Boy Eats Drum Machine has shed some weight recently. Since January, band founder Jon Ragel has been operating both the recorded and live versions of Boy Eats Drum Machine by himself, reshaping the band’s music from glitchy rock experiments into glitchy dance-pop explosions. Already three albums into BEDM’s career, this seems a radical departure for Ragel, but really it’s a refocusing of the hyperactive energy that has gained the band such notoriety in Portland-and has poised Ragel on the edge of becoming a major West Coast presence. The Vanguard recently talked with Ragel about his writing process, his upcoming album and what it means to straddle the line between “rocker” and “DJ.”
Boy Eats Drum Machine
Boy Eats Drum Machine has shed some weight recently.
Since January, band founder Jon Ragel has been operating both the recorded and live versions of Boy Eats Drum Machine by himself, reshaping the band’s music from glitchy rock experiments into glitchy dance-pop explosions. Already three albums into BEDM’s career, this seems a radical departure for Ragel, but really it’s a refocusing of the hyperactive energy that has gained the band such notoriety in Portland-and has poised Ragel on the edge of becoming a major West Coast presence.
The Vanguard recently talked with Ragel about his writing process, his upcoming album and what it means to straddle the line between “rocker” and “DJ.”
So, what can you tell me about your upcoming album?It’s pretty much done, and I have three weeks basically to have it completely finished. So, yeah, it’s kind of at a cool spot where I feel like I have enough time to get it right and then there’s enough of a deadline to kind of keep me motivated.
The album’s called BooomBoxxx…. It’s kind of crunk. A little more pleasure I guess, a little more DJ oriented. All the beats are basically taken off of vinyl break records called Bridgetown Breaks Volumes One and Two, and I do a little more tweaking of them. Like, the bass drum will come in, and there will be a couple more hits on it from the turntable so it sounds a little more DJ oriented than even [previous album] Pleasure did.
Why did you decide to move the group from three members to just yourself?It’s a combination of artistic reasons, which are kind of related more to being a DJ act and focusing on the turntable aspects of the material as opposed to doing more on experimental rock. I felt that the last album [Two Ghosts], I really enjoyed it, but it was just a direction I didn’t really want to go anymore. And then on top of that, we weren’t able to tour in the fall and we weren’t able to tour in the spring, so I really felt that instead of trying to force it, it would be better to be by myself…. It’s kind of the difference between a van and trying to pay several people’s bills and maybe like a small hybrid car on tour and just trying to pay one person’s bills.
It sounds like your songwriting process has always been kind of solitary. Is that correct?Well, for Boy Eats Drum Machine, that’s always been my commitment. I’ve been in a lot of different songwriting situations, and I really do enjoy group process, and I really do enjoy collaboration, but I think that the reason I started Boy Eats Drum Machine was to get away from that and away from a rock band and more towards the situation where I’m at…. I think with Boy Eats Drum Machine and the idea of having beat-oriented pop and having the turntable stuff in there, I think it’s way easier for me to do it by myself. But if I was going to do a rock album or something, I think it would be really fun to work with another band or with another group of people.
Any such collaborations on the horizon?I was in the Menomena choir and that was really fun, and next week I’ll be playing saxophone on a couple Blue Skies For Black Hearts songs. They’re doing their CD release party, so they’re going to have a horn section and they’re going to have a string section on some things. And that’s fun, too. So if I could have kind of the best of both worlds by way of these projects and special things, that would be great because I really like the camaraderie.
Your manager is listed as [ex-Gang of Four bassist] Dave Allen on your Web site. I was wondering if that’s still the case?I’ve known Dave for a couple years, and he’s kind of the “big-picture” person for me. He kind of keeps me from getting too discouraged by the industry because the industry is so vast. He’s talked to a couple labels for me in the past, so I don’t have to feel like I need to be something that I’m not, and I’m not really an industry-savvy person. My relationship with him has been really good because there’s been times when I’ve really liked an idea, but he’s given me the long-term perspective of someone who’s been there.
Are there certain instruments that you always try to have live versus sampled sounds?I really try and look at that from the audience’s perspective and also try and balance that with what’s going to be fun for me to do. I think if I added a couple more instruments, it would be pretty frantic and I don’t think I would enjoy it as much. It might be distracting from the music. Hopefully people are cool with the fact that I sample my guitars, for instance. So while I’ve written and played those parts, when they’re coming through the speakers, they’re coming from a sampler.
To be honest, I really don’t think people mind that as much. I went to a Justice show recently, and they don’t even play, I mean, unless you think of a CD deck as an instrument. But they’re not even playing instruments, and everybody was having a great time.
