Assemblage 23

Grave Concerns (Linda):  Hello Tom! How are you? 

Tom S: Just starting the shipping out of all the pre-orders for the new album, so I’m very busy, but in a good way.

(Linda) You must be excited about “Compass.”

Grave Concerns (Linda): I see you are now booking for your upcoming US tour, any particular state(s) of interest?  

Tom S:  It’s still in the early stages, but it’s shaping up to be similar to the previous US tours we’ve done.  A couple new spots, but I don’t want to talk about specifics until contracts are signed and all that good stuff.

Grave Concerns (Linda):  What genre of music do you consider your work to be? Has this changed over time with each album?  If you can create your own genre, what would you call it?

Tom S:  I think it’s the listener’s job to categorize music rather than the artist, so I don’t give a whole lot of thought to it, to be honest.  Personally I think electronic music in general has too many sub-genres, but I get why people do it.  I’m really more concerned with whether people think the music is good or not than having it fit into some specific style.

Grave Concerns (Linda):  With your many albums released, I noticed on your website, the equipment/software used, increased. Would you mind briefly, without giving away your secrets, describing your music-making process to your fans and others bands that may have interest in using similar software programs available today?  And out of the many software programs which is your favorite and most user friendly?

Tom S:  Yeah, I’m a bit of a software packrat!  Recently, though, my studio computer died and I had to get a new one, so a lot of the older plug-ins I had won’t run for me anymore, so it has sort of forced a slightly simplified set-up on me, which I think is actually a good thing.  But the Cliff’s notes version of my process… I usually get an idea in my head away from the studio.  I generally work the idea for the song out in my head quite a bit before I sit down at a keyboard.  I figure if the idea is any good, it will be easy to remember, and if I lose the idea, it might not have been so great after all.  Then I generally record a very basic demo into Logic – like just a bassline and a simple drum beat, or chords and drums, etc.  I keep ‘definite’, ‘maybe’, and ‘probably not’ folders for all of these ideas based on what I think the potential is.  Then, once I’m ready to start work on an album, I sort through these to find what I feel are the strongest ideas and flesh them out into full arrangements.  As far as software… Logic is the main hub for everything I do.  It’s a lot more user friendly than it used to be back in the day, but it’s still an amazingly deep program with a lot to learn about.

Read More of this interview here