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Partial Transcript: Cameron: “All right, so hello again, Trey!”
Trey: “Yeah, how’s it going?”
Cameron: “It’s going alright, you?”
Trey: “Very good.
Cameron: “All right, well, I asked you off camera a bit about yourself, but do you mind saying a bit more of who you are? What your…what your deal is around here?”
Trey: “Who I am? What my deal is, um…”
Cameron: “Loosely speaking.”
Trey: “Yeah, um…in the grand–in like, as in right now or just in my life like…?”
Cameron: “Uh, let's start with right now.”
Trey: “Oh, right now I'm spending most of my time…arranging is kind of was mostly what I'm doing. You know I helped build the studio and I'm a part of Spacebomb but I'm less…there was a time when I was here every day. These days I'm not so much so I'm doing more arranging. So I'll be here when I'm recording and working on stuff like that. And I also have a sample library company that I own. So that's sort of my nerdy side project that I, I've had for years, but during COVID I kind of like started getting into it because…”
Cameron: “Yeah, believe me, I'm all for nerdy side projects.”
Trey: “Yeah, because, y’know, every record label basically stopped. Stopped the budget on everything. So no one was recording for a while. So anyway, I kind of put some life back into that during COVID. So I spent some time on that. And so it's mostly that in arranging, well, mostly arranging and then that. That's kind of my day-to-day life these days.”
Cameron: “Sounds like a good M.O. Tell me about arranging.”
Trey: “So yeah, I mean, at this point I've been doing it for…let's see, it’s 2022, so over 10 years.”
Cameron: “Wow!”
Trey: “The first record I did was Matthew E. White's first record, when he kind of came up with the idea to start Spacebomb, and he wanted to do these kinds of arrangement-heavy records, and I had done some strings, like, writing for strings and stuff when we were in college together. We had done a few, like, weird side project things, like some orchestral stuff. And so, that was the first record I did, and then kind of from there, you know, one record leads to the next and I didn't really ever intend–I mean, I was always interested in arranging and I've studied it quite a bit in school, and I've always been interested in it–but I never thought I would be an arranger. So one record to the next and then someone, ‘Here's the thing you do,’ and then you get to ask them to do it again. So, I've been doing that now for, yeah, 10 years. And it's great. I love it. And it's kind of like, you know, one of those things, you don't plan for it. But it ends up being something that's quite fulfilling. And you know, for many years there, I was touring a bunch too so…I don't really do that anymore. At this point, I think I'm too old for that.”
Cameron: “Stationary.”
Trey: “Yeah, I got kids now. So it's like…arranging, I can just be at home, you know, for the most part. So, yeah, I mean, so it's mostly, I would say, maybe 5% of it is string stuff. But then there's like, just orchestra, full orchestra stuff. And some horn arranging and things like that. So I'll do a little producing. You know, I did a record with this singer, Nadia Reid, a couple years ago. It was really cool record that I did the arranging for, but I also like, produced it too. So arranging in the grander sense of the word, telling everyone what to play.”
Cameron: “The wide definition.”
Trey: “So yeah, I mean, that's-that's kind of my day to day and…yeah, and, like, recording. So most of my time in the studio these days is tracking arrangements that I've been writing and… yeah, that's pretty much that.”
Cameron: “That sounds like a good day-to-day to me.”
Trey: “Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad.”
Keywords: 10 Years; Career; Day-to-Day; Life; Matthew E. White; Record; Recording; Side Projects; Spacebomb
Hyperlink: Official Website for Matthew E. White.
Hyperlink: Official Website for Nadia Reid.
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Partial Transcript: Cameron: “Do you…would it be safe to say that this kind of comes from passion? That drive that you kind of feel to do this stuff? Because you said you love it?”
Trey: “Yeah, but…yeah but no. I mean, yes, I love it because I love music.”
Cameron: “Of course!”
Trey: “And I’m good at it, it's fun to be good at things. But I mean, it's fun to do the thing you're good at, right?”
Cameron: “Yes, yes.”
Trey: “No, I mean, ultimately, when I started, yeah, it was…there was no money, there was no job. So when me and Matt and the other guys in space vom and the other people around me made that first record, the first Spacebomb record. It was…it was…Um, I don’t want to say it's not about passion. Of course, making music good has to have passion. But I mean, it's not, it's not like…sorry, “Scam Likely.”
Cameron: “You should probably get that.”
Trey: “Ah, yes, Mr. Likely. [Cameron laughs] It's not as though I would be, you know, doing it every day if it didn't pay anything.”
Cameron: “That makes sense.”
Trey: “Like, someone who’s this artist and they make some kind of performance art no matter what's going on in their life, so…but at the beginning it, you know, it was that and but it's a passion to create a an environment for yourself where the thing you want to do is the thing you can get paid to do and live your life doing. So, in that regard, yeah, it is passion, but it isn't…it is a job.”
Cameron: “Yeah, yeah.”
Trey: “I mean, it is work. It is. It is a thing that you don't always love what you're doing. You know, hopefully most of the time you do. And pretty much every time I get in the room with musicians and recording the thing, kind of no matter what the record is, I should say 95% of the time, I love the music I'm making. But I had an experience fairly recently that was not like that. [Cameron laughs] But still, when you get in the room with the musicians and you're recording it, that's the best the best. That's the payoff at the end of every project. So yes, there is passion, you want to inject passion into the music, you want to be passionate about the thing you're doing, but it isn't purely for the…’for the passion.’ Like I don't do it for that.”
