CD Review

Exclusive Interview

Justin St. Vincent from Xtreme Music interviewed Sam Bass and Robin Coomer of Loop!Station on May 30, 2004 San Francisco (CA), Studio Z.

Xtreme Music: I’m here with Loop!Station.. it’s an absolute pleasure to meet you both after a fantastic performance last summer.. I’d like to start the interview by asking how exactly would you describe your music?

Sam Bass: I’d describe it as adult contemporary.. we are attracted to a lot of different styles, everything from full swing to anthemesque stadium rock. It’s kinda like whatever we feel like and whatever vibe we are going towards. We both have a deep background in hard rock and classical music. Anything goes with Loop!Station, if you listen to the record I think you’ll find a lot of different styles available.

Xtreme Music: Who would you say are your main influences and how have they shaped your musical direction?

Robin Coomer: I think a lot of our main influences are people that we play with and around in the community. It is such a great musical community.. I think that bands like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Eric McFadden. There are obvious links you can make to My Bloody Valentine and bands like that, which I think are so influential. Tom Waits is a huge influence…

Sam Bass: For me it would have to be Bootsy Collins, Johann Sebastian Bach and any good hard rock band.

Xtreme Music: Where do you find your inspiration lyrically and musically?

Robin Coomer: What started Loop!Station was an excuse not to conform to the three minute, thirty second pop format. We were getting a little sick of it, so I let the music tell me what the song is about and we write a lot of things through improvisation.

Sam Bass: Sometimes I notice that when Robin is working on lyrics, it kinda starts out with words that sound good over what’s going on, and it’s more of a stream of conciousness.. not really anything specific.. As far as our music writing goes, some of our better songs start with one of us just messing around with our loop stations at home, trying to create a texture or a song and then bringing that into the other person and trying to work out our parts together. In times where we’re recording, you actually finalize the music.. and then we try and play it. So, it’s this really weird long process that involves a lot of stuff! (laughs)..

Xtreme Music: Other than the loop stations that you’re using, what production techniques do you incorporate into your recordings?

Sam Bass: Whenever you record I feel like you have to take all your recording experience and try and push yourself to the next level. Production-wise we are always trying to use different sounds, different ways of voicing harmonies, more minutes of the track, making things more organized, just to make things go faster and sound better.

Robin Coomer: The recording has been a really interesting process..

Xtreme Music: And what would you say has been the best experience in Loop!Station’s music career?

Robin Coomer: I don’t know!.. (laughs).. That’s a really good question..

Sam Bass: Yeah, that’s a good question, I think probably all our recording times, I think it’s really fun to record. Personalities, we’re just hanging out, you’re working on making a record, you’re kinda documenting what you’ve got in your head and where you’re at in terms of life.. kind of a historical document. So I find that the most rewarding in general.

Xtreme Music: With your live shows what has the crowd reaction been like?

Robin Coomer: People have been overwhelmingly responsive, I mean when we started this whole project, I personally didn’t really think anyone was gonna be able to listen to it. After our first show, we were glad that we had done it. We had a really interesting and unique following developing. People were coming from all over, just because they found something in the music that attracted them. I think there’s something really great about that, we kind of get our demographic.

Xtreme Music: What have you both been working on recently, is there a new album in the works?

Sam Bass: As a matter of fact yes, we’re in the middle of tracking, recording and mixing right now. We are working with the same engineer [Justin Phelps at Closer Recording, San Francisco]. We’re using basically the same process as we did on our first record..

Robin Coomer: Only we’re smarter!.. (laughter)..

Sam Bass: It’s gonna be a different sounding album but I think a good album and we’re looking forward to finishing up and printing.

Xtreme Music: How do you feel it will be different from your debut album “Conversations With Water”?

Sam Bass: How do we feel it’s different?.. A little more attention is payed to a variety of song structures. Not necessarily on the same loop for the entire song. Breaking it up, giving things a verse, chorus, bridge feel. More like a classic song writing effort.

Robin Coomer: We have also become so much more in-tune with the technology that we’ve been using. Because we’re kinda using this technology that was mainly intended for what we’re doing with it. So we’ve had to almost trick it into doing what we want it to do.So it’s been really interesting just getting better at what we’re doing. I think that’s the main thing.. you start thinking about how you want things to feel a little bit more when you finally get your brain around what your process is, and you can make betterdecisions.

Xtreme Music: What’s gonna be happening in the near future for Loop!Station? Do you have any gigs lined-up?

Sam Bass: We’re playing gigs in San Francisco and we’ll be heading down to L.A. to have little mini-excursions out of town.

Robin Coomer: We’ll hopefully be in New York in September.. that’s the new word on the street.

Sam Bass: Play as many gigs as we can, try and get some recognition and have a good time..

Robin Coomer: And then eventually conquer the universe!.. (laughter).

Xtreme Music: With the live performances you’re doing, is there a cult following that you’ve noticed start to accumulate around Loop!Station?

Sam Bass: I think we’re both a little surprised with both of our other bands that we play in are loud and attentive. Whereas Loop!Station is not really loud and attentive..

Robin Coomer: We’re just sneaky about it.. (laughter).

Sam Bass: I feel like we we’re both kinda surprised, like “Wow! We’re finally in a band that people like!” (laughs).. Audience response has been good and people have been coming back. We’ve had some great opportunities like The Fire Garden, good shows..

Xtreme Music: Could you tell us a little bit about the side-projects and other bands that you’re involved with?

Robin Coomer: Well, I’ll tell you about Sam’s side-projects and Sam can tell you about mine..

Sam Bass: Let’s see, Robin is doing a lot of swing music right now. Like cabaret style swing with smaller bands, bass, drums, keys. It’s really good, she’s really good at that. Her kinda waiting band in the background, Birdsaw is a hard attentive rock band, sothat’s just a classic rock line-up, guitar, bass, and drums.. and she’s in Loop!Station which you’ve heard all about.

Robin Coomer: Sam here is in another project called Deadweight, which is a hard rockin’ trio. Just cello, electric violin, and drums.. Rockin’, very attentive and very, very loud. He’s also off on his numerous you-know moonlighting session with some pretty awesome people..

Sam Bass: There has been a lot of them, some of them I don’t even know about!.. (laughter)..

Xtreme Music: Fantastic! We’ll have a great time at the live performance tonight, I’m really anticipating seeing you both again.