DAVID SLUSSER

Selected Discography

Exclusive Interview

Justin St. Vincent from Xtreme Music interviewed David Slusser on May 30, 2004 San Francisco (CA), The Dark Room.

Xtreme Music: I’m here with David Slusser at The Dark Room. This is being recorded for Xtreme Radio and the Xtreme Music radio show. David, how exactly would you describe your music?

David Slusser: Not exact, I would not describe it exactly, that’s the first part. I deal with resolution, I look for that in all the types of music that I do. It’s transitional and it takes you along a narrative where you can go from one place to another. In other words, it’s a change, so I document or try to present a change from one idea to another, that’s the basic thing. I do a lot of different things but guarantee it will be something that will grow into another thing. I’m very much interested in how one form can grow into another.

Xtreme Music: So an evoling musical style within your live performances. Who are your main influences and how have they shaped your musical direction?

David Slusser: That’s a good question. An unlikely source but just a preoccupation of mine is Duke Ellington. I come from a more traditional jazz background originally. I’m fifty-two years old so that means when I was a kid, an infant growing up, the first music I heard was swing based music in popular song. Those forms and melodies stayed inbedded in my brain whereas my baby sister, when she grew up all the music around her was basically three chord stuff and there’s a difference in what you might have for your first impulse to go into something. Well, I accept these more complex forms from the beginning and I’m sure that sounds ageist in a certain perspective. But that’s how those earlier pieces of music like Duke Ellington could influence me to hear a very broad palette. He was a very experimental musician and did not achieve a lot of popular success after the thirties and very early forties. He continued to grow and experiment, he was always pursuing something and painting pictures. So that was a very big influence. I think pictures, visualisations, mood.. someone like Ellington would be a great influence.

Xtreme Music: It’s fantastic when musicians have that musical visual that they pursue. Are there any other jazz musicians in particular?..

David Slusser: For jazz players.. I play saxophone and I also play electronics, but when I think of saxophone Steve Lacey would be a good guy because he could also influence an electronics player you-know. You’ve heard him, he was able to take where jazz was from his generation but he was also hearing all the experiments and post-Cagian music in early electronics, and he has a language that is compatible with that. I starting picking up on him in the early seventies and that was a natural transition into how I could hear the saxophone be played in electronic articulation. I don’t know what it is about that but he would be an influence. Going back to traditional jazz, there’s all the greats that I love for jazz music. But Steve Lacey and Duke Ellington went beyond the jazz part of it into influencing other areas.

Xtreme Music: What innovative production techniques to you incorporate into your live recordings as well as some of the studio work you’ve done on Tzadik?

David Slusser: I work in the film industry for post-production and I am up on all the current technology that you can use. It was especially when doing my first Tzadik recording I had been working on a Synclavier for many years. Now that’s not new technology but at the time that was the cutting edge of it and since then, the laptop revolution has really brought that type of synthesis down to a more level playing field. So it’s not such a rarified area to work in that type of synthesis, but at the time I was lucky to get in on it early. Basically, it’s translated down. It’s still the same manipulation of envelopes and filters and combining voices, timing. You have to have good timing. You can have the greatest set of hardware but you have to be able to parce the music, so the technology in any case is secondary and anybody I think will tell you that, essentially because we are in such a technological age.

Xtreme Music: Without a doubt! You mentioned your career in the film industry. I noticed you have an intimate relationship with Pixar Studios, could you tell us a bit about the work you did with Finding Nemo?

David Slusser: It’s too intimate! (laughter).. My background was basically in mixing, sound effects and editing. The curious part about when a computer animation gets mounted, or when they start a project it’s like a three or four year project, especially at Pixar in the early days. You have a need to build the story. So this was a little break for me from doing sound effects for films because in this case we are just working on the story boards, scripts and scratch dialogue. Every week we get together and we are trying to build the picture from the ground up. I found people in the area knew that I was a musician so with my editing skills they said: “Well he can cut together these temp scores for you”.. to build these mini-dramas every week to get the story moving along which will someday end up in the finished picture. I was intrigued by that role and then they moved two miles from my house and I said: “OK, we have to talk!”.. (laughter).. and I’ve been with them full time since 2000.

