ifitbeyourwill Podcast
“ifitbeyourwill" Podcasts is on a mission to talk to amazing indie artists from around the world! Join us for cozy, conversational episodes where you'll hear from talented and charismatic singer-songwriters, bands from all walks of life talk about their musical journey. Let's celebrate being music lovers!
Season Four runs from September 2024 to December 2024
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ifitbeyourwill Podcast
ifitbeyourwill S04E09 • Gary Olson of The Ladybug Transistor
Gary Olsen from Ladybug Transistor takes us on a nostalgic journey back to his first encounters with the magic of radio, which ignited his passion for music. Imagine the excitement of flipping through radio dials as a child, stumbling upon the hidden gems of college stations that would ultimately shape a lifelong musical path. Gary reveals how his unconventional songwriting methods, which rely on layering sounds with a four-track recorder rather than traditional chord progressions, have been key in the formation of Ladybug Transistor. As he shares his unique creative process, we get a glimpse into the collaborative spirit that drives his artistic endeavors, offering insight into how it all comes together to create the band's signature sound.
In this episode, we delve into the complexities of balancing music production with sound engineering. Gary opens up about the benefits of recording vocals solo in the studio and how working with an engineer can bring a fresh, objective perspective to the mix. We reminisce about the creation of their album "Albemarle Sound," recalling the creative energy that flowed from living together as a band. With the upcoming 25th-anniversary reissue on the horizon, Gary discusses the thrill of unearthing rare demos and b-sides that breathe new life into the album for a new audience. Tune in to explore the artistic choices and collaborations that have defined Ladybug Transistor's enduring legacy.
welcome another episode of, if you will, podcast coming to you. Um, we're on a kind of lazy Saturday morning here, almost afternoon, and I mean I like upping my game as we go into season four and I might have upped my game too much here, but I have Gary Olsen from my sweetheart band, ladybug Transistor, and so much else that Gary does. So, gary, thanks so much for hopping on here and sharing some of your stuff. Thank you, I'm glad to be here Right on. So, gary, where are you coming in from? You told me before, but I'd love for people to know where you're coming in from.
Speaker 2:Interesting Paradise Falls, pennsylvania in the Poconos yeah, visiting some friends and family this weekend, but I'm a regular out here when I'm not in new york right, right, and you've been in brickland forever.
Speaker 1:Hey, gary, is that? Is that accurate to say?
Speaker 2:yeah, I was born and raised there and um, I never left right right and you've been living in.
Speaker 1:You have a studio within your dwelling, is that?
Speaker 2:that's right. Um, so I've lived in the same house for over 20 years and have we've had uh, uh, yeah, a functional studio there the entire time, so that's where we've made most of the ladybug records and then occasionally work with other people there. Um, yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker 1:Cool. Well, gary, my first question to artists is like where it all began for you, like early recollections of musical contact that just blew your mind and and kind of was tipping a tipping point in your life that that kind of started to dictate that music had to be a part of it. Do you have any of those early recollections that you could share with us?
Speaker 2:I think there was a lot of listening to the radio when I was a kid and flipping around the dial back then, the first things I remember were very like commercial top 40 and rock stations, and then eventually gravitating to the left of the dial where here, um, there was just this mysterious college stations all bunched over to the left side, um and um. You know, when I was done sort of with all the commercial stuff, eventually hearing, um, this whole other world that I didn't know existed over there, and, and really just being just the whole mystery of radio, I didn't know how it was done, I didn't know what, what it looked like behind the scenes there. You know, I had no idea. So I just had this, this fascination with it as a kid Right.
Speaker 1:And when you say like, were you fascinated with how songs were created or how they were assembled, like how the sounds were assembled together I mean Ladybug is very orchestral, right, like there's so much instrumentation, that's just, I mean spectacular. Was that things that you were looking, you know like getting from those earlier radio days?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. And just the mystery of trying to figure out how it was done, because it was just a complete listening experience there was, yeah, there was.
Speaker 1:There was no way you could see it, there was no way you could see it Right, right, and no way to rewind it either. Right, so you got like a one-shot chance of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, although you know I remember my brothers and I we would tape a lot of things off the radio. You know that was a thing just standing by until that song came on and unhitting the pause button.
Speaker 1:I remember those days I I talked to my son about cassettes and he, he doesn't understand. He's like I don't understand what you're talking about. Yeah, I definitely. And then so as as you were growing up, like what was the first instrument that you were, you were introduced to? To playing and started playing it.
Speaker 2:I was assigned the trumpet, I think, when I was in junior high school so that would have been seventh grade and we had a good music teacher there. His name was, I think, Mr Fidel, and somehow I became a first trumpet. I'm not that good, but at a junior high school level I think I was okay.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I probably still am at a junior high school level.
