Based around the decaying Coast of Cornwall, UK, Darren Himself’s music vaguely falls into such pigeon holes as post-punk, dark wave, gothic shoegaze, new wave, shoe wave, new shoes and other made up genres. People hear what they hear and that’s fine.
I caught up with Darren to talk about his early musical experiences, how he started playing music and the making of his new album “Soup Du Jour”.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artists and bands did you all enjoy the most?
Darren-As a very young kid I was surrounded by a lot of old music, like The Beach Boys, but the first band I really got into as a child was Adam & The Ants, then Prince, Gary Numan, and Talking Heads. Hearing Wendy Melvoin’s guitar intro to Purple Rain for the first time was the moment I realized I wanted to play guitar. Also seeing a Billy Joel concert on TV when I was about 7 made me want to play piano. Quite a mix really, but then I found Pixies, Wedding Present, Killing Joke, The Cure, Siouxsie, Chameleons, My Bloody Valentine, Cardiacs, Sonic Youth, Lloyd Cole, Throwing Muses etc etc etc. I was always into older stuff than I should have been.
CMM-How did you start playing music and developing your own sound?
Darren-To start with I learned organ. It’s actually a great foundation in learning to work with separate bass, chord/ arpeggio and melody parts. Then I briefly learned bass at school, and they loaned me the instrument. It was a nightmare to take on the bus – a double whammy of mockery and physical torture. Soon I realized I could transfer those skills to the lower 4 strings of guitar and started teaching myself that instead. Violin came much later, but I’d still retained basic bow ‘skills’ from double bass.
For a long time I couldn’t afford any decent guitar effects pedals, so I was stuck with very much a punk sound with a tiny amp pushed to its limit. Luckily I liked punk. Then certain substances led me more towards psychedelia – the weirder the better – and I found like minded musicians who actually did have trippy effects, and we played all over the UK and Europe in a blur, to crowds of people out of their minds.
Then for a while I convinced myself I should full acoustic so that I could do sensible grown up solo gigs, but eventually came back round my post-punk type roots, only with better gear and the technology to finally make the sounds I’d always heard in my head.
Many of those sounds came from me having temporal lobe epilepsy, where absences would start with me ‘hearing’ this strange music, with certain synthy sounds I’ve since been trying to recreate, sometimes successfully. I’d never remember actual melodies or chord structures afterwards. It’s like having your brain flooded with every memory of every dream you’ve ever had. It’s a horrible feeling, but it’s at least given me some inspiration. Silver linings and all that. Generally. It’s taken a while, but I’ve generally landed on the sound I’ve always wanted.
CMM-You just released a new album called “Soup Du Jour”. What was the writing and recording process like and were there any particular pieces of gear you used to get the sound you were looking for?
Darren-A lot of Soup Du Jour was written while it was recorded – the beauty of doing it at home instead of limited studio time is spending hours playing with synth or guitar sounds and letting a song form itself almost.
Sometimes it’ll start by experimenting with building drum machine parts, then laying down a dominant bass line over that, with. No preconception of the rest of it, then writing the rest over that (Under The Everything for example). Sometimes I’ll just be playing with guitar effects and something starts to happen.
Then there’s those ones that I wake up with in my head, or dream about, and have to quickly get up and roughly record (eg End Of The Garden and As An Aside).The thing that took the most time with the album was the post production and mastering (also the least fun part). I kept second guessing everything, or going out with headphones and hating the overall way it sounded. It’s a horrible part of it, and not mentally healthy. Through procrastination I’ve written and mostly recorded two further albums worth of songs, so the next one should come out fairly soon. At least it was productive procrastination. I’m already playing live some of the songs from the next album.
Gear wise… I like to use physical synths and effects. I’ve done a lot with analogue synths like the nicely affordable Behringer Neutron, and also the Yamaha Reface CS (a compact version of the old CS80). Synths like that don’t have presets, so you’re forced to come up with something new every time, while being fairly intuitive and fun. I also often use an Alesis SR16 drum machine – I like its big punchy sounding snares that can cut through a sea of synths and ambient guitars, and it’s great live. My ever-evolving guitar pedal board has to have at least 3 ambient reverbs (currently a Walrus Fathom, Neunaber Immerse, Boss RV6, Strymon Cloudburst, and an EHX Oceans 11 shimmer). I use a Boss BD2 and SD1 overdrive and the combination of those is as heavy as I need to get. Chorus and flange are also really important to me (currently a Boss CE2w, a Walrus Julia, and a Boss BF2). I also use a Walrus ARP-87 delay.
I sometimes like to record subtle violin parts, but with effects and blended in, to the point where you wouldn’t know it’s a violin. My bass parts are generally a straight bass guitar, always with a pick for a hard attack to cut through. Now and then I’ll put some bass chorus on it, while trying not to sound too much like Peter Hook. I guess if it sounds good it sounds good.
When playing live I use layers of the EHX String9 and Boss SY1, to make up for the lack of actual synths/ extra arms. I also use an EHX Bass9 set to only react to the lower strings and provide a nice bit of bass backing, but only when I’m not playing with a band of humans.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Darren-Probably my all-time favorite director I’d love to score for would be David Lynch. Unfortunately he’s no longer with us, so even less likely than before. I’d like to score for something a bit different, like Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives). Not full on horror, but something a bit surreal and off-beat. I’d probably rather work for new directors who haven’t been worn down by the industry. I’ve actually done some orchestral scoring for short nature documentaries (which were really adverts for a cruise company). It was interesting to try that kind of approach, even though I prefer working with synths etc.
I’ve recently started to play the current stuff live in a semi-acoustic way. I wasn’t sure if those songs would translate, but by using layered effects, bass pedal, and some percussion (either drum machine or a bass drum pedal) it works quite well. It’s actually quite nice to make the live versions a bit different to the recorded songs and a reason to see it live.
I’m avoiding the temptation to use backing tracks. I don’t use a looper pedal either as I like riffs to vary, and to be able to improvise. I’ve nothing against loopers of course – they work for some people and they’re a skill in itself, needing good timing skills. I’ve used them in the past so that I could layer a bit of violin over the top. Maybe I will again at some point – I’m always open to evolving. I may well play this stuff live with some humans again at some point, but I’m an unapologetic control freak when it comes to my own music, even the visuals (I do my own artwork and videos, apart from the photography which is by Franko Silas Carr, and I’ve plans to work with an animator and a choreographer for future videos).
CMM-Anything coming up?
Darren-I play live regularly with a four piece covers band to pay the bills, so that’s kept me proficient and comfortable playing live, as well as pushing my guitar playing outside of the usual comfort zone. One thing that’s certain is a lot more stuff on the way. There’s a backlog of songs to put out, and I’m constantly writing/ recording more, so I’ll probably never catch up. I’ve no plans to stop until I’m 100% dead. Meanwhile I’ll keep going and see what happens next.
