“ONE MAN BANDS – The Long Guitar Slinger Theory Of Pop” is an ongoing interview series by Mike Baron, our very own Bloody Red Baron here at PGH.  Read his introduction to this series – HERE

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JOSH FIX blasted onto the power pop scene – out of nowhere – back in 2007 with one of that year’s absolute very best albums, “Free At Last”.   What many who bought this record have not realized about his music is that Fix is a ‘one man band’.   Mike Baron talks with Josh exclusively for PGH.

Why go solo?

I am not sure, actually. It’s just the way I’ve always done things (mostly.) Unless is it’s a very, very special situation, for me being in a band always means compromise to the point of lowest-common-denominator type stuff.  I’m talking about a TRUE band, where everyone’s equal, not a band where there’s one dominant person controlling everything. If I recorded with a band, that’s all it would be anyway (the latter), and since I can pretty much play every instrument, it allows me to forego the extra step of having to explain parts to everyone.  That being said, I just got off a tour as a backing player with a pretty prominent group (Train), and it was a breath of fresh air to just be part of the furniture, as it were.

Where did you record “Free At Last” and what recording equipment did you use?

“Free At Last” was recorded at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, and also a great deal of it was done in my closet at my apartment in San Francisco as well.

I borrowed a lot of nice instruments from friends, and also used whatever was laying around the studio.  The biggest part of the sound was probably the antique upright piano (which has since been removed from the studio by its owner.) A lot of guitar parts were done on my Epiphone Flamekat, which sounds great, but doesn’t stay in tune very well. For bass I mostly used a vintage Fender Jazz bass, and also a Rickenbacker. Keyboards were pretty much the real deals: Hammond B3 through a big fat leslie, Fender Rhodes. One of the songs has an overdubbed acoustic double bass. For vocals, I used a Telefunken ELA M251, which was rented from an adjacent studio. A lot of Bob Weir’s outboard gear was still in the control room at the time, so the quality of signal processing is about as high as you can probably imagine. All kinds of amazing vintage compressors, EQs, outboard reverbs, etc…. I think everything recorded at Hyde Street basically went through Neve preamps, and then into Pro Tools at 24/96.   Whatever I recorded at home was straight into a Digi 002.

How do you write a song?  Do you start on the keyboard or a guitar?

Sometimes neither. Some of what I think are my most “sophisticated” musical ideas have occurred to me (in relative completeness) when I’m just walking down the street or in the shower or something. I guess being away from an instrument frees me from relying on my usual familiar musical crutches or patterns.

Did you find any difficulty maintaining your enthusiasm during the recording process?

I’m usually pretty excited during the whole process. Writer’s block is another thing, though. When I get stuck, it’s very frustrating and I find it hard to break out of ruts. But anyway, “Free At Last” was very exciting for me, being my first real album and all that. Plus, someone else was paying and we were on the clock the whole time, and it went by pretty quickly- I think 10 days of recording, max. So, there was no issue with enthusiasm at all. Now that I do a lot of recording at home, sometimes the motivation flits in and out a bit. It’s a little too easy to just pop downstairs and waste half an afternoon doing nothing when I get a bit frustrated with something.

How do you get everything to line up?  Do you play a tape of the basic track say, on piano, and accompany yourself on drums?

Yes. Almost exactly as you described it. It it’s a rock or pop song it’s pretty easy, as you’re not dealing with too many changes or sections. I’ll usually map out the song structure in Pro Tools and set a tempo with a click track and just start laying down basic scratch tracks.  I usually start with piano, because you can cover a lot of harmonic and rhythmic ground on a piano. It may not be the actual part that ends up on the recording, but it serves as a good framework for everything else. I also do that for the orchestral stuff, whether or not a piano will actually even be on the final recording.

When can we expect a new LP?

Hopefully pretty soon. I’m at this point now where I’ve almost got too much material sitting around- I’m not sure what my “sound” is anymore, frankly. I may need to take some time and just parse it all out and figure out who I am before releasing it all unto the world. Also, I’ve committed myself to a bunch of other projects, mostly producing and composing.  So, I am sort of tethered to finishing all that up before I can really concentrate on pushing out a new record. Maybe I’ll just start putting out singles. I honestly don’t know.

CHECK OUT MORE ON JOSH FIX –

Home Page – HERE

Listen on Spotify – HERE

MySpace – HERE

Buy the CD?  Kool Kat – HERE

Amazon for MP3s and CD – HERE