July 10, 2010
Interview by Scott Preston
I sat down with Shawny and Aaron Scott from pop rock band Chaselounge and they talked about the origins of the band as well as their experience with recording with record producer Erwin Musper. Their cd release show for their new record “Hush of Sound” is Saturday July 10 at York St Cafe in Newport, KY.
Cincy Groove: How did Chaselounge first get together?
Shawny Scott: I formed the band with Aaron and Adam (our drummer) back in 2002 with another guitar player who ended up leaving about a year after that, then Chris came in. After my college band fizzled after about 6 years, I wrote a bunch of songs for a solo record I put out which was actually called Chaselounge. I amassed a group of about 30 songs that was different than what I had done in the past. After I did the solo album I decided I wanted to do the band thing again. The first person I met was Adam who had put an ad in City Beat.
Aaron Scott: I ended up answering an ad that Shawny had put in the paper that read “Looking for a strong melodic bass player for a pop rock band”. Then after that Shawny had put the question “Are there any good bass players left in the world?”
Shawny Scott: Aaron came over to my apartment and we played a song called “Days Good Work” which is the first song off of our first album. In my opinion I think its the trademark Chaselounge song. I remember playing the song to him and he picked up the progression before I finished the song. I could tell he was very good. Then Chris came in about a year after we started.
Cincy Groove: How did you end up hooking up with music producer Erwin Musper?
Shawny Scott: We did a self-released album in 2004 called “Mayday” and just gigged around town. He actually emailed us. So I sent him a return email saying that we are playing at Radio Down this weekend so if you would like to come that would be great. Erwin came to the show and introduced himself to me. We had a conversation out on the patio and I could tell he was a very nice, legit guy. Everything about him is very genuine. Chris and I went over to his studio and were very impressed by the set up he had. I was just amazed that he was here and that we were standing in his studio. Originally he wanted to take our first record, Mayday and re mix it, maybe redo some vocals. We at the time had some newer songs written and weren’t too hip to the idea. So what we ended up doing was re-recording everything and putting about half the songs from that on the new record along with some newer songs that we had finished. That record was put out in 2005 and called “Black Plastic Ordinary”.
During that time we were doing a lot of regional touring. Even though we had 35-40 songs to pull from we ended up playing a lot of the same songs at each show. We ended up scaling back our schedule a bit because it didn’t leave a lot of time to write. That was about in late 2006 early 2007.
Aaron Scott: By that time both albums had run their course and it was time to stay home and focus on the next project.
Cincy Groove: What the band’s writing process is like?
Shawny Scott: Well I remember a couple times getting guitars out in the hotel room. But I have never been the type of person who says that we are going to sit down and in the next 5 minutes write a song. For me it just doesn’t happen that way. Another hurdle for me was writing songs as a band and not just by myself. Before the songs were written by me and then arranged by all of us. So that was something different for me. For the new record we had about 6 or 7 songs that we wrote at practice.
We also found out when it gets down to hashing out chord progressions that Aaron and I do a lot of the writing.
Aaron Scott: I think you can see that a lot of the songs we have written have stemmed from ideas that Shawny or I have had then the band ends up arranging it. Whats good about what Chris can do is that he can play the producer to the situation.
Cincy Groove: How much influence did Erwin have on the recording process?
Shawny Scott: In the production of this latest record not so much. But the record before that I remember Erwin coming to band practices and making suggestions and changes on those songs. But this time around we really kept the writing to ourselves. The way we did this album was completely different than how we had done it in the past. In the past we would bring everything into the studio and track as a band. This time we did the demos at Chris’ studio as a band to a click. Then when the music got to Erwin’s studio only Adam went in. Adam had those demos in his headphones while he was laying down his drum part. The element of our human error was gone. He was able to track his drums at his pace.
Aaron Scott: It took a lot of the burden off of Erwin, he just had to focus on Adam’s track and not worry about everyone’s performance.
Shawny Scott: We then took the tracks back from Erwin’s studio and put on the bells and whistles back in Chris’ studio. This record definitely has more production in it than our previous ones.
Cincy Groove: Tell me about the cd release show on July 10.
Shawny Scott: It’s at York St Cafe in Newport, KY. It’s really one of our favorite places to play. We have also have The Newbees and The Mighty opening for us. Jeff from The Newbees was in my college band at Ohio University.
Chaselounge CD Release Show for “Hush of Sound”
Saturday July 10, 2010
York St Cafe
738 York St
Newport, KY
w/ The Mighty and The Newbees
Doors: 7:30pm
Showtime: 8:00pm
Admission: $8 or $15 for admission and CD