Speaker 1:You still actively play the trumpet. I hear it often in the songs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the only instrument I really ever learned how to play properly.
Speaker 2:I still can't form a chord with my hands if I'm trying to play guitar or uh keyboards, but um, anything that requires a single note at a time I could have some ability with right and like what was your first like venture into songwriting, like what was it about putting down thoughts and ideas and experiences from your life on paper and then setting to music that appealed to you so much um, I don't know if there were thoughts and ideas about my life that really inspired me, but just trying to figure out the process of recording and having the four-track there as a tool, like I mentioned, since I had trouble playing chords and flooring my hands in that way, I had a very primitive approach where I'd just layer things on the four-track, almost sing one or two notes at a time and and record things in sections, instead of actually sitting down and properly learning how to play an acoustic guitar. I was always piecing things together.
Speaker 1:Wow. So like, how would it, how would a song start for you, Would it? Would it be a note or two that you would string together and you're like okay, there's, it sounds good, and then another layer would come on?
Speaker 2:et cetera, yeah, yeah, and then just piecing them together and it really wasn't until, like, I met some proper musicians.
Speaker 2:That helped me sort of form the ideas a little bit more, or or I could, um, you know, it became much more collaborative when I was working with other people later on and when it finally came to forming the band and in the the second stage of the band. When forming the band and in the second stage of the band when Jennifer and Jeff and Sasha and San came along, like we suddenly, like I, I was in a group with all these musicians who could play their instruments really well and and were sort of in tune to. We're all in tune with each other a bit. So before that, the first two Ladybug albums, some of the songwriting or some of the instrumentation is pretty crude because a lot of it was me and with the help of Ed Powers, our first drummer, who played a little bit of guitar on it, but a lot of it was just my very primitive like three string guitar all tuned to D. I kind of took that as far as it could go with the first two albums before we did Albemarle Sound.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So Albemarle Sound was really the first kind of collaborative. Could I say band album that you I mean recorded, wrote etc.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when Beverly Autonel came out the second album we that one we got signed to Merge and suddenly we needed to tour a bit more. And suddenly we needed to tour a bit more. That was around the time that Jennifer and Jeff joined the band. Their musicianship really complimented everything that we were doing at the time. Things started evolving after beverly autonol we we did the today knows in massachusetts single and that that's a bit of a signpost to where we were going with album moral sound, I think right, right, um, and did your approach change, like you?
Speaker 1:like you were saying, the first two records are very much you and your, your first drummer, kind of piecing things together. What was your approach for the third record, like when you had all these collaborators? Did you still keep it fairly tight-knit with your original idea or did it expand with all of these musicians coming into the mix?
Speaker 2:well, we're learning so much at the time and and pulling in from um, pulling from our influences at the time, um and the evolving with the our process of how we were recording. So we're listening to a lot of 60s and 70s records and and trying to figure out how to do it, and suddenly we had people who were a bit more capable of of trying to do something like that. And then bringing in a string arranger, for example, like joe mcginty mcginty um to to sort of bring things to the next level, was a big step for us too, um yeah, it's interesting um, oh, and also, I have to say, like the big difference between the evolution of between beverly altanal and Alvamaro Salinas.
Speaker 2:suddenly we had four songwriters in the group Jeff and Sasha and Jennifer and I were all sharing songwriting. We're each bringing two or three songs to the mix and and then, um, each bringing something to to each other's songs, I think right, interesting, interesting.
Speaker 1:And I mean you wore two hats or you always seem to wear two hats where you're doing the production side and also, you know, producing the, the sound, which one do you prefer? If you could say, or like, do you have to change your mindset from? All right, I gotta record my part to. Okay, I want the overall sound to sound like this, like how do you kind of juggle those two?
Speaker 2:well doing vocals. It was a real luxury because I could just be alone in the studio with the remote control next to me and do as many takes as I'd like. Um, even with the limitations of tape back then, you know I could, I could still do that. You know, I could have absolute privacy for that if I needed it. Um, so that that was a real bonus. Yeah, sometimes, you know, um, having someone else engineer could help you be a bit more objective, because you don't have to have your hands on everything. Um, but um, for us I think it was. It really helped, with our obsession to detail at the time and how we were working, to be able to engineer the records. At the same time, we had a lot of help through my studio partner, bill Wells. At the time it wasn't just me with my hands on everything, the whole group really was helping with mixing.
