13 Questions with droneroom
Maybe it was memories of melodies that my brain came up with while I was driving to work. Maybe it was guitar riffs and gear tests that were fleeting in the moment, but had logged some harmonic importance in my brain bank.
Maybe it was playing in the background of a movie that I wasn't really watching.... but I'm pretty sure I took a nap on a Tuesday and when I woke up droneroom was on my musical radar like it had always been there. Blake Conley makes music maybe you've never heard, but you're happy to hear again. The new droneroom album, I'll make it up to you, I Swear , is available for pre-order CD and digital d'load from Somewherecold Records.
Maybe more machine than man. Maybe more breath than song. Maybe more circular than linear. Many maybes lead to many questions. Luckily I had those ready to go.... 13 Questions with droneroom.
1.What's the story with your band/stage name?
1.What's the story with your band/stage name?
BC: Well, like all project names, it’s rooted in something that was kind of funny in the moment and over time has gotten less so. Essentially, I was thinking about the black metal band wolves in the throne room along with thinking about wanting to do a more circular acoustic psychedelic project and merged the two into the phrase droneroom. I thought this very clever in the moment (it’s not) and rushed to claim the name across a few social media platforms. And thus, for better or worse, it was mine. I think it suits the music to an extent, even if, much to my chagrin, the flying drones have become what most non-musicians think of when they hear the word and googling drone is as much, if not more just people showing off their machines than people invested in heavily repetitive and/or static soundscapes.
...unfortunately, my drummer ended up unavailable, so I took what rough sketches of ideas I had at the time and performed them to the best of my abilities…
BC: 3/15/2012 is the date I first performed out as droneroom. My old 2 piece doom band, Brother Ares, had a gig booked and, unfortunately, my drummer ended up unavailable, so I took what rough sketches of ideas I had at the time and performed them to the best of my abilities…Over time I would continue to do this essentially as a fill in when my band would book gigs that we ended up unavailable for. At some point the band went into hibernation mode and despite starting other projects of different natures, I kept performing solo as needed or desired, and it basically became the consistent project in my life (can’t quit yourself, right?). I think more people know I do this, than know I was/am in groups, which was never the plan, but so it goes.
ON: Sounds like you're focused. A bit obsessed. Pretty sure that's what it takes, Blake. Keep on.
BC: Given I have an ouroboros tattoo, I feel required and correct in saying a snake. The cyclical of the concept of an ouroboros and its representation of death and rebirth over and over…the constant reoccurring, never ending Mobius strip of it all speaks to how I think about repetition in composition and my music inherently functions in that capacity.
ON: You did mention an animal in there, didn't you? I'm sure you did...
4. What are your top 5 bands, ever?
BC: Jeez, this will be hard (likely inaccurate to how I feel next week, so don’t hold me to any of these as my ‘top’ bands), and probably not reflect what I do at all musically, but-
The Minutemen- great band, or greatest band? So much creativity, so many ideas, but still uniquely a summation of the parties involved. Plus a really beautiful origin story.
The Breeders- The arrangements, sounds, tones, and note choices in anything this band does are always perfect, definitively them, and always moving. The guitar parts are always odd yet memorable, the drums thoughtful, but impactful, the bass distinct, the vocal melodies earworms but never obvious. The Breeders are always doing something worth listening to.
Beat Happening- perfect distillation of ‘express yourself through whatever means you choose’…Beat Happening remained perpetually, intentionally in a state of what some people would call ‘amateurishness’, but with the idea to keep the music as purely close to the audience and the thrill of hitting on things to make a beat while someone strums around on a chord they only half know and your buddy starts singing whatever comes to mind as possible. And that’s about as beautifully pure an idea as any I’ve ever heard.
Velvet Underground- the Velvets are essentially the Rosetta stone for most independent rock music at this point. You could trace whole genres of music back to each of their albums (not saying they invented the ideas they performed, but they were definitely the touchstone for a lot of people to have first access to them) You want strange avant garde merged w/ kinda snooty pop? VU & Nico. You want scuzzy feedback jams? White Light/White Heat. You want narcoleptic understated beauty? The Velvet Underground. You want sophisticated pop? Loaded.
The Jesus Lizard- best band I ever saw live. Incredible use of space and dynamics. Every player on point and set to kill. The albums are focused, trimmed lean and mean, and tightly coiled to the point that release can throw your back out. And on top of this is the sheer loose madness of David Yow’s vocals.
I could have named at least 20 other top 5 bands. This is a sadistic question.
