Colin Stetson on Dog-Collar Mics, Training Regimens, and Telling Stories

This is a free post from Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter. Paid subscribers get one or two email-only Baker's Dozens every week featuring music I've been listening to and some critical observations around it.

Big fan of Colin Stetson's work, both on record and on the silver screen; his stirring score for The Menu livened up what was an otherwise relatively bland affair (and the way he soundtracked the film's literally fiery climax added a lot of welcome texture to the proceedings, too). I last interviewed him in 2018 around his incredible score for Ari Aster's don't-call-it-elevated-horror classic Hereditary, and we spoke earlier this summer in advance of his excellent new album The Love It Took To Leave You while he was kicking back (although, does this guy ever actually kick back?) at his Vermont home. Check it out:

You've lived in Vermont for 12 years now. Tell me about how it feels like home for you.
It was a transition that happened pretty quickly. I moved here right after hurricane Irene, and there was enormous flooding around the property. It's a very old house, so even though it wasn't in utter disrepair, there were things about it that hadn't been kept up for some time. So over the years I put in an enormous amount of hands-on work to transform everything outside and in. That relationship is something I haven't had with a place before this.

I talked to someone else for the newsletter recently about how Vermont is a good place to be isolated—to feel like you can disappear. Is that part of the allure for you?
Yeah, a more extreme solitude is something that I've always gravitated towards. It's how I was when I was very young. Throughout my twenties, I didn't have access to that because I was living in San Francisco, and then in New York—a never-ending schedule of hustling, running around, trying to make bits of money here and there, wherever it could be made. That keeps you pretty well tied into you social settings all day and night, every day. So getting back to this place certainly felt like a bit of a homecoming in that regard, because I was getting in touch with how and who I was when I was younger.

My natural state is to spend much much more time alone than the average person, and Vermont is one of the least populous places in our states in the country. There are only about 650,000 people in the entirety of the state, and it's very spread out.There's not a density of people except for a couple of the city centers. These days, even when I'm spending my time in Montreal, I spend an enormous amount of time by myself. I work by myself in my studios, which are in my houses up there and here. Even when I'm in the midst of more people, I keep a lot of hours—a lot of days—to myself. But I suppose, up here, it's a little bit more of an extreme, and I really like it as a counterweight to...I don't tour an enormous amount anymore, but especially as a counterweight to touring. It's really indispensable to be in a place where there's just quiet—and it's an energetic thing, too, to know that you're not just in this stack.

I remember when I'd live in apartment buildings in New York and San Francisco, you were always very acutely aware of the fact that, if you extrapolate 20 feet in any direction, there's just people. There's walls and ceilings separating you, but you're all just in this grid, which sometimes very much affects me. So I do enjoy it out here.

How long has it been since you had to do something other than music full-time to make a living?
20 years, probably—since I was around 30, that was my last shift.

Tell me about making the decision to be a musician full-time.
I mean, that's not even a thing. When I say I had odd jobs in the midst of being a musician, it was that you're in New York, and rent is absurd, so gigs are plentiful. But, still, it was a time of growth. I've known what it is that I do, and what I wanted to do, since I was in high school.

There was never a time when I questioned what it was—especially when you factor in practicing, because the vast majority of time spent working as a musician is not paid time. You're practicing, you're writing, you're rehearsing, and then you get the the paid time supplementally taking bartender shifts. But I wasn't a full-time bartender, I didn't have a day job full-time. That, very fortunately, was never my life. Since I graduated from college and moved out to San Francisco, I've always been able to just have my profession be what it is.

Tell me about this new album.
It's the sister album to All This I Do for Glory, which I put out in 2017. They were conceived of at the same time, and like everything that I do, it's all based in an ever-expanding mythology. Glory was telling a tragic story—a collapse and crumble to the whole of it. That was the "him," and this record is the "her." It gets at the notion of what can tear people apart—once something is torn, what can actually free them from their attachment? It's about the notion of solitude—of finding a confidence, a solace, and a safety in oneself and in the place one resides, the saving grace that ultimately allows you to become whole after being so intertwined with another. The flip side of it is that there's an aggressive, vengeful heat to the record. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it sinister, but it certainly has much more of a dark side than Glory did.

Tell me about the imagery of antlers across these two album covers.
Initially, the idea for the two records was that they're this prequel, this ancient parable, this story from long ago. During the time I was writing the trilogy—specifically, Judges, the second album in that trilogy, was about the notion of these horses that had no eyes. We're peering back into the lore in this world, and experimenting with that ended up in dealing with antlered, horned animals. Back in 2017, I conceived of the basic structure of both of these albums. The first was going to be this gleaming, white fusion of this multiplicity of skulls—a surrealistic landscape made of bone. With this record, we're getting into the forge, so the idea was to take the skull place it in a bed of very hot coals, stoke those coals, and photograph it there. And that's precisely what we ended up doing. So my friend Marielle Tepper and her brother Christophe Gilland did an amazing job sourcing a bunch of different skulls, and found the one we were all really vibing with, they photographed a skull slowly dissolving in hot coals and fire. It didn't take long for it to get completely decimated. A little bit of color treatment after the fact really brought out the magentas.