Speaker 2:We were learning so much back then too, uh, with that record. You know, for example, some of the songs like six times or meadowport arch, we were mixing in sections because the mixes were becoming so complicated that, um, we'd mix the verse and the chorus and the We'd mix the verse and the chorus and the middle eight separately and cut them together later on. That was a bit of a trick that we learned by listening to Around that time. There were all those great CD box sets coming out at the time, for, like the Beach Boys, for example, or the Beatles or the Zombies, where you'd hear, you'd get a little peek of their process at demos or sections of mixes, and that informed us a lot. I think too is just getting that look at, because a lot of those things weren't available much before unless you really were for for bootlegs somewhere you know and really had to dig hard. But suddenly, um, you could. You could hear a little bit more about how it was done yeah, well, absolutely super interesting.
Speaker 1:And how long did it take to record album our sound like in in total time? Like what was that it take to record Albemarle Sound like in total time? Like what was that timeline like to record the original?
Speaker 2:you know, we were all living at Marlboro farm, so Jennifer and I, and Sasha and Jeff, we also had two couples and a sibling and a pet. By the way, we're all under the same roof. Interesting and San, our drummer for a time, was there too, so we had a lot of time together and and, and, and.
Speaker 1:You know we could work on a mix until the middle of the night if we needed to right right, and what song off of that record came in like the wind and just was like easy to lay down, and maybe which one was the more complicated ones that that took the layerings and the splicings in the. Are there any songs that that match that?
Speaker 2:um, I think for simplicity, something like oceans in the hall. Um, when we were putting together the extra tracks for the anniversary edition, I found the demo for that and I hadn't heard that in many years and I was surprised at how formed it was in in its demo state. Um, I think jeff had done that all on his jeff baron had had record that all on his four track and handed it to me and I just did a quick vocal and trumpet um and that one, I think, didn't change. That one was really easy to get down from what I remember. Uh, the more complicated ones were were definitely meadowport arch and and six times probably meadow port arch because of the all the time shifting and the um mix was a little more dense for that one right, right.
Speaker 1:So I mean, you're on the cusp, then, of releasing this 25th anniversary, coming out november of this year. People get it and you're you're heading out on tour, which is amazing. Um, how did you choose these? So I have a. I'll tell everybody what's coming on it, because I found it. So you have 12 bonus tracks, um, and then you have rare b-sides, four track demos, instrumentals and alternate mixes. How did you choose all the extra stuff that appears on the 25th anniversary?
Speaker 2:Well, originally I didn't think we had much and we were going to do a straight reissue. And I was at a friend's studio earlier this summer and he had these two working reel-to-reel machines two working reel-to-reel machines. As I was sitting there I had the reissue on my mind and I thought I should just see what I have around. I knew I had a few pieces, but I didn't think I had enough for a set. Then when I got home that evening I dug out all the old reels of the Masters which I hadn't put up in 25 years, turned on the tape machine and just prayed to God that it still works and I did some transfers right away while everything was working and um, and found a few bits on there and found enough of the four tracks around and I we had an enormous amount of dat tapes.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you ever worked with those before, but they're digital audio tapes and they can be very finicky. Either the player or the tapes themselves break down. But I sent them off to a transferring service and a couple of weeks later they all came back. So I was able to put together these 11 or 12 pieces and once they were all in one place I realized we had enough for something. And once they were all in one place, I realized we had enough for something, something that might complement the original release a little bit.
Speaker 1:As far as getting into the process of it all, yeah, and were there happy surprises when you were digging through these archives?
Speaker 2:Something that's really funny, to me at least, is the six times the full length version. We did this little intro. It's a backwards piano that starts it off. It's the bridge between Oriental Boulevard and Six Times and it's just this little snippet that's about 10 seconds long. But I found three takes of that and they're all very a little bit. Some of them wow up a little bit. Some of them wow up a little bit. Some of them are a little longer, so I included them all right before six times really kicks off. Fun little things like that, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like fun surprises too. After all that time of not listening to something that you had done in the past, did it did? Listening to those also flood back memories of the recording times and living all together in the house. I often notice when I listen to something or smell something or see something from the past, it wasps back these memories of experiences and whatnot yeah, it really did any of that happen? Like for you?
Speaker 2:yeah as well. It's amazing how much I can't remember about how we did it. So it it. It is really like listening to another person sometimes and also just the way we've all evolved in in the way that we record. Back then I mean that was of moral sound was a fully analog recording on a 16 track one-inch machine mixed down onto tape. Everyone's gotten away from that. Most people have. Over the years. The whole process has changed so much to hear it, so to hear this thing, that that definitely has a different dynamic and and breathes more than than how um music is is recorded today. Um, yeah, I was, I don't. I was pretty happy with it. I think we were trying to go for a very natural sound at the time as far as microphone placement and not using too much reverb, and I don't even think I put a snare, a mic, on the snare for most of those recordings. So it just I was surprised at like how much my approach has changed for better or for worse. Um, and I just I love that record.