ON: Fully aware of this question's challenges. To be fair, I tried it out on myself first.
5. Would you rather be a working musician in the era of social media and over sharing, or a working musician in the era of wooden computers?
BC: Um…well…I’m not an aggressively tech savvy guy, so the idea of pre social media certainly speaks to me in an imagined golden anachronistic nostalgia kinda way, but given I didn’t live through it and all the troubles there in (I’ve certainly read Rollins ‘Get In The Van’ and “Our Band Could Be Your Life’ multiple times), so I can only know how to function as a musician in the now. I think it’s harder to make an impact now, given access to ways to make and distribute sound by anyone and everyone, and it almost feels like there are too many options out there vying for your attention. But at the same time, I try to encourage the idea that anyone who wants to make art in whatever medium (as long as it’s not done to hurt or marginalize others/be demeaning to women/marginalized communities, of course) is valid self-expression (see my beat happening commentary) and should be encouraged (that is a whole spiel that probably resolves itself somewhere other than the scope of your question). Open, direct access to the means to produce and share music is certainly something I’ve utilized and benefited from. So, I dunno…I only know the present and so in the present I shall live…
6. What are your biggest musical influence(s) and why?
BC: I’m gonna treat this as influence on my music rather than straight other music that influences mine, if that’s ok? Having said that-
I certainly feel like the work of David Pajo, particularly his early Papa M material helped me to see how one could approach solo instrumental guitar performance w/ some amount of density of ideas. His albums can be very guitar heavy, but in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s overwhelming you with them. Similarly Alan Licht has always inspired me with both his recordings and his writing on music. The interesting thing to me is both of these musicians are people who straddle the lines of the experimental and the overt. Both have played in bands that compose in a (even if it only slightly) traditional sense and have been able to blend their exploratory ideas into the contexts of projects in ways that feel natural to the thrust of the band. I certainly love Mogwai. And Neu! Neil Young and his willingness to explore. I can see a line from many of the slowcore acts (Low, Codeine, etc) into what I do. I’m also certainly into pulling moves from loud noisey rock (definitely in my soloing), doom metal riffs, country music (Earth is certainly a band I’ve spent much time with and they draw from both doom and country). I’m a pretty voracious listener, looking for new sounds and ideas and seeing how I can approximate them. I’ve been often ‘guilty’ of trying to describe a part of a song or piece (my own pieces or others even) using other bands as descriptors- ‘Oh, that’s my Silkworm solo’ or ‘I’m doing a David Rawlings move there’ or ‘That song is very Minutemen’…it’s just the way I think about music. Often these connections only make sense to me. I’ve often spent a good week with a band, tried to approximate how I thought they wrote, failed miserably, but the end result was an interesting new thing that I hadn’t done before…and that becomes the germ of a new piece…
I’m certainly inspired by the feelings evoked by films from Dennis hopper, David Lynch, Kelly Reichardt, and Wernerg Herzog among others. And television shows like “The Leftovers”.
And along those lines, I certainly love the writing of Cormac Mccarthy who is also a master at creating a heightened yet weighted sense of time and space. Jonathan Lethem as well. And Larry Mcmurty has definitely inspired some of my material as well. I generally like film, tv, and literature with a slower pace and maybe not an overload of plot as much as a feeling of place or time. I like to hope my music also can present this. A small space to be in a moment.
My moods, anxieties, and compulsions all play a part in the vibes I’m shooting for when writing. I soak up moods like a sponge. I will often get on kicks where I will spend a week or two stuck on, say, one film director and their spirit. Or one band’s entire discography, or I will read 3 books by one author in close succession and this constant absorption of one thing will then affect what I’m feeling/trying to do musically. Most of my pieces stem from a compulsive inability to settle on one idea, so I try them all on top of each other.
ON: "Voracious Listener"... feel it.
7. Your fans: brooding nodders or 'bow throwing maniacs?
BC: Definitely the nodding type. Given the highly repetitive nature of what I do, it’s definitely something to sit with, relax to, reflect to, nap to, etc…You can nod along or nod off and all of it feels like a valid response to what I do. Quite a few people have expressed how they have kind of just drifted out during my set, had weird sort of visions, and then come back at the ending. I’m always stoked to hear what they saw when they do if they are willing to articulate this to me.