That's why Marielle is so brilliant—she not only did what it was that I originally had of conceived of, but she went further. When you glance at it, to me, maybe you're looking at a nebula somewhere far off in distant space, or a bed of flowers in bloom. It's this gorgeous image, and at its core is this bit of history that was once alive that's just getting subsumed by it. I was very happy to finally see the thing that I imagined in concept and then have it be brought to life in such a way so as to surprise me.

Let's talk a little more about artistic process. The press release for this record mentioned you wearing a dog collar-type device on your throat to record some of your vocal movements.
Going back as far as my first solo record, this was always the catch—how to record this music, which has only ever been me and the instrument physically. I did not want to change that and make it into something where, when I play a show, I'm just standing with the instrument alone—and then the album comes out and there's overdubs or effects, which so often can be the case. The original idea was to treat both mediums as separate and comprised of very distinct and different elements Live, you're visually there with people. You're breathing the same air, and they're physically feeling the sound. There's a lot that moves a listener in the context of a live show that's not at all part of the the experience of listening to a record.

I've never agreed that you can just get a better snapshot of a room's stereo image. I've heard brilliant live recordings, but I never wanted to try to reproduce the feeling of being in the room with me, because you're still missing much of what makes that really move. So how do we pick up all of the elements that are here? As soon as you put one microphone in front of a saxophone, you're playing favorites. I put a microphone in front of the bell, I'm getting more of that sound than I am of anything else. So I put a microphone down the bell, I put a microphone in front of the bell, I put microphones to the sides, over my hands. That's how I started, and then I started putting microphones on the instrument itself so I could capture the percussion that's evident in the instrument's sound. Then I put one on my throat, so that I can really isolate the sound of my singing when I'm singing through the instrument.

It's about capturing all of these elements in such a way that they're as isolated as possible from one another. Then, when I mix the record, all those elements are there in real time. There's no effects, beyond reverb creating this surrealistic space in which all of the elements inhabit. That's something I've developed over the years, and it's evolved with the playing. As I'm able to do more with the instruments physically and musically, I'm also able to do more in terms of capturing the sounds and conceiving of new ways to present them in my throat.

What are some recording attempts over the years that have failed for you?
I don't know if there's anything that you swing for that just doesn't work. There might be things where I have a notion about what a certain microphone is going to do, where I'm thinking I'm going to catch something by putting it at the other end of the room—and I end up catching something, but it's not exactly what I thought I was catching.

This last recording was quite a swing, because it was the first time that I recorded in a space this big. In the past, I've recorded in studio environments. The video of me playing the first single is actually from the recording. We recorded in this enormous warehouse space in Montreal called the Darling Foundry. We ran cabling throughout the entirety of the space and had microphones not only how I normally would do it, but throughout the whole of the space. For example, my voice was being amplified in one of the side halls, so that room was fully mic'd up and picking up the sound of this four-second reverb and natural decay in there.

It was something that I'd been talking about with my with my sound engineer who I've been working with on the road for the last 10 years, Jonas Verwijnen—this idea of taking the size of the kinds of rooms that I get to play, and simultaneously filming the whole thing with a light and video production that was all being triggered by my old friend Derrick Belcham. He made these visuals that we triggered by all of my microphones, so all of the video and lights are being controlled by me and the music.

Let's talk about the physical aspect of what you do. Every time I listen to your music, I'm like, "Man, this guy must have to really train hard just to do this." What's your regimen?
The upside of the amount of work that it takes just to maintain and get myself to a place where where I'm in tour shape is that it's great for one's health. But, yes, it's a lot. I was just in Greece for a week—nine or ten days—and that's usually about as long as I'll go without playing. When I get back from that, it's a—I wouldn't say an ordeal, but a process to even just get back to where I was before.

A little goes a long way when you're talking about atrophy and keeping up with certain things, like circular breathing for a half an hour. People have asked me, "How long can you do?" I've never tested, but I do know that there are certain things that are harder to do while I'm circular breathing, like playing as loud as possible—throwing in all of the air that it would take to hit max volume on bass saxophone. For one of the songs on the record, there was a take that was ultimately too long, but I think I played it for 34 minutes. So there's a very big difference between being in that shape and being in the shape that I'm in if I've taken nine days off.

All that said, what do I do every morning—regardless of whether I'm touring or anything—is a series of yoga breathing exercises, which expand lung my lungs, stretch out my rib cage, and strengthen my diaphragm. It's also part of a bigger meditation practice. After that, I'll do some stretching and and a calisthenic thing—not a full-blown workout, but just an everyday thing to get things centered. Then I practice warm-ups for about 30 minutes—long tones, scales, arpeggios, rhythmic circular breathing exercises—just to turn everything on. That's the upkeep, and then there's actual dedicated practice, which is comprised of anything from playing the the entire set of a tour I'm getting ready for to exploring and writing other things for the future.