Cameron: “Sure. Sure. So it's not necessarily a guarantee that ‘Oh, I have passion’ in everything, but you're able to find passion, if it's something you're genuinely interested in.”
Trey: “Absolutely! I mean, yeah, I mean, you have to. When you're working on music, especially music that's not yours, it's like–what I make, I put out a record of my music a few years ago, that's like–THAT was from the passion. Well, it wasn’t passion. I wouldn't use that word. You used the word, so I keep saying it.”
Cameron: “Sorry, sorry!”
Trey: “No, it's fine. It's good. But it's, you know, I did that no matter what. There was no economy around.”
Cameron: “Yeah, yeah.”
Trey: “It was purely for the sake of making music, music for its own sake. But when you're working on music that's other people's music, which most of the time is what I do, someone asks me to decorate a small corner of their art, you know. And so you have to find something in it that you can be passionate about, and that you can have something to contribute, and the only way you can have something to contribute is if you give a shit. And like, sorry, I probably shouldn't curse.”
Cameron: “You're talking to a bunch of college students, like [Trey laughs]…I’m sure they’ve heard worse.”
Trey: “Okay, okay I'm just making sure it’s not going to be broadcast on AM radio.”
Cameron: “You think I wanna look like this being broadcast?” [Cameron laughs]
Trey: “Okay, good. So um, yeah. So I mean, I think you know, you have to, you have to find that in your work in order for it to be any good. I mean, in general, and it can be small things. Yeah, like this little moment, ‘Here is the thing that I think is so great.’”
Cameron: “It makes it for you.”
Trey: “Yeah, and so then it's all worth it. Yeah.”
Cameron: “I'm…no, I think that's a good way to put it. Didn't mean to put any concepts in your mouth, of course.”
Trey: “No no, it's just funny when you say the word ‘passionate,’ and I want to…agree with you, finally agree with that. I just don’t think I would use that word. It's more about, like, the love of the craft of arranging, and the love of the ability to find a moment in someone's music that you can like, elevate their thing. And like, try to understand where someone else is coming from. Like, it's, you don't understand their music as well as they do, right?”
Cameron: “Sure.”
Trey: “So they…so you're hoping you can just get some understanding and then say, ‘Oh, okay, I understand that.’ And then let me help that one thing. So that's kind of the thing I'm striving for all the time.”
Cameron: “Okay. Okay, I think that's a good way to put it."
Keywords: Drive; Finances; Love of the Craft; Music; Passion; Understanding; Work
Hyperlink: Information about AM Radio.
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Partial Transcript: Cameron: "I’m gonna pivot slightly…"
Trey: “Please.”
Cameron: “ So, you've been doing this for over 10 years, you said.”
Trey: “Mhm.”
Cameron: “Has your perception of music as a concept changed from before you were composing and arranging to where you sit now?
Trey: “So this is a broad question. So when you say ‘concept of music,’ what do you mean?”
Cameron: “Perhaps…the way that music functions in your life?”
Trey: “Oh. Hmm…no, I don't think so. No, I think my relationship with music is more or less the same as it was when I was a kid, I think.”
Cameron: “Okay.”
Trey: “You like the things you like, you try to–I've always been this way–I tried to find out the things that I really like, I tried to find out why I liked them. And I tried to replicate scenarios in which I'm making music that I like. And I've been doing it since I was a kid, you know, you start your first band, or you get, like, a FourTrack and start making music. So I think that's basically the same. I mean, obviously, I'm much better at it…”
Cameron: “Yeah, yeah.”
Trey: “I understand it on a much deeper level, about all kinds of things about music, but no, I don't have…no, it hasn't changed my concept of music. I mean, I think what–obviously what I like and what I listened to, and what kind of what I can appreciate, and the moments that I can enjoy about music are much wider than when I was younger. And even 10 years ago, even when I was in college, you know? So I think I just like more things.”
Cameron: “Yeah, yeah.”
Trey: “But no, basically, it's the same relationship. I would say.”
Cameron: “What was that ‘starting band’ you mentioned that you found out you loved and you want to know why you loved it?”
Trey: “Oh, I mean, oh, so many things. I mean, everything. I don’t know”
Cameron: “Really?”
Trey: “Like, Hendrix, I don't know, like, when you're a kid you play–I play guitar, so I grew up playing…”
Cameron: “Very nice.
Trey: “So I was like, ‘Why is this so good, why do I like this so much?’ [Cameron laughs] But I mean, everything, I could name an endless number of things I could name but like, that's the thing that stuck out from when I was a kid, you know, for whatever reason, it's like, ‘Why is this work? Why’s it so cool?’”
Cameron: “So, some kind of connection that you wanted to explore?
Trey: “Not a connection, it's like, there are things inherent in every piece of music or every musical statement. There are things about it that exist, like in nature, You know what I mean?”
Cameron: “Mhm.”
Trey: “The way the sound works? That. I think that–it's not about like, a relationship with–I mean, I have a relationship with all this music, because you have a history with it and you have personal relationships. But I mean more about that inspiring thing that is just purely like, ‘Whoa, I like the way that sounds, what is going on?’ But basically, that is the same. And that is the whole thing to this day. And, like, when I'm arranging something for somebody, it's like, you hear a sound, you're like, ‘Oh, that's a cool sound. How do I manipulate that or make that work with this new thing?’”
