Talking to Apples in stereo frontman Robert Schneider is something like sitting around the kitchen table with a few friends and a six-pack while knocking out the screenplay for a new episode of Seinfeld. With Schneider at the controls of this magic-bus ride, he pulls the topics he likes out of thin air like some deranged conjurer, instantly discards and modifies them, apologizes for going off the tracks, backs the engine up to the starting point, begins talking about something entirely different, then excuses himself to take brief notes on some future project while humming a melody that’s just popped into his head. He’s also one of a handful of great songwriters to emerge over the past 20 years, a psych/pop genius whose knack for addictive melodies and memorable lyrics is perfectly obvious on Travellers In Space And Time (Simian/Yep Roc). Schneider will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with him.
Schneider: Hearing the finished mix of a new song, with all the harmonies and musical details I dreamed of when I wrote the song fully fleshed out, gives me a feeling of joy and satisfaction that is hard to put into words. We traveled around a lot making the new Apples record between my friends’ and bandmates’ studios, so the harmonies and other overdubs were recorded in different cities, on different tape machines and computer programs. None of the songs had all of the instruments on a single multitrack recording until we assembled all the different sessions in the final mixdown. Hearing all of the arrangement ideas coming together at the end was an ecstatic experience; until then, I had only heard all the parts together in my imagination. It was also overwhelming, with many sounds and parts that I had forgotten about over time, laid down spontaneously with my friends. Usually I am racing to finish recording parts in the mixing stage, but in this case, we spent more time carving and whittling and polishing the far-out arrangements into manageable final mixes.
Video after the jump.