The rest of the physical stuff is more generic. I do yoga, but not as much as I used to—probably three times a week. I'm doing more weight training these days, three or four times a week, and I run. In the summer, I swim a fair amount as well.

How do you feel like your physicality has changed as you've gotten older? Do you feel like you've gotten stronger? Has there been certain difficulties that you've encountered?
I used to be one of those kids where there wasn't a whole lot of exercise going on beyond playing the horn in my 20s. I thought that I didn't need to do anything else. I was in decent shape. At no point in that period of time was I getting any strong wake-up calls or warning signals saying, "You better straighten out." In my 30s, I started doing a lot of yoga and running again. Those things, the horn, and the breathing kept me where I needed to be.

In my 40s, what I've appreciated adding weight training more to the mix. I feel in better shape now than I've ever been, except for maybe when I was 15 on the wrestling team. But I feel in better shape now than ever because of the amount of time and effort that I dedicate to doing that—because, over the years, you understand the rewards, the payoffs. There's no downside to it. The only thing I've noticed at this stage in my life is that I'm hitting things a lot harder now than when I was younger. I have to make sure that I'm methodical, and that I don't get carried away on things, because injuries are much more accessible these days than they were when my body was more rubber.

The last time we talked, it was around your score work for Hereditary, which was a bit of a spike in visibility when it comes to your score work. But you've been scoring films since Blue Caprice, which I also really enjoyed. Let's talk about the evolution of your score work in general.
It's been 12 years since working on that one and I'm much more proficient in every way. Most of the things pre-Hereditary that I was asked to do were people coming to me saying, "I love your solo music. Have you ever done any score work?" [Blue Caprice director Alexandre Moors] was the first one to come to me with that ask, and it was already something that I'd wanted to do, but not something that I had time to pursue. I thought, "Okay, I'm not going to try to stretch an indie budget and go into a studio, spending all my time trying to convince some engineer what I want things to sound like." I wanted to record and mix myself—to make the music on my own.

Sarah Neufeld was playing an awful lot on that score, but it was me in my studio recording and mixing everything. And it went beautifully. It was a wonderful first film, because there was so much to sink your teeth into thematically. I did the same process for Hereditary, and it was the same for The Menu—and Hereditary was the first I'd done where I didn't record anyone else. It was a foray into deep solitude. I was out here in Vermont by myself exclusively, with everything done to picture. Hereditary was a real milestone for me in reaching a level of proficiency and a better understanding of how I was working.

Let's talk more about collaborating with people versus working in solitude. You've worked and played with a lot of people over the years, at this point.
If I'm making a solo record, I'm conceiving everything. If I'm doing a film score, it's very much the same, except for the narrative, which I just try to inhabit. With collaborating, I can't simply go and say, "Nope, this is the music," so I try to pick my collaborators very carefully. With film scores, it usually hinges on the story. You read a script and have a meeting, and from there you know how it feels to hear them talk about what they want to make. It's the same thing working with musicians. I have worked with a ton of people over the years, but there's been very little where it's been sight-unseen—collaborations with people that I don't really know. Most of it comes very organically. These relationships have been close—not just musically speaking, but personally as well.

It's not something that I knew straight away, but the biggest thing I've been able to gather from working with so many people is that everyone has a very very distinct vocabulary when it comes to describing how they see the world—and that is unfortunately not just the case in music, but in the context of every interaction that we have. Now, we have language where we can convey meaning and describe realities back and forth to one another—but the language is quite clumsy and brute. I always try, in those early conversations, to talk about everything around every angle—to try to get a very strong definition of, when this person says this, what do those words mean in reality? It front-loads things conversationally quite a bit in the beginning, but you get to a place where the people that you're working with really know what it is that you plan to do. You both have a sense of trust, and starting from that place is pretty freeing.

When I get notes from studios and directors, it varies from project to project. I've had projects like Hereditary, where there's very little tweaked in the score. A lot of composers go into this work—I certainly went into it this way too—thinking after they get a note to change a piece of music, "I totally disagree with this note," but after I address the note, I realize that they thought it needed something, and now it has it. And now that I know more, I'm better at what it is that I'm gonna do, because I'm not going to miss that again.

The same thing goes for playing on somebody's song. If they say, "We want you to do something here," I'll listen to it a bunch of times and and think, "OK, what's missing?" It's not about just doing my thing on top of this because you asked me to. I like to be very surgical with everything. I tend to call everything "stories" because, on some basic level, all of this is storytelling. What's the story you need in order for it to carry from us to them—from inside our skulls into someone else's? It's very important to love one's work, and to be enamored with the brush strokes in the stories we tell ourselves. But whatever medium you're working in, you can't flip your ego all the way to the edge, because you'll never learn.