Charlie Hunter Is Getting Ahead
The jazzy musician
known for his mastery of seven and eight-string guitars talks with
Pollstar about his new album, touring and everything in between.
A role model for DIY artists, Charlie Hunter is releasing his new album – Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead
– Oct. 2 on his own imprint label. His first album in three years,
Hunter recorded the tracks with only one other musician – drummer Scott
Amendola.
While talking with Pollstar, Hunter described a very minimalistic approach, not only in the recording of the new album, but in the tour supporting it: saying he and Amendola can set up and play a gig “in under 10 minutes.”
The new album – Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead – is pretty much a back-to-basics album, isn’t it? That is, no overdubs, no headphones, just you and Scott playing.
Playing right to tape. I’m calling it “almost mono” because all of the information, the rhythmic information, basically anything that’s not ambient, is mono. The only thing that’s stereo is just the room’s ambience. It’s kind of like the best of both worlds kind of vibe. You get the punch, the directness and fatness of mono but you get the openness of stereo without all of that, this instrument way over … and what happened to the time kind of vibe.
Because of the simplicity with you and Scott playing in the studio without any enhancements or overdubs, did you spend about the same amount of time recording it as it takes to listen to it?
It took us two days but you’ve got to understand a lot of the first day was just setting the stuff up and getting to the point where you just roll tape. That’s what we did. There was no EQ on it either. We just went straight to the tape with Dave McNair’s brilliant mixing on the fly. It was mixed while we played. I think most of the stuff there is first and second takes. We did a bunch of stuff the first day and listened to it the second day, then went back and did it again. Just two days of recording. We could have done it in one day if we had to but then you’d feel rushed from the get.
Since you were recording your guitar and Scott’s drums in the studio in mono, what exactly did you have to mix other than those two instruments?
A lot. Especially when we didn’t have to wear headphones, which is glorious. We spend most of our time playing live and we can regulate our own dynamics because that’s pretty much the entire name of our game— the interplay and dynamics. Basically, Dave was just having to find the relative level of all the microphones we had set up so he could capture our dynamics. There was a little bit of work.
How many mics did you use?
Not that many. I know there were probably two or three for me, two or three for Scott and maybe two for the room mics. Not that many at all.
Did the individual tracks begin as improvisations or did you go into each recording session knowing exactly what you were going to play?
It’s typical kind of whatever you want to call “jazz improvisations,” in terms of that I wrote these songs and they have very specific forms and the improvisation is done over those forms.
You have almost 20 albums to your credit. Do you have a wealth of recordings that hasn’t seen the light of day?
Not really. I usually try to get an idea and really work it. If it’s not working, I just leave it on the side of the road. There are a lot of things that probably didn’t ever get to the point. … Maybe there are certain motifs and things that will surface later on but generally those things are left on the side of the road.
While talking with Pollstar, Hunter described a very minimalistic approach, not only in the recording of the new album, but in the tour supporting it: saying he and Amendola can set up and play a gig “in under 10 minutes.”
The new album – Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead – is pretty much a back-to-basics album, isn’t it? That is, no overdubs, no headphones, just you and Scott playing.
Playing right to tape. I’m calling it “almost mono” because all of the information, the rhythmic information, basically anything that’s not ambient, is mono. The only thing that’s stereo is just the room’s ambience. It’s kind of like the best of both worlds kind of vibe. You get the punch, the directness and fatness of mono but you get the openness of stereo without all of that, this instrument way over … and what happened to the time kind of vibe.
Because of the simplicity with you and Scott playing in the studio without any enhancements or overdubs, did you spend about the same amount of time recording it as it takes to listen to it?
It took us two days but you’ve got to understand a lot of the first day was just setting the stuff up and getting to the point where you just roll tape. That’s what we did. There was no EQ on it either. We just went straight to the tape with Dave McNair’s brilliant mixing on the fly. It was mixed while we played. I think most of the stuff there is first and second takes. We did a bunch of stuff the first day and listened to it the second day, then went back and did it again. Just two days of recording. We could have done it in one day if we had to but then you’d feel rushed from the get.
Since you were recording your guitar and Scott’s drums in the studio in mono, what exactly did you have to mix other than those two instruments?
A lot. Especially when we didn’t have to wear headphones, which is glorious. We spend most of our time playing live and we can regulate our own dynamics because that’s pretty much the entire name of our game— the interplay and dynamics. Basically, Dave was just having to find the relative level of all the microphones we had set up so he could capture our dynamics. There was a little bit of work.
How many mics did you use?
Not that many. I know there were probably two or three for me, two or three for Scott and maybe two for the room mics. Not that many at all.
Did the individual tracks begin as improvisations or did you go into each recording session knowing exactly what you were going to play?
It’s typical kind of whatever you want to call “jazz improvisations,” in terms of that I wrote these songs and they have very specific forms and the improvisation is done over those forms.
You have almost 20 albums to your credit. Do you have a wealth of recordings that hasn’t seen the light of day?
Not really. I usually try to get an idea and really work it. If it’s not working, I just leave it on the side of the road. There are a lot of things that probably didn’t ever get to the point. … Maybe there are certain motifs and things that will surface later on but generally those things are left on the side of the road.
