The thing that's good about music-making software like the DAW-kinda systems is that they're all generally the same; the kind of interface is normally laid out in a similar way. Depending on the program, the sounds might be quite different, but they tend to all have a drum machine or synthesizer or a sampler.
— Washed Out
I put some songs on the Internet back in 2009 - that's kind of how everything started with Washed Out. I had never really planned on being in a band or anything like that. It was kind of a hobby I did on my own, just recording music.
For me personally, I'm always writing from what's happening in my emotional life. Even without thinking about it a lot of the time, it comes out in the songs that I'm writing.
A lot of the things I was doing on the first couple Washed Out releases was very naive.
The music is at this weird intersection of dance music and indie music. It's not quite dancey enough to do a full-blown DJ set, and it wasn't quite rock enough for a rock band. But I guess it's what makes us unique - drawing from a lot of different influences.
The types of melodies I tend to write kind of have this bittersweet quality; they're meant to be uplifting but kind of have this melancholy vibe to it.
A lot of the early Washed Out material was done on a couple of synthesizers that did most of the work, but that's the great thing about synths - you can recreate sounds or make an entire record with just one piece of gear.
I didn't realise how much I ate Mexican food, like tacos and burritos three times a week, until I came to Europe and couldn't find any.
My music is a personal thing, and I feel like if I talk too much about the songs, or if there's too much of my personal life out there, it ruins it.
The Washed Out thing happened really quickly, and I wasn't really actively promoting the songs. I didn't think of them as any more than demos, really, and it sort of became a thing on its own.
My first big influences were more hip-hop based - people like DJ Shadow and Four Tet.
I come from a background of hiding everything behind a computer.
It's very hard to find perfection in your life. But in the art world you can do that.
I like an even-keeled, slow-paced job.
Maybe in the future, you'll be able to understand what I'm saying. I'm going more for an atmospheric vibe in my songs. And I really don't want to ruin the illusions people may create for themselves.
I do have the personnel that we use in the back of my head when I'm working, but I also don't want to limit myself.
The way that I sing is very mumbled-together, and so I guess I'm kind of stuck with it now.
Texture is very important. Just the feel of everything. It's not always about recording everything in pristine quality and having everything mixed where it's absolutely perfect. It's more about a vibe.
When I'm not touring, I hardly ever leave my house. Part of it is I get to do what I'm most passionate about, which is work on music and make new songs.
I never wanted to just press play on some DJ set and let the lights do all the work. I value old-fashioned performance a little more than that.
I'm entirely self-taught, which I think is both a blessing and a curse.
It's like a painter with various layers of paint. I start with a drum loop and add keyboards, and then melodies start to take shape. The vocals happen later. I've never really done therapy before, but it's a form of therapy. Everything else falls away.
In some ways, I feel like I've always dabbled in nostalgia. It's just what I do; it comes naturally.
Obviously, you want to honour the sound of your music, but I'm definitely open to trying new things and making myself use a different palette of sounds.
I was at a slight disadvantage in that I had never played in bands or done any performances before, and that's just as important as writing, recording, and putting records out. It's been a lot of hard work, balanced with a lot of pinch-myself moments of touring in crazy parts of the world.
If a band or artist isn't tweeting or writing posts on Facebook every day, there can be this kind of mystique built about them, and I find myself retreating from the spotlight more and more.
When I first started writing songs, I never intended on singing. I didn't really consider myself a singer at all. I was just kind of recording the demo vocals as a holding place until someone else came and sang.
I think '80s pop music subconsciously informs what I'm doing.
I remember at one point, with a previous release of mine, I stumbled upon a shareware site, and the total number of downloads was in the thousands, maybe the hundreds of thousands. But there's no doubt that the Internet and that kind of sharing has been a huge benefit for the band.
I try to be as optimistic as I can. I feel like that's the beautiful thing about art and music. It can take you places, and they can be a positive influence. A very soothing influence. Honestly, I feel like there's enough pain and terrible things that happen in life. That's beautiful thing in art, you can really idealize things.
I was gonna work in a university, but no one was hiring.
My general taste is towards the melancholy.
I know of some guitar-based rock bands that refuse to record anything that they can't play live. But some of the best stuff I come up with are studio-based performances - bringing out whatever accident I had in the studio and building a song around that.
I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, and I feel like I can pull ideas from practically anything. You name it - I'll probably like it.
You hear ten seconds of a song, and you know it's OutKast. There's a strangeness about it because it's catchy, but it's not just pop for the sake of pop. They're pushing the envelope.
Any musician - I would say 99% of musicians - needs some help along the way. Most people, even if they're self-produced, have someone else mix it, or they'll have someone else master the record. Inevitably, it's like somebody else's personality being put into your art.
I naturally like that dreamy, shoegazey sound on my vocals. A lot of reverb helps, and so do a lot of delay effects on everything.
The entire making of 'Within and Without' was a series of experiments and trial by error. When I started writing, I didn't have a strong idea of what the record was going to end up like.
I have a small studio set up in my house in Athens. I'll wake up, have a nice breakfast, and I won't surface until dinnertime. I'm very domesticated in that way.
The one sound I think of when I think about dreaming is the harp glissando, which is this really atmospheric run up and down the scale that's really dreamy.
Travelling is really great for giving you tons of ideas, but it's really hard to actually record anything on the road.
I'm very much a fan of having something tactile you can hold.
Obviously, I never want to make the same record twice. I want to keep moving forward. That's the real challenge, I think.
I'm not the most technical producer, so the weird mixes and blown-out sound happen naturally.
My philosophy is generally to keep things as simple as possible.
I lived in a neighborhood where there weren't many kids. I had a couple sisters, but I was very much a loner. Whatever film I had seen that day or that week, I would completely find myself in that world.
I felt like I was building this world brick by brick with each layer of instrumentation I was doing. I could see it growing in some ways. I feel like most writers feel the same way. You're almost living inside of this magic world that you're building.
I don't really write all that well with others.
It's a weird dynamic - I guess there is a fine line between hope and sadness. Sometimes you can be feeling both at the same time.
For the longest time, I was trying to be DJ Shadow, I think. But I slowly developed my own style. It was trial and error, for sure.
