Northwestern Folk Adam Selzer, mastermind of Norfolk & Western, talks about recording, touring, and some of Portland’s cozier bands. by David Also If Portland music were divided into a pie-chart, one that included all the bands that are currently touring and putting out albums, I imagine that Adam Selzer and his friends would take up a full slice, maybe with some whip cream. Considering how many hard working people we’ve got here, that’s a large number. How many albums has Norfolk and Western put out? We just finished the fourth. And it’s called Dusk in Cold Parlors. That’s the new one that’s not out yet. It is available online though, and I’m assuming at shows as well? Yeah. I’m going to bring some with us for [the tour]. So have you just not had the money to be able to put it out? No. We’re sending it around to see if any labels are interested. It’s possible we may do it with Film Guerrero—he still wants to do it, so… You’re just trying to go to the next level? Yeah. We’re just seeing if anyone cares.
Tell me about what’s been going on over the last 5 years; your evolution as an artist and as a band. It started with just me. I run a recording studio and in my spare time would record songs. That became the first record. I had a few friends play on it. And pretty much the same thing for the second record. After the second record came out, I started playing some live shows. Dave, the bass player, he’s been in the band the longest. Then we brought in brought in Tony. Then Rachel came in to play drums, and that was after the second record. So after the third record it was more of a band. There were some songs that were built up more around me, but some of it was full band, because we were playing live at that point. And then for the last one, it was even more so that way. It’s pretty much full band arrangements on all but 2 songs. But I don’t know if I would want to do a record that was always the same people every song, the same instrumentation. That doesn’t interest me very much. When did you start recording Dusk in Cold Parlors? Kind of off and on for the past year and a half. After we finished Winter Farewell, we didn’t record anything for about 6 months. Then we started to record a batch of 3 or 4 songs here and there. There were a bunch of songs that we didn’t use. We recorded something like 20 songs, and there are 12 on it. What are the drawbacks of using your own studio to record? Well the biggest drawback for me is having to play and engineer. So I’m constantly running back and forth. When I’m playing, someone else in the band will be pressing play and record, but inevitably there’s always something that’s not coming through right and I’ll have to take off my headphones, put down the guitar, walk in and realize, “Oh, it was this button wasn’t pressed.” It’s just hard to really get in the zone when I’m constantly worried about how things are sounding, and just dealing with all the technical stuff. But on that record, for the first time ever, I went to another studio and recorded 3 songs in Tucson at a studio called Wavelab. I’d never done that before. After recording so many bands for so many years, it was really fun. You’d never been under another engineer? Right. Geez. I’d never gone to a studio and record. So it was really fun. All I thought about was playing I was somewhat curious, but not really, as to how he was setting up and what mics he was using and what he was running it through. I was like, “I don’t care. I’m sure they sound good and I don’t even want to think about that.” So that was cool. How did you end up going to Tucson? I interviewed Craig [Schumacher] for TapeOp many years ago. So, since then I’ve just kind of known him, and I would see him every once in a while if I was in Tucson or he was up here. We stayed in touch. Then the band got a little bit of extra money and I thought it would be really fun to go there and record while we’re on tour. So we made a tour out of it, and played shows on the way there and on the way back. We only recorded there for 2 days, but we got three songs. That sounds fun. Yeah, it was really fun. How many tours have you done of the west, and where else have you been? We’ve done the west coast something like 5 times, and nowhere else really in the US. We went to Europe for about a month. How did you do that? We got asked to go by this band called Sparklehorse. It’s funny—same story, I interviewed him for TapeOp a long time ago. We hadn’t really stayed in touch, but whenever they would come to town we would see each other. He was always really nice. Good band, too. Yeah, they’re great. Then, just out of the blue one day, he emailed me and asked, “Do you want to go to Europe?”