Speaker 1:Um, I just, I never thought you got enough credit for that, that release that you put out, that single uh, not single, but yourself titled Um thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it came out at a bit of a difficult time in 2020, at the peak of COVID. There are so many other things going on in the world that it was a hard one to promote for a couple of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard some bands too would just hold. They held on to their COVID records to release after, just because so much got lost in the shuffle of that. Yeah, really traumatic time for most people, um musicians as well, because suddenly your job just stopped it looks like on pause for everything.
Speaker 1:Um, and I guess I wanted to ask too gary is like where did the idea to do this 25th um, where did that, that, that spark, come from? That we will reissue this and we'll add in a bunch of four tracks and b-sides, etc. Was that something that you had always thought about, um, or was it something that just happened, like recently?
Speaker 2:well, um, about six years ago, ladybug got an offer to play at a festival in Norway and we hadn't all that lineup the 1999 to 2003-ish lineup hadn't played together in well over 20 years.
Speaker 2:So we had this opportunity to play this one-off show and, um, wasn't sure, like how it would go, because we hadn't. We all live in different cities these days, um, very far away sasha's out in montana, jeff's in burlington, vermont, julia and I are in brooklyn and jennifer's in pittsburgh. So, um, so we met up together of all places in this far off corner of norway, and that happened to coincide with the 20th anniversary of avamaral sound. So the concert, the, the show, the idea of that show was that it was for the 20th anniversary and and we realized that we could do it again with a little bit of effort, like, all get together, yeah, and that led us to doing a few shows. Last year we did a five-day tour from New York out to Chicago and we knew the 25th year was coming upon us, so it seemed like a good time to, if we were ever going to assemble all of those extra bits and do a proper vinyl reissue that was easily available. It seemed like a good year to mark the occasion. Sure yeah.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, I think your fans are extremely happy. I'm extremely happy that this is coming out, um, and I just this one question came up just as you said it, so it had been. You said 20 years that you guys had not played together, is that?
Speaker 2:was that, that combination of people?
Speaker 1:yeah, right, right, yeah and what was that like?
Speaker 2:that first show playing together again, you know it was really funny, because we all arrived um this small town called eggerson, norway about four or five days before the show and the first thing they did is throw us all in a house together.
Speaker 2:Uh, a light a lighthouse in fact and here we are like after, like having lived together, uh, 20 years previously, like all back under the same roof. That's crazy the good thing it was a very small town, so we didn't have much else to do. So we we actually just sat around and practiced for for four days and and did the show and realized, um, we enjoyed each other's company that's cool, that's great.
Speaker 1:Well, gary, this has been really fascinating, um I I hope to talk to you again sometime in the future.
Speaker 2:Uh, I'd be happy to come back, yeah I'd be cool.
Speaker 1:Um, I like to stay to the 25 minutes. We've gone a little bit over, but I can't stop asking you questions, so we'll have to do this again, gary. Um, it's just so fascinating, looking at your history too, of your catalog and what you've produced, and it has this aesthetic that gets me every time, the openness, um, the connect, you know I, it always connects me to nature in some way, like I always feel like, like I tend to always listen to ladybug out in the country, rarely in the city, but in the country I blast it and it just um, it, it, it's my soundtrack. So I, I, I thank you for, so I thank you for putting out all these wonderful records and making the new world you know, the youngies aware of this great record that you guys put out all those years ago. So thanks for coming and sharing your thoughts on it and talking about it.
Speaker 2:It's good to join you, Chris. I'd be glad to talk any other time. We'll come up and see you one of these days.
Speaker 1:Oh, please, please, I'll be front row, so all you listeners out there remember november 2024 ladybug, the ladybug transistors putting out their 25th anniversary of the albemarle sound unbelievable. Um, gary, again all the best. Um, good luck in your touring as well. I'm sure you're going to be hitting the road a little bit with this and I envy the people that get to go and listen to it.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, it's been a pleasure. All right, cool, you take care of yourself.
Speaker 2:Okay, talk to you next time. Bye, thank you, guitar solo. Just a minute before the alarm In the morning when I hear them talk, but it blew everything that you said, your words passed through the wall. Knock Six times in code, six times. Knock Six times in code In time, like six times encoding time. Things are piled in your hall, in your hall and your closets have all overflowed, overflowed, chasing pearls down the hall, or at least that's how it sounds. Knock Six times in code, six times Knock, six times in code In time. Knock Six times encoded in time. Knock Six times encoded, six times Knock, six times encoded in time. Thank you, you.
