“Ill make it up to you, I swear,” is the latest release from Louisville based ambient project Droneroom. We caught up with Blake Coney, the force behind Droneroom, to chat songwriting, collaboration, and bringing it all together.
DE: Tell us a little bit about Droneroom. How did the project form?
Droneroom: Droneroom started in 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee, where I was living at the time, as a live concept mostly due having a show booked with my old 2 piece doom metal band, Brother Ares, and my drummer was unable to play. I had, maybe 3 skeletal pieces of flowing riffs that I performed. I felt bolstered by this performance and started doing more.
The project slowly transitioned to a combination of skeletal arpeggios and much heavier improvised noisy territory, to mixed results, until I acquired some primitive looping capability which essentially led to where I am now. I still mostly performed in bands, but having a project I could do on my own in a pinch for a show was always handy to have, especially when I moved to Louisville 3 years ago essentially knowing no one. I found I could start playing shows on my own and meeting people to play shows with/perform music with. At this point, I’d say just from sheer amount of live performing I do, that I’m more known as a solo performer than a person in a band, which was never my intent, but so it goes…
DE: You just released an album “I’ll Make it up to you, I swear.’ Can you tell us a bit about the writing and recording process on this album?
Droneroom: I started working on the material for “I’ll make it up to you, I swear…” dovetailing off of the material for my prior album “Jesus Year”…the material for “Jesus Year” was lumped together to due a chronological theme of the timeframe things were written (me turning 33), and the next set of pieces for this record are what came after. At least 2 of the pieces were being regularly performed live before I had even recorded ‘Jesus Year,’ as that album was recorded much later than I ever intended it to be (nearly 2 years after it was written and mentally organized together). I have a really bad habit of getting too far ahead of myself writing wise but then really slow to record. I’ve been trying to not do that as hard (I say this and I have 2 new ones already written and a name for the next album in my head). But essentially, I had gotten together enough material that I felt comfortable releasing at one time (I feel like, for the type of music i do/how the pieces work compositionally, 5 pieces is really more than enough for the listener. I can’t imagine trying to make someone sit through like 10 songs of what I do…haha…) I had gotten an offer from Somewhere Cold Records to release it, and then reached out to Sam Scholten of Bon Air who recorded and mixed “Jesus Year” at his Fontaine Studios in Louisville who was game to do it again.
Really, I can’t say enough about how great Sam is. He captures my guitar tones and mixes the various loops together in a way that makes the pieces really breathe in ways I don’t expect and am left floored when I hear the end results. And on this record, I had the honor of being joined by Rachel Thode of Slow Glows, Sharp Toys, and Planet Blip on drums on two pieces. I didn’t really try to give her much direction, allowing her own creativity to interpret the song how she felt and I was blown away by what she did and how having drums changed the feel of the pieces. And then Cory Fusting comes in and tops it all off with his cover art! I’m a very lucky guy to have a cast of collaborators.
DE: How do you approach song writing? Do you being with a theme or a riff? Do you have a preferred ‘writing’ instrument?
Droneroom: Essentially I’ll just sit around with a guitar, start noodling without much purpose. Sometimes I’ll write while watching a movie and try to invoke what i’m seeing on the screen into the guitar. And if I find an interesting starting point, i’ll run it through the looper and see how many things I can add to it. If I can find close to 10 different ideas onto it and if the journey felt interesting on the whole, I will try to go back and see how much I retain. I’ll repeat it a 3rd or 4th time, then try to play it live. If I find myself able to retain it well enough over time, it sticks around. Actually doing this allows for spots where I will misremember or play something new when on the spot in a live setting and this allows for a nice bit of ‘by the seat of my pants’ creativity in the early stages of performance. I also keep this feeling in play due to the fact that I will compose a piece without using any effect pedals, leaving figuring those out to the live performances.
DE: Does being a solo artist present any challenges? Any benefits?
Droneroom: Challenges are, I guess not having someone to make music with in that scenario. having someone to bounce ideas off of, engage in the creative conversation is really fun and a way to really get to know someone. But as I said in the talk of the album, I do lean hard on my collaborators even in the recording/mixing/guest territory. As a person that doesn’t mix/record/make visual art, I love seeing what I do get filtered through someone else’s eyes and ears. So I never feel like i’m truly alone in the creative process.
Benefits- The ease of scheduling practice/show coordination (I only have to make sure I’m available)…plus I just have to split the pay out between myself and myself. Also I don’t have to go through the sometimes frustrating moment when I think I have a fantastic idea only to have it vetoed by someone else in a band.
DE: Do your songs evolve organically/is it ever difficult to find the structure or movement within an idea?
Droneroom: I usually compare my creative process (where making music, writing record reviews, etc) to the idea of throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. And Droneroom is essentially that concept to the maximum.
DE: In my own writing, I sometimes have a hard time knowing when a song is ‘done’. Any advice for feeling like this? How do you decide when a thought is full articulated and a song is finished?
Droneroom: I struggle with this in other projects more so. Doing the music of Droneroom is me going overboard with not knowing when something is done. A Droneroom piece is done when I run out of ideas. for better or worse (probably worse)
DE: What are your future plans and when can we catch Droneroom next?
Droneroom: Plans for the future include- a performance at the ‘Fuck that Guy Fest’ at Magbar, a charity event that benefits The Center for Women and Families on November 29th, a performance at Sant Cat’s on December 3rd with Tender Mercy and Joseph Allred (a dear dear old friend of mine and seriously one of the greatest musicians I’ve had the honour of knowing personally), then a Somewhere Cold Showcase at Magbar on the 6th, a show at Lola’s Coffee in Cincinatti on Dec 20th, then Blind Bob’s in Dayton on dec 21st withTender Mercy, Pete Fosco, and Nick Kizirnis.
In addition to playing as Droneroom, I’m playing 2nd guitar in Cheapo and we are playing quite a few shows to close out the year. I am also playing drums in Syldra.
Other plans include trying to find 2-3 more pieces to form the next album, potentially some extended collaborations, and who knows what else. I always make goals at the beginning of a new year for what will happen. I typically don’t actually meet them, but I’m usually beyond happy at the way the year went in a different direction than I could’ve expected or anticipated, which is al part of the fun, right?
Catch Droneroom at FUCK THAT GUY FEST November 29th at Magbar. The event is a benefit for The Center for Women and Families.