Xtreme Music: Are you more of a sound engineer or a foley artist?

David Slusser: Well in this case it’s where they’re building the story and I’m more in the developmental part. We’re just staging the story every week and I provide a temporary scratch score based on whatever I can steal from CD libraries. Nobody in the world will ever hear it because you can never license it, but we’re not going to hire the composer for another two or three years, until the end of the project and every week we have to sell the story. I cut a dramatic score out of existing material, so it has honed my editing skills so that my studio projects will reflect a lot of this slight of hand.. they’re never going to give me my own copywrite man! (laughter).

Xtreme Music: Would you like to do complete film scores in the future, is that the direction you want to be taking?

David Slusser: That would only be possible in a small scale thing because I have worked almost my entire career in the high-end of the film industry, Lucasfilm, Francis Coppola’s movies and Pixar. They just have way too much going, it’s way too much marketing and way up front to get the score to be a certain thing. But in the past I’ve worked for people like David Lynch when he was like between films and did something sketchy, and I got to do a lot with something like that. “Wild At Heart” would be an example where I have some of my music in, then “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” and the original pilot for “Twin Peaks” I worked on with him.. those are low budget, low pressure jobs, that’s where you get an opportunity to make a contribution. So conversely, it’s not as compensatory. The big people like John Williams, Thomas Newman and Randy Newman who do all the Pixar and Lucasfilm films. They are an elite class but they also have to write to the gun. So what’s funny about what I do is that in the end, the final composer will reflect my work that I’ve done in the two year stretch that he has a six weeks or six months to complete.

Xtreme Music: That’s fantastic! So you’re coming up with the foundation score..

David Slusser: Yeah, it’s an architectural thing that they will follow because they have to, the whole thing got structured along that.

Xtreme Music: So Thomas Newman has used some of your work that you prepared for Pixar?

David Slusser: Well he has heard it and had to use the timing but his work is very original. What we usually do for anyone that does this job is that we take Thomas Newman’s old scores to do it with and some people like it, some people don’t. For Thomas I’m sure he immediately saw: “OK, these guys are saving me some time.. so I’m gonna do this and that.” It’s in no way suggestive and at Pixar they’re never obligated to copy what they cut for the score.. I work the directors and he works with the directors. The directors have always said you-know: “Don’t pay attention to what we can up with, what do you wanna do?” So they give them complete freedom. It’s ironic though that what I have done is reflected in the animation. They have done the animation to my timings so in a certain sense he has no choice but to refer to the same timings I have used. But you strip those away and it’s an original piece by Thomas, Randy, and the others.

Xtreme Music: What would you say has been the best experience in your music career?

David Slusser: (laughs).. I’m still waiting for that one. (laughter).. Well I would say as a listener it was to see someone like Duke Ellington or Miles Davis. In a career sense I’ve had a couple of good things with John Zorn, Mike Patton and Han Bennink. It’s always fun to play in Europe, but I think the best experiences have come when all the guys get together and do their jam, it reaches some place. Maybe it was on a gig or it was on a jam. Those experiences are where you can erase your conscious thoughts and just be with the music. Those are points, it could be on a real important gig or it can be very down home with a couple of the homeboys.

Xtreme Music: What was it like working with Mike Patton in Perfect Victim?

David Slusser: Great! Mike is very astute and creative.. I knew what he was talking about, we exchanged a few ideas about music.. I should back up.. we did this CD with Zorn called “Elegy” which was a Jean Genet piece about a violent world with you-know murder, and a bad criminal scene in France, a prison scene. So Mr. Zorn suggested that we immerse ourselves in this sick darkness and I would say that for Mike and I that was no problem.. (laughter). I think that part of the feeling came off in the Perfect Victim because you can just tell from the name.. (laughs).

Xtreme Music: I was lucky enough to see some of the footage of the 1996 performance you did in Austria.. Was there any other live shows that Perfect Victim was doing?

David Slusser: No, that was a one-off. Although when Mr. Zorn has come out to San Francisco and played with Mike, I have occassionally been asked to play as a trio with those three and it’s similar. I have some bootleg stuff out there from the show at Slim’s with Mike and John.

