Musicians on Making Music: Going Deep with 15 Questions

Read excerpts from interviews with Jeff Mills, Jessica Ackerley, Jesse Saunders, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Stefan Betke.

This is a love letter to documentarians who put in the hours, to writers and editors who commit to storytelling, to musicians eager to share thoughts on the wonder that is organized sound. They’re creating a paper trail that future music freaks will seek out when digging for buried treasures. Record reviews are ephemeral, as are opinion-based essays that provide little real information on context and the creative process. But artists speaking on their own experiences is something altogether more valuable.

For the past dozen years, the site 15 Questions has been posing — you guessed it — fifteen questions to musicians on process, theory, playing, and everything else related to the art and craft of music. It was founded by German writer-editor Tobias Fischer, who originally developed the idea for the website tokafi.com. Between 2005 and 2012, he conducted nearly 400 artist interviews for the series. He then took the concept to his own site, in the process adding in conversations with journalists, PR managers and sound engineers. Fifteen Questions is now overseen by editor-in-chief Lara Cory.

As they note on the site’s bio page, “By talking to some of the leading artists of our time about their perspectives, processes and approaches, we aim at building an extensive archive documenting one of music’s most turbulent and exciting eras.”

Here’s a quick sampling of artists the site has featured: Moritz von Oswald, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Rich, Matmos, Dan Curtin, Manuel Göttsching, Jessica Moss, Cabaret Voltaire, Sarah Davachi, Richie Hawtin, Loren Connors, Mark Nelson (Pan American), Uwe Schmidt (AtomTM), Buzz Osborne (Melvins), Merzbow, Sasu Ripatti (Luomo), Matana Roberts, David Toop, Toshimaru Nakamura, and hundreds more.

We’ve long preached that sites like Fifteen Questions are better at music discovery than most DSPs, particularly for those interested in esoteric, non-commercial music. The site draws on the expertise of musicians themselves, who share insights into their creative processes, giving listeners a deeper understanding of the art behind the music. Unlike DSP algorithms, which often serve up predictable results, Fifteen Questions is curated by people who are obsessed, making each new discovery feel more intentional.

This excerpt from the site’s “about” page is worth republishing:

All of the interviews on Fifteen Questions are in the familiar questionnaire-format. And yet, over the course of ten years, they have significantly evolved and still continue to change. We’re not interested in the private lives of artists or their latest releases. Instead, we involve production experts, performers, journalists, scientists and composers to discuss what music means, how it’s made, where its limits lie, and why it affects us all so differently and yet remains universal.

Here are highlights from five conversations with smart people, but you could toss a dart blindfolded at the list of interviews and hit something fascinating.

Guitarist Jessica Ackerley on scenes and genres

Fifteen Questions: What were your main creative challenges in the beginning and how have they changed over time?

When I was a young musician, I dreamed of being a straight-ahead jazz player, the barriers I met going down that path with sexism and misogyny deterred me by the time I reached my mid-twenties. It nudged me in a direction towards other music styles and seek out different communities that felt more inclusive.

Over time though, I found myself compromising what I wanted to play in order to fit into particular scenes and genres. Trying to be “liked” in certain circles. Which also made me unhappy and unsatisfied, because I was always compromising and overextending myself.

As I get older and more settled in my artistic practice, I found that it is best to create what I want to create, draw from whatever genre or style I feel like, and not really try to adjust what I want do just to fit in with certain groups. It helped me cultivated musical relationships with other musicians who also don’t really fit in any specific boxes. I feel lucky to be at a stage where I am working with these artists. It made everything worth it in the end to reach the point I am at in this moment. (Read the full interview.)

Jeff Mills on his score for Metropolis

15 Questions: Metropolis is almost 100 years old. So, the means of making your soundtrack to the movie are far more advanced than the means of making the images – your music to this film is literally from the future. To me, this raises some intriguing questions: Firstly, how does this shift the balance both between the image and the sound?