Cameron: “That…okay, okay, that makes sense. Thank you for putting it in a way that made more sense.”
Trey: “I try.” [laughs]
Cameron: “Yeah, you did good, for sure."
Keywords: FourTrack; Function; Guitar; Jimi Hendrix; Music; Perception; Relationship; Starting Band; What You Like
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Partial Transcript: Cameron: "Let's see…so you have worked with lots of pretty decently well-known artists. Matthew White, as you've mentioned, has had some success. You have Helado Negro, Natalie Prass. Have you ever felt, like, a little bit of pride when you saw that they did pretty successfully?”
Trey: “Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know. Uh…it's always tempered with, you know, you're essentially doing, you know, you're doing a job, you're fulfilling a function in it, whether it's a record or an artist's whole career, or whatever it is. And so you have pride in the fact you should always have. I mean, I would hope that when you're doing things, that you feel like you're doing a good job, you have pride about the thing you're doing. I wouldn't say I feel pride in that, because something does well, it makes me feel better about what I did.”
Cameron: “Sure.”
Trey: “I don’t think that's true. I don't feel that. But, you know, for some of those, like Natalie, you know, I toured with her for a spell after we did the first record. And I did the same thing with Foxygen, like I made a record with them and I toured with them. And so there's a kind of a different world where you're on stage with someone where you're kind of experiencing them in a different scenario than the reason that you're there, right? I was there with Foxygen because I wrote arrangements for the record, and then they needed an MD to go out on tour and put a band together, so I did that as a secondary job. So then I'm on stage and they're getting all these screaming fans, big massive audiences. So you have, that's kind of like, you get to see it from another angle. So that's cool. But um…I don't know, I kind of lost that thread there.”
Cameron: “Well, tell me about touring.”
Trey: “Touring, yeah! I mean, I liked, you know, I like it. You know, I like a lot of things about it. I think, at this point, like, I'm just kind of done with it. But, you know, I got to see a lot of the world and, you know, Europe and pretty much all of the U.S. and South America many times…many times over.”
Cameron: “To name a few!” [laughs]
Trey: “Yeah. I mean, it's–I feel very fortunate, you know, as long as, um…yeah, those are places that I would probably have not–I definitely would not have–gone and get to see, you know, when when you're on tour, though. It's not–it's work, I mean it is really work. I know to people it seems glamorous, and in a way it is because you get to go to these places. But you don't really get to. You're talking with friends that travel for like, they went to Italy for their honeymoon or they did whatever. And like, ‘Oh, yeah, I went there, but I didn't see any of the things that you just mentioned, because I had to work. I went to the sound check, we did the gig, and then got on the bus, we drove to the next place. I didn't do any of those!’”
Cameron: “Yeah, yeah.”
Trey: “So on the one hand, you know, I would never pretend like it wasn't incredible, I was very fortunate to do it. But on the other hand, it is like, it's work. And it's you know, it's hard. It can be really quite hard, actually. And very tiring and taxing. So, I think for me, it's…I'm just kind of done with it. But um, I mean, there are places I would have liked to have gone. Yeah, I never got to go to Japan, never gonna go to Australia. So…”
Cameron: “There's still time for leisure trips.”
Trey: “Maybe, yeah, maybe. Yeah, no, I mean, I could go there for vacation. But so yeah, for that reason it is definitely cool and worth doing. And some people obviously do it their whole life and love it.”
Cameron: “Sure, yeah.”
Trey: “I think, you know, when you're getting out of school, 25 to now [Cameron laughs], 39, you know, is like the time, when you're in music, you often have to do many things. And you end up kind of going where the energy is, right? Where is their energy at this moment? And music is very seasonal. The music industry is very seasonal. I don't mean, like, summer, fall, winter.”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “Just like, there's a season for a certain kind of thing. And you'll feel it, like ‘Okay.’ Like right now, I'm just like arranging all the time. And there was a time where I was touring all the time. And you kind of just, like–I mean, you'll have to, but for me, it's like I find that I was just, like, kind of, go where the energy was like, ‘Okay, well, this is gonna be a thing I'm doing for now.’ And there was there's been other seasons where I did different things, you know, I did, like, wrote music for commercials and wrote music for…[chuckles] lowest common denominator cable TV shows. [Cameron laughs] Something like TLC and Bravo and I did that for a season. And that was cool, and I learned some things, so…but for me, touring was that, it was like there was a season where that was a thing and that's what I did and I liked it. I probably won't do it again.”
Cameron: “You've had your share of it.”
Trey: “Yeah. I do, like, one-offs, like in November I'm going to Atlanta to do MD for a show for Faye Webster with a big kind of orchestra thing. So I like doing that, I like just like flying out and like doing a few days and then coming home, that’s kind of my…”
Cameron: “Quick business ventures.”
Trey: “At this time, yeah.”
Cameron: “Cool!"
Keywords: Career; Energy; Faye Webster; Fortune; Foxygen; Helado Negro; MD; Matthew E. White; Natalie Prass; Pride; Seasons; Television; Touring; Travel
Hyperlink: Official Website for Natalie Prass
Hyperlink: Wikipedia page for Foxygen (no official website found).
Hyperlink: Website for TLC.
Hyperlink: Website for Bravo TV.
Hyperlink: Official Website for Faye Webster.
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Partial Transcript: Cameron: "Well, this might be opening a can of worms, but tell me about arranging.”