Having said that, if an audience chose to throw down during a droneroom set, as long as they didn’t actively hurt each other, I’d be curious to see how they do it…
8. Stage rig rundown?
BC: Essentially- Fender tweed blues jr for amplification, modded fender blacktop jazzmaster (replaced the bridge humbucker with a Curtis Novak JM-Fat, replaced the stock bridge with a mustang style one (an offset rite of passage) for strings and strums, unknown brand screw driver, glass slide, ebow brand ebow, a music box that plays ‘’Canon in D’ by Pachelbel, and the pedal board which is generally in a slight state of flux depending on the songs I’m choosing to perform/whatever new noise box I’ve purchased/if I’m feeling nostalgic for...
Current arrangement is reflective of this wacky, obsessive idea that I should replace every pedal I normally use with an Earthquaker Devices Pedal equivalent if there is one. EQD make powerful sounding instruments that do what they are supposed to do, but in a way that makes then unique. They have great art on them. And they don’t have embarrassing names (eqd, if you are reading this, I am available to endorsement and will clearly sing your praises to everyone)-
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal
Dunlop Crybaby
Boss tu-2
EQD Acapulco Gold
EQD Westwood
MXR Phase 90 (though I just ordered an EQD Grand Orbiter)
EQD Hummingbird
EHX Freeze
EQD Space Spiral
EQD Afterneath
EQD Dispatch Master
EHX 720 looper
Also a nice pair of boots and generally a cowboy hat
ON: I always look forward to this one, and dude, you did not disappoint. Multimedia presentation.
9. Is your zen spot the studio or the stage?
BC: um..they both have their perks, but I certainly love to play out as much as people will tolerate (and then some)…I love the happy accidents and tonal exploration of recording but I love the immediate satisfaction of creation and having a piece come together live. Being able to release any pent up emotions that have been nagging me by performing is a feeling I don’t get when recording a piece as I’m working on parts of the whole vs being in one pure moment live. You have to be present live in a way that you don’t when recording. I think
those might be the times when I am most present with myself for better or worse. Too many pieces moving at once to get too lost from yourself. But at the same time, how I’m feeling has certainly affected the way I play and sometimes the results of that are interesting as well. I’ve done sets after a week of feeling anxious or gloomy, performed a set that reflected this, and it felt like an exorcism. It doesn’t always (but can sometimes) result in the most accurately performed set, but they have felt truly honest in ways I’m not always otherwise. Having people come up to you and tell you how they felt while being in that moment with you is also insightful and rewarding and whenever they do, it always makes me happy. The feeling of the audience, the venue, whatever ambient sounds that are occurring around you lend themselves to the live performance as well.
10. Would you rather fight a 1 grizzly bear sized hamster, or 100 hamster sized grizzly bears?
BC: Better death from one giant bite than death from 100 tiny bites. Plus if a giant hamster kills me, maybe Werner Herzog will make a documentary about me…
11. Tour van stops for gas. You go inside and buy 1 beverage, 1 snack, and 1 random thing. What are they?
BC: Coca Cola, chocolate chip cookie, random pair of trucker sunglasses (or a trucker hat) that will invariably get worn on stage that night…
12. Would your 15 year old self like your music?
BC: Good question...i would hope so…there are sonic characteristics that I feel have carried over from then to now. I might be slightly confused by some of my fashion choices now…
13. Favorite Louisville band that you are not in?
BC: Well, this town’s rich musical history definitely played a big part of choosing to move here. Slint is an obvious favorite and from that into The For Carnation. I always have time for anything David Pajo does. Rodan. Freakwater is top tier for me. Catherine Irwin writes music that is both charming and heart breaking and always moves me. I’m always curious to hear whatever Will Oldham is up to now. I think Grlwood is fantastic and I’m beyond happy to see the world getting to experience them and fall in love with them. Twenty First Century Fox are a blast. Tender Mercy plays absolutely gorgeous music that you don’t mind crying in public to. Jaye Jayle make the soundtrack to David Lynch films not yet made. CJ tie beautiful arrangements of words and sounds into a bewitching bouquet of the abstract, the fleeting, and the heartfelt (they are also the band that I can never seem to write about without just collapsing into vague poetry…I feel like that’s a wonderful thing). Bon Air are my fav sugar rush of hard rock feels. Cat Casual is always onto new ways to refine his musical aesthetic that are fascinating. El Bisonte are just crushing and beautiful. And new local band Work Shirt (members of Waxeater, Parlor, and Twin Sister Radio) are the band I am currently most jealous that I am not in.
Velvet Underground- the Velvets are essentially the Rosetta stone for most independent rock music at this point. You could trace whole genres of music back to each of their albums (not saying they invented the ideas they performed, but they were definitely the touchstone for a lot of people to have first access to them) You want strange avant garde merged w/ kinda snooty pop? VU & Nico. You want scuzzy feedback jams? White Light/White Heat. You want narcoleptic understated beauty? The Velvet Underground. You want sophisticated pop? Loaded.