Have you seen much of a response in Europe having your albums out there? Well we have distribution out there. We actually sell more over there than we do here. Which is funny. We don’t even have a European label, it’s just all imports. I’m talking to this label in France right now about putting out the new record, but that’s not a for sure thing yet. In England, especially, we’re doing really well, but I’ve only talked to one label over there. They really liked it, but it seems like every label really likes it, but their schedule is set for the next year. It’s like getting into a gallery if you’re a painter. Who are some of your favorite local groups and musicians? Oh man. I know I’m going to leave people out. I’ll just go sweeping. I really like all the bands from Film Guerrero and Hush Records. Would you say that the quiet music scene in Portland is as vibrant as any other? The thing with Portland I’ve found is that there are so many musicians that it’s hard to get people to come out. The ratio between fans and musicians is just so huge, and everybody’s too busy doing their own thing. It seems like most people come out when there’s a bigger, national touring act, for obvious reasons, but the support for local music isn’t that good. What have you learned in your time here that you could share with other musicians? Well, I just try to play in town if it’s part of a tour. So it’s the day before we leave or the day after we leave. To me it’s just not worth it to put in all the time and effort into getting ready for a show when the turnout is probably not going to be that good. I always want to play in town. There are people that want to see it, and it’s fun playing no matter what, but it just seems more logical and easier to do it that way. I think that for bands that aren’t able to tour, for whatever reasons, I think that not playing all the time is a good thing. You want to get people excited to see you play, and if you play all the time, then people are going to think, “Oh, I’ll just see them next time, they play all the time.” For some music, it makes sense to play a lot. Like Kung Pao Chickens or something, I think that’s just a whole different approach to performance that you could pull off playing 3 times a week. It’s always going to be a fun time, and I know I would like to watch that every week. But I wouldn’t necessarily want to see some band that’s kind of in this genre that we’re talking about. So what other projects are going on at Type Foundry right now? Right now I am working on the new Graves record, which is really good. I’m working with this guy, Tommy McDonald. And I’m working with Peace Harbor. I’m also working with my roommate Shelley Short, she’s a little bit old style country. She’s got a really pretty voice, and she’s never recorded before. How’s she doing with recording? We’re starting on Wednesday. Ah. Good luck. I love working with people who have recorded a lot and have really good tone and know what they’re doing. The band is on tour right now with Tracker and the Decemberists. Sample these and some of the other groups Adam talks about at www.filmg.com/mp3s.php Type Foundry Recording Studio Adam Selzer’s studio records Norfolk and Western,along with many local talents. Contact him at (503)284-1892 or (503) 493-9055 Interview by Cameron Jones Give me the basic specs of the studio (gear, size/number of rooms, construction of rooms, etc) The studio is in North Portland- its about 5,000 square feet with a very large, open live room with hardwood floors and a carpeted isolation room for a more dry sound. There are 3 engineers that work there; myself, Jason Powers, and Jeremy Romagna. We use a 1” 16 track reel to reel and we also have Digital Performer should anyone prefer to work in the digital realm. We have a large microphone selection and use a Soundcraft Ghost console. What are your rates?
Our rates are $25 per hour. What engineers/producers, alive or dead, do you admire the most? Why? One of my favorite engineers is Craig Shumacher who runs Wavelab in Tucson Arizona. He has a large live room like ours and gets great drum sounds. He also likes to keep things very spontanious and doesn’t worry so much about fiddling around with sounds. That can ruin momentum and hurt the creative process. At the same time, he’s very intuitive about what to use gear wise- he knows his room and his gear. That is very important and can only happen with lots of hours logged in the studio. I also like Mark Never’s recent recordings- he recorded the newest Lambchop and Will Oldham records. And whoever recorded those sessions at Sun in the 50’s- those Elvis and Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash sessions have a really great sound. I’ve been listening to those a lot lately. Name a few albums that you think were produced/recorded well. Of course, the above mentioned records, all the Beatles records, 60’s jazz records always sound great to me because they know how to play in a room together so well and use natural dynamics. Tom Waits “Swordfishtrombone”, Pell Mell “Interstate”, Dirty Three “Ocean Songs”, Califone “Room Sound”. What are your long-term goals as far as producing and engineering are concerned? I think I’ll always engineer records for friends, but someday I’d like to rely on it less for money and play music more. Sometimes its hard to work on my own music if I’m really busy at the studio because my brain can only handle so much musical input in a day. But for now, I’m happy being as busy as I can- I’d love to be busier at the studio than I am now. |
It was hard though, because their whole deal was that they needed to find a band that would share their mega tour bus with them, because they were only touring as a two piece. They were like, “Well, if you want to go you’re going to have to pay for half the bus.” And it was really expensive. I didn’t think we could do that, but then I thought, Who knows if we’ll ever get this opportunity again. I was willing to go heavily into debt just to do it because it would be such a fun experience. And we weren’t getting paid hardly anything at shows. So we got there, and fortunately we sold a lot of cds, so we were able to make enough to pay for the bus and all our expenses.