Trey: “Tell you about what?”
Cameron: “Your arrangements.”
Trey: “Oh, about them! Um…in what respect? I mean it's such a large question.”
Cameron: [laughs] “I knew I was starting something big.”
Trey: “Can of worms, yeah.”
Cameron: “I suppose…your process of arranging.”
Trey: “Process. Yeah, um, process for me usually is, someone reaches out–usually the basics are they want strings, that's sort of the extent to which they thought about it.”
Cameron: “That seems to be your go-to, yeah.”
Trey: “Yeah, but when I say that, I mean that they don't have a clear picture of what they want. They just say ‘Oh, this song is pretty, I think he should have strings, producer guy. We should have strings.’
Cameron: “Okay.”
Trey: “And so then I'm called and brought in to ‘put strings’ and so as a fairly open-ended–often it's an open-ended situation. Sometimes people have specific ideas they want, they hear this melody, or, ‘Oh, I played this part on guitar in the bridge, but I want it to be strings.’ Most of the time, it's not that though, but occasionally it is. And so yeah, and so you're trying to essentially distill the song down into what you think the important bits are, and like, try to find a place for whatever the instruments they want to live, you know. And so, it can be very easy, and it can be very difficult. You know, sometimes people send you tracks that have tons of stuff. They've been overdubbing since, you know, the last Olympics.”
Cameron: “Yeah.” [chuckles]
Trey: “And there's no room for anything, and you’re like, “Well, what do I do here?.’ Sometimes it's, like, acoustic guitar and a vocal, you know, I could do anything.”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “And so a lot of the job is really almost, like, the psychology of like, talking to the artist and trying to get them to give you a clue about what it is they want, what do they want the arrangement to do? What do they want the arrangement to…how does it elevate the music, you know…and often, especially, in the world I travel in, which is like, indie rock world, mostly, you know, these people, artists, most of them I work with are amazing.”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “They don't speak music talk, they don't speak notes.”
Cameron: “Notation and whatnot?”
Trey: “Yeah, string articulations, and stuff. So. And that's actually better. It's actually worse when they try to talk that because they usually don't quite understand it till–even if they're, you know, they know a lot about music, or they went to music school, but they don't understand it, as well as I do, obviously. So they're trying to use words they don't know. But so, you know, they're like, ‘Oh, I want it to feel, like, sad here.’ And they'll tell you about, ‘Oh, this lyric means this,’ like something is…you're trying to kind of glean what it is they want, and, like, how does that relate to actual dots on paper?”
Cameron: “I see.”
Trey: “And so the actual act of writing the thing and finding countermelodies and finding…voicing the harmony and and all that stuff. That's like, that's the easy part. That's just like…yeah, but the hard part is trying to find what it is they want. Because you don't want to be going back and forth too much, and spending ages and…”
Cameron: “Mhm.”
Trey: “You know, recording strings/orchestra stuff is expensive, because it takes lots of people. I kind of specifically don't do, like, the overdub-a-bunch-of-violin-players thing, like, there's a world in which people do that, and that's cool. But I don't do that.”
Cameron: “Sure.”
Trey: “I say no to that. So like, I gotta get at least 10, 13, 15 people in the room. So it gets expensive. So my point being is that you want people to feel like…they're spending a lot of money, you want them to feel like you understand them, and then that you get it. And then what you're going to do is going to add a lot because especially in this day and age, people are used to overdubbing, all the time, over and over. And then they go ‘Oh, I don't like it. Let me try it again.’ But it's like, ‘No, I called the people, they're here. We're done. Like, you have to pay for it now.’”
Cameron: “Yup, yeah, that's how it works.”
Trey: “We don't try it again. There is no, ‘Let's try it again.’ So that is–you have to be very…you have to handle it with kid gloves and make sure people feel like you're respecting their music and that you understand their music, you know, as best you can, and that, you know…so that's kind of the hard part. And, I mean, I'm good. I'm good at it at this point. But that is always the trick. And you know, different artists are different ways. You know, some people you're dealing with the producer only, and you never talk to the artists. Some people, there isn't a producer and you're trying to, you know, hold their hand through the process and be like, ‘It's all gonna be okay,’ y’know? Like people…like I say, because of the people's relationship with sitting at their laptop. It's hard for a lot of people to give away the keys for this little moment. It's like, you know, like, I have to write it down and we have to do it and it's not like you can't just…like, you're not gonna be able to change it later. You know, it's just not possible. So, anyway, that's kind of a big part of the process. And like I say, sometimes it's amazing and easy and beautiful. I had a situation recently that was the exact opposite. I could never have imagined the situation so…gnarly. [Cameron laughs] It’s very, very, very rare. Almost always it's a very magical experience and people walk away over the moon, you know?”
Keywords: Accompaniment; Arranging; Collaboration; Music-Talk; Overdubbing; Process; Trying Again; What the Artist Wants
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Partial Transcript: Cameron: “Do you have any recent experiences that would be good to talk about?”
