“When you’re making rock records, you don’t need to overthink production…we can make great rock ‘n’ roll records in this garage.”
As I’m sitting in a small, cramped back room of a house nestled deep in Halifax’s north end I’m flanked on my right side by an old washer and dryer. To the left, a pile of jackets and a stack of skateboards. A half-eaten open-face sandwich sits on the coffee table in front of me.
You wouldn’t guess that this space is the new laboratory of two prominent Halifax rock acts.
When Andy MacInnis of Sore Loser began renting a new house in June he realized the backroom would be great for a rehearsal/recording space. MacInnis teamed up with Alex MacNeil to help get the space in shape; making sound-dampening panels, tossing the ratty old couch, removing a broken refrigerator – much to the landlord’s chagrin.
MacNeil and MacInnis met when MacNeil was helping Sore Loser record some singles at his apartment.
“There was immediately a simpatico relationship where we were both fascinated with recording processes…so we both learned a lot from doing those two Sore Loser singles. When they found this place it all kind of fit together,” says MacNeil.
MacNeil cites cost as a major factor in the new endeavour. As we all know, musicians often find themselves in fluctuating states of financial stability, even before “social distancing” was in our collective vocabulary, and booking studio time with a producer is an expensive endeavour.
With grants and other arts funding available, there are ways for local artists to fund recording projects but both MacNeil and MacInnis think arts funding should be rerouted towards creating live performance opportunities for musicians. (According to a survey released December 17th by the Music Worker’s Alliance, 71% of musicians reported losing three-quarters of their income since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.)
“It made much more sense to take the money we would spend on a record and put it into the means to make as many records as we wanted. It’s really nice to not have to worry about the funding and just think about making the records,” says MacInnis.
I believe the old proverb goes: “Record a man’s EP and he’ll rock for a day. Teach a man to record in his own garage and he’ll make raw rock records for a lifetime.”
MacNeil informally learned the recording ropes while recording his 2019 record Super Turbo with producer and pedal steel extraordinaire Dale Murray, as did MacInnis while playing on singer-songwriter Layne Greene’s Resolutions.
MacNeil and MacInnis say Murray’s home studio is not a normal studio environment; parts were recorded in areas like the kitchen and bathroom, and Murray’s ability to record in “unideal” spaces was an invaluable lesson when recording in their new space.
“If you’re paying someone, you gotta watch because then you’re picking up little tricks,” says MacNeil.
At the time of writing, MacInnis has helped MacNeil record two EPs, Milkshakes and Murder Ballads and Export Ready, with a third still in the conceptual stages.
“The first one is a love letter to the psychedelic music Andy and I have been listening to, the second one is a little more seventies riff-rock inspired, and the third will probably be the most bizarre,” says MacNeil.
“And I probably won’t seek funding for any of it.”
The EPs will not be made available on streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music as MacNeil doesn’t want to encourage the consumption of music through those platforms. MacNeil says he could sell twenty copies of his debut album on Bandcamp and make more money than he made off Spotify streams for all of last year.
And he’s right.
While estimates vary, Spotify pays artists anywhere from $0.006 to as low as $0.00318 per stream, compared to Bandcamp who takes a 15% revenue share – 10% if you make over $5000 USD in sales. Bandcamp also began their now-monthly “Bandcamp Fridays” initiative in March where they waive their share of revenue for twenty-four hours.
It’s worth noting that Spotify’s income for 2019 was $7.3 billion USD.
MacNeil hopes that more ethical streaming services can begin to gain traction in the market. He cites Berlin-based service Resonate as an example. Resonate’s business model is known as “Stream2own” wherein the cost of each stream will increase exponentially until the listener hits 9 streams, then they will have reached the cost of a digital download.
“I think that’s a way for things to go in a way that makes sense to me,” says MacNeil.
“I found a lot of the stuff I love now thanks to digital music, but digital music has turned in on itself and is eating itself at this point.”
Once they get all the panelling up and figure out how to coexist with the washer and dryer (MacNeil is flirting with the idea of turning them into makeshift reverb tanks), the duo hopes to get other local acts in to record in their new space while spreading the DIY ethos they’ve embraced with open arms.
“I want to make DIY recording and home recording the most appealing to every single musician that wants to come…I feel like a lot are really nervous to do it, so it would be cool to get them comfortable with it,” says MacInnis.