Xtreme Music: They played here a couple of months ago with Hemophiliac.. did you join them for that?

David Slusser: No I did not, I haven’t seen them for a bit. I’ve been in the studio.. (laughter).

Xtreme Music: Have you been recording anything recently for John Zorn’s label Tzadik?

David Slusser: The last thing I did was a really great record! Not too recently, about two years ago was a Dave Brubeck 80th birthday, maybe not quite two years then. It’s called: “In His Own Sweet Way” and it had everybody on it and I got the lead cut which was “Blue Shadows In The Street”. So I combined sound effects and music in that one with a lot of sound design. These were all compositions by Dave Brubeck that Mr. Zorn picked out for certain collaborators. Bill Frisell is on there, Dave Douglas is on it and all kinds of people.

Xtreme Music: From a personal perspective can you shed some light on what it was like working with an avant-jazz composer with such a great respect in the jazz community, someone like John Zorn himself. What’s it been like working with him?

David Slusser: Despite all his press and negative press to the contrary, he’s a serious musician and a very intellegent person.. I think he’s renowned for being good to his musicians and taking care of them first, and taking care of himself last. You’ve gotta be tough to pull that off! (laughter).. so we appreciate that he has that tough side and then when you work with him you have his full attention. He’s open and quite interested in stretching things. But most of all he wants you to play, he hired you to play what you play, like: “Don’t give me that other bullshit you-know, I hired you for you”. That’s why it’s always great!

Xtreme Music: I was recently able to see a DVD that Claudia Herrmann was able to release on Tzadik, “A Bookshelf On Top of The Sky”. That was awesome being able to see a perspective on Zorn’s working life, how he creates his music and how he has a relationship with fellow musicians. You had a live show here at The Dark Room, any reflections on that?

David Slusser: Well this was a great event in San Francisco. The Carnival, I don’t know whether that relates to Lent or Easter or what kind of traditional thing this is (laughs).. but usually from Latin-America and certain religious overtones it starts. The Mission is the hispanic part of San Francisco and it was just wild. It’s a family day so it’s got all these mamas, papas and kids, with everybody hanging out and it’s women wearing thongs dancing on the street, well I guess the men too.. (laughter)..

Xtreme Music: This is San Francisco, anything can happen! (laughs)..

David Slusser: That would be the inspiration I think for the show. You came off that vibe and we started down here about twenty minutes after our Chinese community came through as dragons and right on this block they decided to have their finale at the tail of the parade.. They had fire cracker overkill! I plugged my ears, went up and stood there and just watched it. I’d never seen anything like it! It was beyond special effects! (laughter).. that says it all, I think this neighbourhood at this hour is so let loose. So I had a loose set and I’ll upload that for ya.

Xtreme Music: That would be perfect David. What has the crowd reaction been like at the various shows you’ve been performing in the Bay Area?

David Slusser: Well it’s mixed, this type of show and this genre of music is still subculture. It is but there is an appreciative audience, it’s a small audience but we get international people to come and play in our scene because they want to come here. Our audience appreciates them it’s just not huge. But the acceptance is great.. people that come love it, I wish more people would come!

Xtreme Music: Yeah, it’s gonna be a fantastic festival day here in San Francisco. For my final question I’d just like to ask what are you currently working on?

David Slusser: More of the sound collage work..

Xtreme Music: Any movies or films?..

David Slusser: Well, I’m working on the next three Pixar films..

Xtreme Music: So that includes “The Incredibles”..

David Slusser: Yes, I recorded ADR [Additional Dialogue Recording] last week for them and it’s a fantastic movie! I love the crew and I love the idea. It’s a great place to work, it’s not like it’s the magic kingdom you-know (laughter).. but I’m happy with that. It’s good but it’s time consuming so I am not out there hammering away at the music industry, but I have enough time to play, participate in events like this, and participate in the larger community. We’ve got a really strong and growing new music and improvising community.

Xtreme Music: Well it’s been great to meet and interview you David. I’m sure we’re all gonna have a fantastic time here today at The Mission Creek Music Festival. So all the best David and thank you very much!