The Jesus Lizard- best band I ever saw live. Incredible use of space and dynamics. Every player on point and set to kill. The albums are focused, trimmed lean and mean, and tightly coiled to the point that release can throw your back out. And on top of this is the sheer loose madness of David Yow’s vocals.
I could have named at least 20 other top 5 bands. This is a sadistic question.
ON: Fully aware of this question's challenges. To be fair, I tried it out on myself first.
I think it’s harder to make an impact now, given access to ways to make and distribute sound by anyone and everyone, and it almost feels like there are too many options out there vying for your attention.
5. Would you rather be a working musician in the era of social media and over sharing, or a working musician in the era of wooden computers?
BC: Um…well…I’m not an aggressively tech savvy guy, so the idea of pre social media certainly speaks to me in an imagined golden anachronistic nostalgia kinda way, but given I didn’t live through it and all the troubles there in (I’ve certainly read Rollins ‘Get In The Van’ and “Our Band Could Be Your Life’ multiple times), so I can only know how to function as a musician in the now. I think it’s harder to make an impact now, given access to ways to make and distribute sound by anyone and everyone, and it almost feels like there are too many options out there vying for your attention. But at the same time, I try to encourage the idea that anyone who wants to make art in whatever medium (as long as it’s not done to hurt or marginalize others/be demeaning to women/marginalized communities, of course) is valid self-expression (see my beat happening commentary) and should be encouraged (that is a whole spiel that probably resolves itself somewhere other than the scope of your question). Open, direct access to the means to produce and share music is certainly something I’ve utilized and benefited from. So, I dunno…I only know the present and so in the present I shall live…
6. What are your biggest musical influence(s) and why?
BC: I’m gonna treat this as influence on my music rather than straight other music that influences mine, if that’s ok? Having said that-
I certainly feel like the work of David Pajo, particularly his early Papa M material helped me to see how one could approach solo instrumental guitar performance w/ some amount of density of ideas. His albums can be very guitar heavy, but in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s overwhelming you with them. Similarly Alan Licht has always inspired me with both his recordings and his writing on music. The interesting thing to me is both of these musicians are people who straddle the lines of the experimental and the overt. Both have played in bands that compose in a (even if it only slightly) traditional sense and have been able to blend their exploratory ideas into the contexts of projects in ways that feel natural to the thrust of the band. I certainly love Mogwai. And Neu! Neil Young and his willingness to explore. I can see a line from many of the slowcore acts (Low, Codeine, etc) into what I do. I’m also certainly into pulling moves from loud noisey rock (definitely in my soloing), doom metal riffs, country music (Earth is certainly a band I’ve spent much time with and they draw from both doom and country). I’m a pretty voracious listener, looking for new sounds and ideas and seeing how I can approximate them. I’ve been often ‘guilty’ of trying to describe a part of a song or piece (my own pieces or others even) using other bands as descriptors- ‘Oh, that’s my Silkworm solo’ or ‘I’m doing a David Rawlings move there’ or ‘That song is very Minutemen’…it’s just the way I think about music. Often these connections only make sense to me. I’ve often spent a good week with a band, tried to approximate how I thought they wrote, failed miserably, but the end result was an interesting new thing that I hadn’t done before…and that becomes the germ of a new piece…
I’m certainly inspired by the feelings evoked by films from Dennis hopper, David Lynch, Kelly Reichardt, and Wernerg Herzog among others. And television shows like “The Leftovers”.
And along those lines, I certainly love the writing of Cormac Mccarthy who is also a master at creating a heightened yet weighted sense of time and space. Jonathan Lethem as well. And Larry Mcmurty has definitely inspired some of my material as well. I generally like film, tv, and literature with a slower pace and maybe not an overload of plot as much as a feeling of place or time. I like to hope my music also can present this. A small space to be in a moment.
I’ve done sets after a week of feeling anxious or gloomy, performed a set that reflected this, and it felt like an exorcism.
My moods, anxieties, and compulsions all play a part in the vibes I’m shooting for when writing. I soak up moods like a sponge. I will often get on kicks where I will spend a week or two stuck on, say, one film director and their spirit. Or one band’s entire discography, or I will read 3 books by one author in close succession and this constant absorption of one thing will then affect what I’m feeling/trying to do musically. Most of my pieces stem from a compulsive inability to settle on one idea, so I try them all on top of each other.