Trey: “Yeah, I mean, um, well, this Faye Webster record that came out in the spring, we did that a year ago here in November. That was cool, that was really cool, because she and her producer Drew just wanted just her and orchestra. That was the idea, vocals and orchestra. And this was an idea that had been floating for years. A lot of records, especially when people are doing big arrangements where there's–they need to…their label has to say, ‘Yes,’ and hand over a large sum of money to do it, they take forever. So this is one I never thought was going to actually happen. It’s like, there's all kinds of things, people have an idea, ‘Oh, I want to do an orchestra.’ Doing a record with an orchestra is, like, the ubiquitous, the thing they want to do. So there's lots of emails like that go nowhere. And like, you end up talking to people for months, and then it just sits there. But, so all that to say, I thought this was gonna be one of those. But it finally actually happened a year ago, and they were so great, and just knew what they liked and knew what they wanted. But also, were super open to ideas, and we tracked it here in six hours, totally live, vocals in there, live.”
Cameron: “That's fantastic.”
Trey: “And so it was, you know, it had that energy, you know, it was like, because it's so much work leading up to it, you're writing all this music and all these parts. And you know, you show up to the day with a stack of paper like this, you know, and you've called 35 people. And they're all coming in. And they require compensation at the end and like, and she flies–she’s from Atlanta. So her and her producer came here. And so there's just, you know, a lot of buildup, and, but it went fantastic. Sounds really, I think the record is really cool. It's like an EP realized, like 60’s. So yeah, that's like the best version of it. Like, that's how good it can be, you know, and just, and the music was fun, and the players had a good time, you know, a lot of what I'm thinking about, once I know that the artist is cool and taken care of, and they feel good. It's like the next people is, like, the musicians I bring in, like I want them to…when you put the music in front of them, they should look at it and go, ‘Yes,’ like, they should look like music that they see, and they like the way it looks, and it's fun to play, and it's not confusing, and it's not hard. Like, you can write things that are hard, but it's more like, you need to show them that you understand how their instrument works. And that you respect them, and then they play the parts and you make changes if you need but you, you know, make little subtle changes, and everyone feels good. And they get paid and they leave. And I mean, that's the fun part to me. That's kind of the magical stuff, or it's like the relationship with the musicians in the room when we're doing it, and then the, sort of, one-on-one relationship with the artists that's like, getting at the heart of, like, what their music is.”
Keywords: EP; Energy; Faye Webster; Live Music; Orchestra; Relationship; Respect
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Partial Transcript: Cameron: “Do you think there's an emphasized importance on, like, community when you're working with musicians being a conductor?”
Trey: “Yeah. Yeah, I mean, basically, you can't do it without it. There is no, I mean, a few places in the world, you could do it, where you are just literally hiring. I mean, in LA, you could just hire the best people. If you had lots of money, you know, and then it doesn't matter. But, it's like this, where it's like, you have to kind of do it. And over the last 10 years I've built up, you know, a community of people that trust me, that I'm not going to, number one, waste their time.”
Cameron: “Mhm, mhm.”
Trey: “And that I'm going to, as crass as it sounds, that I'm going to pay them as best as I can, like, literally I'm gonna pay them the most I can pay them. And that when they show up, it'll be fun. And the music will be good. And it'll be fun to play. And then they go home and then never have to think about it again. And it's like…that doesn't just happen, like you can’t just hope that people care, and hope that…they have to know me and trust me that, like, ‘Okay, I call them for a gig.’ And they say, ‘Okay, yeah, I know that's going to be good. I know that's going to be cool. I'm not going to have to deal with bullshit.’ Because a lot of…I mean, frankly a lot of the music world and studio world can be like that, it's like, show up and you're waiting around forever for the person to show up and set up their stuff. And you know, it's fine for a certain thing for like, if you're the drummer that, like, is like the baddest cat in the world, you can show up and just take your time and the producer, everyone, they've got a studio, you're recording in someone's garage. So even like big artists, you know, they're recording at home, like, they don't care, they spent eight months making the record, and it's fine. But when it comes to arrangement, specifically, when you're dealing with strings and orchestral musicians, like, it can't be like that. And it can still be fun, it can be vibey. And it can be super friendly and not uptight. That's kind of the other side, it's like, you have to find the people that aren't like that, because that's a whole world of, you know, string players and orchestral wind players that are just not fun to be around. Not because they're bad people, but just because they're used to just showing up at the orchestra, you know, they show up at the rehearsal, and they show up at the concert. And that's it. That's all they want to do. They're not really interested in this world. So finding people that do like coming to the studio and do like playing on indie rock music, frankly. But, you know what I mean? It's like, it's a weird Venn Diagram of people.”
Cameron: [laughs] “Yeah.”
Trey: “That you have to find and that you have to get them to trust you. And you know, at first, the early days of Spacebomb, it was hard. And we made some mistakes, I made some mistakes and like, meaning like, you know, just not dealing with the business side in the right way, or to err wasting people's time or like, not planning things well. It's like, for me, it has to be planned, like down to the minute like the Faye Webster record, we did in five or six hours. And it's like, that's not…it didn't just happen, like, it was like months of work to make sure that we could do it in that amount of time. And like, timing it down to the minute. Like, I'm a crazy person for that kind of organizational stuff. [Cameron laughs] But for her, it was magical. For her, she just showed up, she sat in that room, she sang the songs. But really, it was like, equations of like, figuring out how long we had to spend on this. And like, how much I the budget they had, like, how much time can we spend? Which means how many players can I have? Which means how good is it gonna sound for the entire orchestra for this number of players, because we only have this much money, and this much time, you know what I'm saying?”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “It's a huge, kind of, problem to solve. And then hopefully, for the artists, they just show up and they go, ‘Oh my god! [Cameron laughs] I have strings on my record!’ or whatever it is, you know?”