Actually, this soundtrack was being approached with the idea that one might listen to it 100 years from now, thus watching a 200 year old film. 

I tried to image a person in the future that might have been through some of the life altering changes and issues that we and people experienced in the last century (1900). A time when this genre of Electronic Music would be perceived as an artform when people still used to physically plug in electronics. Or, machines that had to be programmed in order to make them operate. I thought about this person, living in a time surrounded by things we’ve only dreamed of, but that still recognizes the social and economic disparities. 

As for how the sound related to the visual images, it really depended on what the scene was about. The feelings of the characters. Not necessarily their physical movements. 

For instance, in the Maria to Robot laboratory scene, I decided to create a soundtrack that reflected what might have been going through the mind of Maria, being altered to be the mind of the Robot. (Read the full interview.)

Stefan Betke (Pole) on spatial imaging

Fifteen Questions: With electronic music, you don’t normally have this spatial distribution, as you would with a rock production, classical music or jazz, for example.

I actually pay a lot of attention to this in my productions. The last Pole album, Fading, already had an extremely large and wide stereo image and the instruments were nicely distributed. This has now become even more pronounced on the new album Tempus. But that’s also partly due to the fact that I now simply have a better space here in the studio. I have the small production studio alongside my master’s programme, and a lot has happened in terms of sound compared to my old production studio. 

I’m very happy that I can now position things a little more pronouncedly in the mix. You can almost walk through the music in a way. You always have the feeling that it’s constantly around you and never just comes flying at you from one dimension. (Read the full interview.)

Toshimaru Nakamura on improvisation

Fifteen Questions: What do improvisation and composition mean to you and what, to you, are their respective merits?

When it comes to the decision when you produce your sound in the music, there is no difference between improvising and playing compositions. You have to make the right sound at the right moment. But those two things are different in approaches toward the creation of music. When you compose a piece of music, you create a system before you and other performers (if there are any) play your music. I would like to avoid that sort of situation. I still have a naive fantasy in improvisation that there is more freedom than in playing compositions, and even more freedom than in actual life. I would like to be as free from any system and structure as possible. I know freedom is just a fantasy, and it is not really the thing you should seek for in music making. But still, I would stay away from compositions. (Read the full interview.)

Jesse Saunders on his first studio

Fifteen Questions: What was your first studio like? How and for what reasons has your set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear for you?

The first studio I recorded in was Solid Sound in Hoffman Estates, just outside of Chicago. A friend of mine, Kevin Richards, was doing his final for his sound engineering class. He invited me to a free session to record “Fantasy” to complete his final exam.

I found a local band, then spent months rehearsing them for the big recording session. They had just won a talent show and I thought they were my best option for learning and playing my song. Learning the musical parts, bass, guitar, keyboards and vocals went well. But when we finally got to the studio to record, nothing was as I expected. The drummer couldn’t keep time, because he was so excited and it through everyone else off! After that session, I decided to find a drum machine.

I went back to the drawing board and rethought my production of “Fantasy”. I first bought a Synsonics drum machine made by Mattel. I saw it on a TV commercial and the light bulb went off in my head. I then graduated to a Roland TR-606, then added the TB-303 (bassline). These 2 synchronized together to form a rhythm section. It was the first time that I didnt have to play the bass on my piano. I now could play the most important parts of the song by myself! This was a major improvement in songwriting for the times. The next time I recorded “Fantasy” went much smoother and it is the classic that you hear today!

With the advent of midi the game changed dramatically. Synthesizers and synth modules that could be controlled by midi sequencers made recording less expensive and faster. I to this day have racks of these that I still use. The advent of software like Ableton and Logic have taken that to new heights. But I will always be a hands on writer and producer. You cannot capture the feeling that comes from the soul with a digital source. You have to actually play and not quantize to get that ‘human’ feel. It’s the difference between limitation and being limitless. (Read full interview.)