ON: "Voracious Listener"... feel it.
7. Your fans: brooding nodders or 'bow throwing maniacs?
BC: Definitely the nodding type. Given the highly repetitive nature of what I do, it’s definitely something to sit with, relax to, reflect to, nap to, etc…You can nod along or nod off and all of it feels like a valid response to what I do. Quite a few people have expressed how they have kind of just drifted out during my set, had weird sort of visions, and then come back at the ending. I’m always stoked to hear what they saw when they do if they are willing to articulate this to me.
Having said that, if an audience chose to throw down during a droneroom set, as long as they didn’t actively hurt each other, I’d be curious to see how they do it…
8. Stage rig rundown?
BC: Essentially- Fender tweed blues jr for amplification, modded fender blacktop jazzmaster (replaced the bridge humbucker with a Curtis Novak JM-Fat, replaced the stock bridge with a mustang style one (an offset rite of passage) for strings and strums, unknown brand screw driver, glass slide, ebow brand ebow, a music box that plays ‘’Canon in D’ by Pachelbel, and the pedal board which is generally in a slight state of flux depending on the songs I’m choosing to perform/whatever new noise box I’ve purchased/if I’m feeling nostalgic for...
 |
| schematic via droneroom |
Current arrangement is reflective of this wacky, obsessive idea that I should replace every pedal I normally use with an Earthquaker Devices Pedal equivalent if there is one. EQD make powerful sounding instruments that do what they are supposed to do, but in a way that makes then unique. They have great art on them. And they don’t have embarrassing names (eqd, if you are reading this, I am available to endorsement and will clearly sing your praises to everyone)-
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal
Dunlop Crybaby
Boss tu-2
EQD Acapulco Gold
EQD Westwood
MXR Phase 90 (though I just ordered an EQD Grand Orbiter)
EQD Hummingbird
EHX Freeze
EQD Space Spiral
EQD Afterneath
EQD Dispatch Master
EHX 720 looper
Also a nice pair of boots and generally a cowboy hat
ON: I always look forward to this one, and dude, you did not disappoint. Multimedia presentation.
9. Is your zen spot the studio or the stage?
BC: um..they both have their perks, but I certainly love to play out as much as people will tolerate (and then some)…I love the happy accidents and tonal exploration of recording but I love the immediate satisfaction of creation and having a piece come together live. Being able to release any pent up emotions that have been nagging me by performing is a feeling I don’t get when recording a piece as I’m working on parts of the whole vs being in one pure moment live. You have to be present live in a way that you don’t when recording. I think
 |
| I'll Make It Up To You, I Swear |
10. Would you rather fight a 1 grizzly bear sized hamster, or 100 hamster sized grizzly bears?
BC: Better death from one giant bite than death from 100 tiny bites. Plus if a giant hamster kills me, maybe Werner Herzog will make a documentary about me…
11. Tour van stops for gas. You go inside and buy 1 beverage, 1 snack, and 1 random thing. What are they?
BC: Coca Cola, chocolate chip cookie, random pair of trucker sunglasses (or a trucker hat) that will invariably get worn on stage that night…
12. Would your 15 year old self like your music?
BC: Good question...i would hope so…there are sonic characteristics that I feel have carried over from then to now. I might be slightly confused by some of my fashion choices now…
13. Favorite Louisville band that you are not in?
BC: Well, this town’s rich musical history definitely played a big part of choosing to move here. Slint is an obvious favorite and from that into The For Carnation. I always have time for anything David Pajo does. Rodan. Freakwater is top tier for me. Catherine Irwin writes music that is both charming and heart breaking and always moves me. I’m always curious to hear whatever Will Oldham is up to now. I think Grlwood is fantastic and I’m beyond happy to see the world getting to experience them and fall in love with them. Twenty First Century Fox are a blast. Tender Mercy plays absolutely gorgeous music that you don’t mind crying in public to. Jaye Jayle make the soundtrack to David Lynch films not yet made. CJ tie beautiful arrangements of words and sounds into a bewitching bouquet of the abstract, the fleeting, and the heartfelt (they are also the band that I can never seem to write about without just collapsing into vague poetry…I feel like that’s a wonderful thing). Bon Air are my fav sugar rush of hard rock feels. Cat Casual is always onto new ways to refine his musical aesthetic that are fascinating. El Bisonte are just crushing and beautiful. And new local band Work Shirt (members of Waxeater, Parlor, and Twin Sister Radio) are the band I am currently most jealous that I am not in.
FIN