Cameron: “How luxurious.”
Trey: “I mean, it is, it literally is luxurious, you know, and they're often spending more money than they usually do. And so it should feel like luxurious, you know what I mean? Literally, it's a luxury. [laughs] So it should feel that way, you know, and so when it's really good, man–even though it’s a ton of work–I like it, I'm good at it. And it's putting a moment in the day, there’s nothing like it. It’s better than a gig for me. Like, it's better than playing a huge festival for, like, 5,000 people. I like that, that's fine, but that's not for me. Being in the studio with, like, 30 people and an artist that’s, like, starry-eyed: that's the vibe.”
Cameron: “ That's the impactful moment?”
Trey: “That's for me, yeah. That's kind of…and so, that's probably why better at that than I am at being a touring musician, because I like it more. And so that's why people ask me to do that more than they ask me to go on tour.”
Cameron: [laughs] “Well, if you’re better at it, that makes sense.”
Trey: “It's not a coincidence, yeah.”
Keywords: Community; Connection; Fun; Impact; Luxury; Problem; Time; Trust
http://ragakusuma.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=Interview115059.xml#segment2026
Partial Transcript: Cameron: “It seems like you really have your own priorities and preferences, kind of straight in your mind.”
Trey: “Yeah, when you start, over time, you just kind of learn about yourself and you learn the things you're good at. And you see over and over, ‘Oh, that worked, and that didn't work, so let me stop doing the thing that doesn't work. Let me keep doing this thing because that worked.’ In all kinds of areas of your professional career. Very specific and small, to big things. Like, I won't tour anymore. Not that I'm not good at that, but you know what I mean? It's just, yeah, all kinds of reasons. I just want to just do this.”
Cameron: “That does make sense. Have you had a lot of challenges in dividing, figuring out what works or does it just feel natural?”
Trey: “No, it's challenging.”
Cameron: “Really?”
Trey: “I make mistakes all the time. Yeah, I mean, basically, it's like, you say yes to something that you shouldn't have said yes to. That's essentially how they rear their head…is that and then you're out on the road and you're like, ‘Shit, I shouldn't have said yes to this.’”
Cameron: “Is it kind of just, uh…it hits you moment of ‘This was a bad idea?’”
Trey: “Yeah, it hits you. But then you realize you knew it all along, you realize…”
Cameron: “Yeah, yeah.”
Trey: “It’s ‘I knew I should’ve said no to this’ or ‘I should have done this instead of this.’ And again, it can be small little things. It can be literally, like, moments in the recording where it's like, ‘Ah, I knew I shouldn't have written that mistake. Now I have to solve this problem. And now I have to remember that.’ Or it can be, like I said, big, big career decisions, like ‘I should have not put out that record. I should have not spent, you know, six months writing that thing.’ But yeah, but that's how they kind of show themselves. It's just learning, you're learning. It nev–I wouldn't say it's natural. Not for me, anyways, like, I don't always know the right thing to do.”
Cameron: “An experiential thing?”
Trey: “Yeah, you just have to do it, and you go, ‘Ah. Okay.’”
Cameron: “That's how you know.”
Trey: “And then next time, hopefully, you remember. And you make the right decision next time.”
Cameron: “With any luck.”
Trey: “Yeah, so then that hopefully will steer you, and like I say, you go where the energy is, that's kind of another way to say that, which is, like, you're just kind of this, you know, this swath of things that you might be good at, you could do, and like, you just kind of follow the energy to like, ‘Everything is telling me I should be doing this instead of this.’”
Cameron: “Okay, so it feels like this entire process is very natural, it just kind of comes as a part of the trade maybe?”
Trey: “I think successful people in the music industry learn that pivoting is a part of it. And that at any moment, you have to…[burps] excuse me. You have to sort of pivot in small and big ways. Because especially like, once you get older, like, you have to pay the bills.”
Cameron: “No kidding.”
Trey: “And, you know, if you want to still do it, if you want to still be a musician, you know, there's all kinds of people that just, you know, go do something else. And that's also good and fine. You know, it's like, the input is not equaling the output, you know, you know something you love, you know, so…I feel very, um…fortunate to be able to do music for every–you know, it’s what I do, music, and it may not always be that way. I've hung in so far. So, yeah, I don't know how natural it is for other people. I don't know if other people always know the right thing to do. But I tend to see kind of what I'm saying, which is more just like, you know, you're trying different things and, like, the things that work you do, you don’t go with things that don't work, you don't try to do again.”
Cameron: “Okay, yeah, that does make sense."
Keywords: Career; Challenge; Decision; Pivoting; Works For You
http://ragakusuma.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=Interview115059.xml#segment2263
Partial Transcript: Cameron: "What has been your biggest trouble in this windy path of yours? If you've had, like, one particular ‘This was my big learning moment.’
