lake album, Bury Deep My Heart and was looking at places to do album release shows, I contacted Whit to see if he could think of any places in Nashville that would be a good fit for an Owen Lake set.
He suggested Honky Tonk Tuesdays, since there's a fun built-in audience, and helped me set that up. Then I asked about possibly doing another show while we're in town, and combining it with another Electrosteel showcase. He loved the idea and thought the Vinyl Tap would be good for it, so he connected me with Caroline at the Vinyl Tap and she was into it. I built the show around our Owen Lake set, and Luke Schnieder's awesome ambient pedal steel stuff, and then set up an Electrosteel try-it-for-yourself thing before the music, so steel players could get their hands on it.
Doing this in Nashville was exciting both from an Owen Lake standpoint and an Electrosteel inventor standpoint - this is the first time Owen Lake has played in Nashville, and it's definitely the only place we've ever played where people really know the music we're drawing from. I mentioned that Melba Montgomery wrote one of the songs we play, and people in the audience clapped in recognition - that name doesn't get recognition anywhere else, even though she was a badass songwriter and singer.
From the Electrosteel designer perspective, it's the only place in the world where there are more than 10 pedal steel players in one town, and there are literally hundreds in Nashville! So it's pretty fun to get some feedback and gauge interest in my project from a scene where people really care about the pedal steel guitar. I live in New Jersey, and there are very few pedal steel players here. There's a few in NYC, and some in Philly, but it's a slim scene.
Do you have a favorite pedal steel guitar player?
Oooo - hard to name one. But if it's down to just one it would be John Hughey. I'm a sucker for that really sad spooky ghost sound, and he's like the king of that. Every time the steel comes in on a Conway Twitty record I get chills. Listen to the beginning of "I've Just Destroyed the World" to hear what I mean. I'm sad that I never got to see him play while he was alive, and playing every week with the Time Jumpers.
The current Time Jumpers steel player, Eddy Dunlap, has got to be one of the greatest players ever, though. I got Eddy to play on 3 tracks on the new album and he completely blew my mind with what he did. For one song, "Maybe This Time", he asked what I wanted and I told him I wanted him to do some kind of crying twisty thing with complicated counterpoint so all the steel players would be scratching their heads wondering how he played it, and he delivered. I still can't figure it out, and it's one of my favorite parts on the album. One of my other favorite parts is his crazy solo on "Blawenburg Blomp".
When I think of present day instrument inventors, I exclusively think of Harry Partch and huge cost prohibitive installations, but your creations blend the practical and the magical. Who has influenced you the most from the world of instrument design?
Actually, probably Harry Partch! He's the figure who really got me interested in the idea of building new instruments. I went to college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and that's actually where Harry Partch built his first invented instruments, during a residency of a few years in the 40s. They even had some really cool unreleased recordings he made there in the music library.
I was drawn to building instruments for many of the same reasons Partch was – interest in tuning systems that go beyond standard equal temperament, a desire for more sculptural and visually interesting instruments, and a general feeling of wanting to forge my own path (which in Partch's case is maybe a little more tinged with bitterness). My first instruments made some gestures toward practicality, in that they used electronics for sound production and tuning systems, but they were just about as unwieldy and physically impractical as his instruments. They were really cool, but once I wasn't in my 20s anymore carting them around NYC started to feel much less appealing.
I made an instrument called the Manta, which was extremely practical - a keyboard controller designed to fit in a laptop bag along with your laptop - with a lot of visual design cues taken from Don Buchla, another instrument design hero of mine. I was kind of mixing a bit of 60s Buchla aesthetic with a more Early Music vibe. For example, on the Manta the screws are brass slot-head screws, since I thought Phillips-head or stainless steel looked a bit too modern for it. I do think the Manta isn't really an instrument, though - it's more of a "controller" since it doesn't have its own built-in sounds - it sounds like whatever synthesizer you use.
The Electrosteel is the most recent of my instruments where I have been working towards making things that have their own identifiable sound. I want the listener to be able to recognize the Electrosteel when they hear it on a record, and I think so far, that's true! If you listen to some of the tunes it's been played on, I don't think there's anything else that would make that sound in that way. It has its own built-in sound synthesis, which I designed, but even more important is that the expression possible with a pedal-steel-like interface is so incredible.
I have a young child and have come to realize the magnitude of exposure to different genres particularly free jazz, classical and experimental. Your musical projects span across a vast array of genres— can you pinpoint a particular life experience that encouraged your musical exploration?
Good question! I can remember some experiences as a young person where my musical world got bigger in an instant. They are sort of funny, in a way. My first memory of hearing anything relating to "jazz" was in Twin Peaks, which came out when I was in 6th grade. The Jimmy Scott performance of "Sycamore Trees" at the end of "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" just rocked my world when I heard it for the first time as a 13-year-old, and I still love it so much.
I think that like many people my age who grew up outside of a city, my first exposure to more experimental music was John Zorn and his Tzadik label. I first became aware of him in the liner notes (as producer) to a Mr. Bungle record that friend lent me also when I was 13, and I subsequently sought Zorn's music out, finding records by Naked City and other artists on Tzadik. That label had unbelievable distribution considering the music was very weird - the Best Buy closest to my rural Minnesota town had a lot of Tzadik records in the 1990s! That's how I first heard musicians like Ikue Mori, Marc Ribot, the Ruins, etc.
Later I went to college and studied music and learned about the modern classical side of things. I was especially inspired by figures in the overlap between those worlds, figures like Meredith Monk or Robert Ashley - they weren't really having a classical career of writing for orchestra, but rather were organizing their own DIY ensembles to make their idiosyncratic music. The Lovely Music label, run by Mimi Johnson, was really important to my taste in my college years, so many great records on that - it has been a huge inspiration to Carrier Records, the label I co-run now.
I also just lucked out to be in many situations with a bunch of other creative and resourceful people who wanted to make things happen, rather than wait around for someone to make it happen for us.
Do you plan on bringing any of your other music projects to Nashville any time soon?
It would be fun! Maybe my experimental electronic duo exclusiveOr with Sam Pluta should come down. Or Dem, my trio with Cenk Ergun and Jason Trueting. Somebody invite us and set it up - I am very bad at booking gigs and the only reason the Owen Lake shows happened was because Whit made the connections happen.