Trey: “I mean, there's been so many really, I mean, I think, you know, when I first got out of school–and I think a lot of people fall into this–which is they go, ‘Okay, what do I do now?’ And then they think, ‘Okay, well, what do people do to make money?’ There's…I think that there’s this…there's an idea that there's a job to get, and always tell us, people always…you know, you have a studio, you have whatever, an email address, people email you and they say, like, ‘Oh, I just got out of college.’ And they always say this–which is why don't like that word–they always say ‘I have an overwhelming passion for music.’ I swear to God, [Cameron laughs] I've read that phrase 100 times. Overwhelming passion. Overwhelmed by their passion. I feel it, I feel that they have passion. But they think that there's some job that they're going to get–there is no job. And that's what I tell them: ‘There is no job, you have to create the job. There is no job.’ And so…I think, early on, I thought that maybe that there was a job, you know? And so, like I said, when I got to school, I thought ‘Well, what do people do to make money?’ And so that's kind of when I went down the road of writing music for TV and commercials and stuff. And I wouldn't say that I wasn't successful. I mean, I didn't–you know, I'm not retired in the south of Spain or anything– but I lived off of it for a time.”
Cameron: “Mhm.”
Trey: “It wasn't…you kind of realize, like, ‘Okay, well, sure, I could probably grind this out, and I can probably make a living out of this for my life, but I actually don't really love this.’ So like, it's really hard. Every little corner of the music industry–and I assume every other industry, but I don't know about this–”
Cameron: (interrupting) “Right.”
Trey: “...so every little corner of the music industry is hard to get into. It's not easy. It's a little gate, and there's gatekeepers around all the edges. And they do not want to let you in.”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “And so it's hard. So like, getting into commercial media, writing music for commercials, writing music for trailers, writing music for TV, even though I had some success, I was never…I wasn't, like, breaking in. I don’t want to spend all my energy trying to break into this thing, really. So, well, what would I like to spend my energy on? And so then, that's kind of when Spacebomb started coming around, you know? And so then, ‘Okay, well, let me try this. Let's see if this feels better.’ And it felt better. And it was also more successful. Because it felt better, I think, you know, I know we were better at it. But I think my original idea for like, writing music for, like, it's like writing music for a movie. It's like, ‘Oh, yeah, people make lots of money writing music for movies. That's a job I want to get.’ But you don't get that job. That's not a job you get. You only get that if you're–if you know the director. You know the director because you've been doing it. So the people that have been doing it for ages, they do it because they love it. They've been writing music for short films since they were 17.”
Cameron: “Mhm.”
Trey: “So you're not going to get the job. You're just not going to.”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “So unless you really love it, and you would do it no matter what, you have a passion for it, you would do it whether you were poor or you were rich, you know, if that's not you, then you shouldn't be doing that. So I guess…I guess I, if I had a mistake to say, I would say that that kind of thinking early on, I think, slowed me down from pivoting at the right time. I think I spent too much time doing that. And maybe other little things, you know, where I was just spinning my wheels, you know, thinking that I was gonna get somewhere and someone's gonna go, ‘Oh, you're really great. Let me hire you for this job.’
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “Even things that seem like they were jobs to get, like when I’m touring for Foxygen, which is a band I did not know. I don't know them. They're from California, I don't know them. I know Natalie, I know Matt, I know some other people I’ve toured with. I don't know those guys. I mean, I know them, because now I know them.”
Cameron: “Right!”
Trey: “At the time. And it's like, it seems like being an MD–being the music director for a tour–is a job. And it is a job. But it isn't a job you get, they don't, like, advertise for that job. It was, like, they were going on tour. We had just made a record and they were like, ‘Oh shit, how're we going to tour on this record? We just made this crazy orchestral record. And I've always asked Trey, ‘What do you do?’ ‘I would just…I would write three horn charts and put a band together, we do keyboards, guitars, three horns and blah, blah, blah.’ ‘Okay, will you do that for us?’ ‘Sure, okay.’ So then I put a band together, right? The charts we all tour. So it seems like a job that I got. But I didn't–I created the job.”
Cameron: “Sure.”
Trey: “And everything in my experience in the music industry is that that’s 100% real.”
Cameron: “Really? That's fascinating.”
Trey: “There is no job. So that's the mistake. I think that kind of thinking–and I get emails all the time, I mean, every other day, from people thinking there's a job. Yeah, they want…they want to come here, they want to intern here. And I stopped, you know, back in the day, I used to get interns, you know, for the studio and I had previous studios, like…but I realize it's, like, slowing that process for them. You think you're gonna get an internship, and then you're gonna get a job. You're not going to. I just…it's-it's a bummer. But that's just the way it is.”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “So I think I slowed me down a bit. But this one is okay. You know, it's all a learning process. So you have to find it in your own way. But I just see a lot of people have that mentality. And unfortunately, a lot of people don't think about it ‘til they get out of school. They don’t think about where they went in to school. ‘What am I going to do when I get out? So…be thinking about that for yourself. [laughs]
Cameron: “Oh, for sure. You just told it to an entire classful of students, so…”
Trey: “Yeah, so…‘too late!’”
Keywords: Energy; Make a Living; Mentality; Passion; Struggle; Success; The Job; Touring
http://ragakusuma.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=Interview115059.xml#segment2629
Partial Transcript: Cameron: “It seems that that conversation lasted a little bit.”
Trey: “Ah, I’m sorry.”
Cameron: “If you don't mind–no, no, that was amazing, for lots of reasons. I might jump kinda towards the end…”
Trey: “Sure, yeah.”
Cameron: “ Though, you sort of answered it. Is that the kind…as opposed to the overarching advice you'd give like, specific people who want to perform or make something music? People who have that kind of drive? Do you have any advice for, like, budding composers or arrangers who already…they're not looking for ‘the job’? They're just…they're just trying to learn how to do it because they want to know how to do it?”
Trey: “Yeah, I mean, I think if you're trying to develop a craft–in anything in the arts, but in music–I think you just have to already be…you have to be doing the thing that you want to do, right?”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “So like, the reason I got asked on the very first Matt White record to write strings is because I was just messing around with it, like, on my own.”
Cameron: “Yeah, yeah.”
Trey: “And he knew that I was. And so, I was exploring that purely for my own knowledge and just because I liked it, I liked how it sounded. And so yeah, things that you are interested in, do; don't wait for someone to ask you to do it, you just have to do it. So you have to create energy. So in the same way I said, you need to follow where the energy is in your sphere, like where is there energy, you also have to create energy around the thing that you want to do. So, for example, in…after college, I did this thing where–and with Matt, Matt was also interested in this kind of stuff–and we hit we put this thing, he had this thing called Patchwork Collective, which was like this…it was like a concert series. And actually, Dean was a part of it, another Spacebomb guy that you just met walking in.”
Cameron: “Yeah.”
Trey: “And some other guys were kind of loosely affiliated, and it was like, they basically put on concerts in Richmond, where they would have, like, a classical ensemble, and then like, a jazz thing, and then like, a punk band. And it would be like, the same kinda…it would be like one show, and all these shows. And so one show that we did–I can't remember what the other artists were–but it was, like an orchestra, they put it together, just literally, like slapdash. Like, ‘Who wants to be in this orchestra?’”
Cameron: “Nice.”
Trey: “I don't remember how many people we had, but it was 30-ish, or 20-ish or so, I don’t know.”
Cameron: “Very nice.”
Trey: “It was fun. And it was I mean, I…we played in Gallery Five.”
Cameron: “Wow.”
Trey: “And it was just like, I don't even remember what else was going on, [Cameron laughs] it was weird and crazy. And so anyway, but so that was a thing. It was like, just for the love of doing it. I wrote a piece and we played it. And it was like…and then Matt was like, ‘Oh yeah, that was cool.’ And he had written something or he was just putting it on. Anyway, so I guess my point being…create your own energy around the things that you like, and the things that you want to be doing. Never ever wait for anyone to ask you to do the thing that you want to do, because they're not going to unless you're already doing it, you have to already be doing it. I say the same thing for people that, you know, they're like a singer/songwriter, and it's like, ‘Oh, I'm wanting a record label.’ It's like, you can't have a record label until you don't need one. You can't have one until literally, you're already doing it. You're already successful. I mean, maybe in the 90’s, in the 80’s, there was a time where that happened.”
Cameron: “Sure.”
Trey: “People would just get plucked out of the suburbs, [Cameron laughs] and they would sign a deal, that doesn't happen anymore. You have to already be doing it. Touring, you can fill, you know, a 300 cap room, up the East Coast, you know, for two weeks, and you have to have this number of Spotify streams or whatever. I don't know the metrics of it. But you have to already be doing it for a label to care. And for a manager, to get a manager you don't need a manager. It's kind of a screwy reality, but…so, just don't wait for people to ask you to do the thing. And don't, like, expect someone to give you the opportunity if you aren't already doing it. They're gonna go ‘Well, show me. Like, you say you can do this thing, but like, if you could do it, why aren't you doing it? You know, if you're a good enough artist that people like you, why don't people like you? You know, why can’t you fill the room down the street? You can't fill the Camel, then why would I care?’ I don't care how good your song is, I don’t care how good of a singer you are, or an arranger you are, or whatever you are, you know? Then it's like, yeah, I'll get an email, you know, about engineers like, ‘Oh, I'm an engineer, I record music. I want to record at your studio.’ It’s like, ‘Well, I haven't heard of you. I mean, you would already be here if you were recording.’”
Cameron: “Mhm.”
Trey: “So I guess that's the advice, just do the thing that you want to do. Create the energy around the thing you want to do. And then eventually, hopefully someone will find–if you're good at it–then you'll find people that are also interested in that and you guys can go together, I guess, I don't know. That's kind of what I did, we kind of all came up together. I think that's pretty normal, though.”
Cameron: “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Trey: “But you talked about community before, but I think that's a big part of…at least when you're in a place that's not LA, I think, or…Yeah, I don't know how people succeed, like, growing up in LA or Nashville or those kind of things, but in a place is not that, yeah, you kind of have a little community of people then you kind of all build each other up and create…you can create energy around your own stuff together much easier than one person by themselves. If that makes sense.”
Cameron: “Yeah, no, creating your own energy. That resonates a lot, yeah. I think it's very good advice. (to camera) Glad it's being caught on camera.”
Trey: “Yeah.” [chuckles]
Keywords: Advice; Camel; Craft; Creating Energy; Drive; Gallery Five; Matthew E. White; Patchwork Collective; Slapdash
Hyperlink: Website for Spotify.
Hyperlink: Official Webstie for The Camel in Richmond, VA.
http://ragakusuma.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=Interview115059.xml#segment2997
Partial Transcript: Cameron: “Do you have anything else you want to say?”
Trey: “I don't think so. I mean, give me some context, because I could probably ramble on about all kinds of things.”
Cameron: “Don’t worry: many people are good at that.”
Trey: “Yeah.”
Cameron: “But I think that just about does it for me!”
Trey: “Great, awesome.”
Cameron: “ Thank you, Trey!”
Trey: “Yeah, thank you, man.”
Cameron: “I’ll stop the video now.”
Keywords: Thanks; Video